Decolonizing
School opens in a few days so I thought I’d start a conversation on decolonization. Not the political variety as we are no longer a colony but what a native Canadian Indian writer, Bill Mussel, in his piece “Cultural Pathways for Decolonization,” describes as “a process where a colonized people reclaim their traditional culture, redefine themselves as a people and reassert their distinct identity.”
Our communal past’s indigenous culture was buried in a heap of foreign culture that the natives were conditioned to presume as superior. Thus, the bayanihan spirit, the cornerstone of our community life-coping mechanisms was replaced by rugged individualism. Our benevolent datus who took care of the community’s needs with the fruits of communally-owned tribal lands were replaced by cruel colonial masters who took over as absolute owners of those lands.
When the colonizers left we continued to cope with our social reality with this imposed culture. Our political, economic, and religious bosses act like colonial masters in their respective domains. They see themselves as God’s gift to Filipinos whom they patronizingly enjoin to rely on them to survive or progress. Un-decolonized as we are, we respond accordingly.
Spain erased our indigenous culture with religion and the US with universal education. Thus, not surprisingly it is among religious and educated Filipinos that the bayanihan spirit of our communal past is mostly lost. If we lost our indigenous culture through religion and education, it follows that we should reclaim it through the same cultural pathways.
Catholicism is not decolonizing us because it persists on teaching and preaching the same medieval Christianity the Spaniards used to bring us down on our knees. The majority religion continues to be an instrument of domination in the hands of political, business and religious leaders who are steeped in colonial beliefs and values.
Secular education seems to have fared better but not by much. Education today continues to spew out graduates who are hooked on the American (not Filipino) dream that mandates its attainment only through rugged individualism. The greed the colonizers modeled for us has made us shrug off indigenous community values, like the bayanihan spirit, with a shrug of “walay nadatu sa principio.”
Brigada eskwela is bayanihan all over again and is decolonizing. But we need more creative educational content and method to develop nationalism, self-reliance, and self-discipline among our youth. Education needs to find a way of teaching servant-leadership to replace the leadership of domination our current political, business and religious leaders are practicing and that is making life miserable for many.