Parallel worlds

IN a diner, you catch a glimpse of the tense fellow on Table 2 taking out from his breast pocket his home set of spoon and fork wrapped in Kleenex. Or lovebirds partaking on heart-winged tiramisu, while you mope over your mangled mango float. Point is, two meters away, parallel worlds exist, other realities shriek apart from your own.

In a writing assignment years ago, a fisherman told me he earned P120 per day, that was how much luck caught overnight. He showed me a handful of bills and coins, one haul for the day that he had to divvy up to three square meals for a family of six. Bet that jolts you out of your swivel chair. You're having this post-prandial reading while you're munching on your dessert add-on after a value meal of P120. Key phrase: value meal. If the contrast doesn't nip your senses, then I don't know what will.

Yes, other realities transpire vigorously out there. A poor man's world view changes when he imbibes images of erstwhile strange nuances via pirated Hollywood films. But that's another story.

Meanwhile, Mamasapano is a parallel world, too. Your sanitized senses chill at a video showing a downed soldier finally exterminated by men whose language is alien to you. A friend of mine, lettered in guerrilla warfare, said it's called cleaning up—you seize the arms of the fallen as part of a force build-up, you take fierce precaution that the fallen isn't a killing machine feigning death, so you have to make sure you finish the enemy off for peace of mind.

So the friend argues that there's a whole lot of difference between the Isis way of flaunting brute and liquidation of the Mamasapano variety.

The Mamasapano type is borne out of a whole meshwork called Philippine history, particularly the saga of the Muslim south. The juramentado, savage as it may look, is an act of desperation by a warrior pushed against the wall, outnumbered.

And, yet, from another parallel universe, you have a totally different opinion over a Samurai, riddled by precise archery, advancing against an army. That, because popular culture bombards you with Kenshin movies down to absolute fanhood.

The Muslim warrior is wired by the brutal facts of history, his bone is stuffed with the wrath and anxiety of the perennially marginalized: from Spanish occupation to Jabidah massacre to Erap's cinematic, lechonmunching all-out war, to the MoA/ Ad shutdown, you can name it, the Bangsamoro struggle is taking the word “frustration” for a synonym.

The overkill video uploader must have been clueless about his loss in the whole act. It throws the other parallel world (the clueless Christian North) to a fit of fury, to the times of heavy prejudice against the Muslims. Many are hurled back to primal hate, calling for an all-out war. It's a snakesand-ladder thing, and the video puts our foot into the reptile's fangs, right smack to square one of the meandering peace process.

But it's not too late to process all the narratives from the Mamasapano incident. It's an operation gone Snafu (situation normal all fouled up) or Tafubar (things are fouled up beyond all recognition), a simple case of missteps gone haywire and costly with the Fallen 44 at its feet. It's not as simple as how the keyboard warriors on social media would like us to believe. It's a game of sticks played between life and death.

And, yes, after a long silence, I'm writing my column again.