Today is Jose Rizal's 150th birthday. This week - a week of patriotic fervor, began with the 113th "Independence Day" and now ends this week with Rizal's birthday. Interestingly, the celebration is juxtaposed with several events, events that expose the fact that while we are supposedly sovereign, our national elite has failed to actualize and protect this sovereignty - them begging for
United States protection (interestingly, when Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo declared
Philippine independence on June 12, 1898, it was "under the protection of the potent and humanitarian North American nation") amid helplessness on China's incursions on the West Philippine Sea. What can be more ironic than that?
In any case, Rizal's life and struggle has to be celebrated - but it should be celebrated with a critical mind and a nationalistic temperament. Rizal as a hero has to be deconstructed so we can extract the essence of his heroism and put it in the context of his time. For this purpose, I am posting an article (which we were asked to read in our History I class in
UP Manila) from the late historian
Renato Constantino on Jose Rizal, Veneration without Understanding (taken from this
site) - a brilliant excursion on the personality and historical place of our national hero. Enjoy reading!
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Veneration Without Understanding
by Renato Constantino
In the histories of many nations, the national revolution represents a peak of achievement to which the minds of man return time and again in reverence and for a renewal of faith in freedom. For the national revolution is invariably the one period in a nation's history when the people were most united, most involved, and most decisively active in the fight for freedom. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that almost always the leader of that revolution becomes the principal hero of his people. There is Washington for the United States, Lenin for the Soviet Union, Bolivar for Latin America, Sun Yat Sen, then
Mao Tse-Tung for China and Ho Chi Minh for Vietnam. The unity between the venerated mass action and the honored single individual enhances the influence of both.
In our case, our national hero was not the leader of our Revolution. In fact, he repudiated that Revolution. In no uncertain terms he placed himself against Bonifacio and those Filipinos who were fighting for the country's liberty. In fact, when he was arrested he was on his way to Cuba to use his med- [p. 125] ical skills in the service of Spain. And in the manifesto of December 15, 1896 which he addressed to the
Filipino people, he declared:
