No regrets
No regrets
Posted 11:36pm (Mla time) Feb 24, 2005
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the February 25, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
EVERY year as the nation commemorates the 1986 Edsa Revolution, Filipinos used to the Lenten feeling of remorse and regret to strike their breast, say mea culpa, and declare that everything has gone for naught. There seems to be a wide predisposition to pronounce the revolution dead, its spirit wasted away in the dispiriting times, its message lost in the welter of negative messages spawned by a people so prone to negative thoughts, like the Edsa Shrine clouded and vanished under the smog of traffic and the din of commerce.
We should be reminded what Edsa was all about, and why keeping its memory alive is important. Edsa was about the proverbial fight against tyranny, the struggle between good and evil. We may have put it too much in metaphysical terms, but all of us who lived through the terrible years of the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship know that Edsa was nothing short of a holy war, a battle between light and darkness.
If Edsa is sometimes painted in terms of a miracle, it is not only because its victory was astounding. It was also a victory against all odds. It was something totally unexpected because it violated all natural laws of reason and human calculation. It was a preternatural event. If there are detractors of Edsa, it is those who protest its preternatural dimensions. The Marcos loyalists and many in the Left demean it as totally explicable, in the process blaming, for example, American interference and even CIA machination for the incident. These were the same people who had insisted that Marcos was invincible and irremovable exactly because of American sponsorship and support. When the outcome flew in their face, they had to insist that the Americans switched sides, in effect demeaning the people who went against Marcos' troops and tanks with nothing but a prayer and a hope that they would prevail with God's help.
There is, then, a dismissive attitude of democracy and the people among detractors of the Edsa Revolution. It is a dangerous attitude because it carries within it the seed of fascism; it is an orientation that has in fact spawned authoritarianism because it is contemptuous of the people's power to change things and decide for themselves. It is an anti-democratic attitude.
Edsa was a democratic revolution. It was a historic event because it reaffirmed the power and authority of the people to control and meet their destiny. If we hark back to the memory of Edsa, it is because we hark back to the singular moment of history in which we drew forth from the power of our solidarity and used that power to change things for the better.
For the better? But haven't things gone worse since then? In fact, many of our reservations about Edsa are really the result of the frustrations and disappointments we have felt since then. The revolution promised a lot, and it seems the promises have not been kept. We seem to have been left holding wretched stalks of disappointment.
But Edsa's validity and power derive precisely from its memory. We hold this memory dear in the midst of so much disappointment and frustration. This memory is potent as shown by the other countries that followed its example in order to spark their own people power revolutions. Edsa signaled a democratic transition not only in the nation but also in other nations with repressive regimes. It unleashed the pro-democracy tide that swept South Korea, Poland, Pakistan and the rest of the world.
The spirit of Edsa dead? It lives on. If not for it, there would have been no Edsa 2. If not for it, we would have no vantage point from which to evaluate our democratic progress, how much we have achieved and how much we have fallen short of the ideal. In short, Edsa remains a barometer of all of our noblest aspirations as a people.
Edsa remains a valid historical event that should be appreciated on its own terms. It achieved what it set out to do: throw off the yoke of dictatorship and restore the country to the democratic grace that is its birthright. If we have fallen short of its demands, it is proof of how poor we have grown in democratic grace if we denigrate its memory and demean its legacy. Edsa may be a historical memory but it is also a historical promise-it is also eschatology. It is something to be fully born yet.
Let us embrace Edsa and forge ahead with the revolution.
Posted 11:36pm (Mla time) Feb 24, 2005
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the February 25, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
EVERY year as the nation commemorates the 1986 Edsa Revolution, Filipinos used to the Lenten feeling of remorse and regret to strike their breast, say mea culpa, and declare that everything has gone for naught. There seems to be a wide predisposition to pronounce the revolution dead, its spirit wasted away in the dispiriting times, its message lost in the welter of negative messages spawned by a people so prone to negative thoughts, like the Edsa Shrine clouded and vanished under the smog of traffic and the din of commerce.
We should be reminded what Edsa was all about, and why keeping its memory alive is important. Edsa was about the proverbial fight against tyranny, the struggle between good and evil. We may have put it too much in metaphysical terms, but all of us who lived through the terrible years of the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship know that Edsa was nothing short of a holy war, a battle between light and darkness.
If Edsa is sometimes painted in terms of a miracle, it is not only because its victory was astounding. It was also a victory against all odds. It was something totally unexpected because it violated all natural laws of reason and human calculation. It was a preternatural event. If there are detractors of Edsa, it is those who protest its preternatural dimensions. The Marcos loyalists and many in the Left demean it as totally explicable, in the process blaming, for example, American interference and even CIA machination for the incident. These were the same people who had insisted that Marcos was invincible and irremovable exactly because of American sponsorship and support. When the outcome flew in their face, they had to insist that the Americans switched sides, in effect demeaning the people who went against Marcos' troops and tanks with nothing but a prayer and a hope that they would prevail with God's help.
There is, then, a dismissive attitude of democracy and the people among detractors of the Edsa Revolution. It is a dangerous attitude because it carries within it the seed of fascism; it is an orientation that has in fact spawned authoritarianism because it is contemptuous of the people's power to change things and decide for themselves. It is an anti-democratic attitude.
Edsa was a democratic revolution. It was a historic event because it reaffirmed the power and authority of the people to control and meet their destiny. If we hark back to the memory of Edsa, it is because we hark back to the singular moment of history in which we drew forth from the power of our solidarity and used that power to change things for the better.
For the better? But haven't things gone worse since then? In fact, many of our reservations about Edsa are really the result of the frustrations and disappointments we have felt since then. The revolution promised a lot, and it seems the promises have not been kept. We seem to have been left holding wretched stalks of disappointment.
But Edsa's validity and power derive precisely from its memory. We hold this memory dear in the midst of so much disappointment and frustration. This memory is potent as shown by the other countries that followed its example in order to spark their own people power revolutions. Edsa signaled a democratic transition not only in the nation but also in other nations with repressive regimes. It unleashed the pro-democracy tide that swept South Korea, Poland, Pakistan and the rest of the world.
The spirit of Edsa dead? It lives on. If not for it, there would have been no Edsa 2. If not for it, we would have no vantage point from which to evaluate our democratic progress, how much we have achieved and how much we have fallen short of the ideal. In short, Edsa remains a barometer of all of our noblest aspirations as a people.
Edsa remains a valid historical event that should be appreciated on its own terms. It achieved what it set out to do: throw off the yoke of dictatorship and restore the country to the democratic grace that is its birthright. If we have fallen short of its demands, it is proof of how poor we have grown in democratic grace if we denigrate its memory and demean its legacy. Edsa may be a historical memory but it is also a historical promise-it is also eschatology. It is something to be fully born yet.
Let us embrace Edsa and forge ahead with the revolution.
posted by Dante at 6:55 PM
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