| The Dilemma of Liberalism By Antonio C. Abaya August 1, 2002 Those who object, or would likely object, to President Arroyo�s call for �a strong republic� can best be categorized into three distinct species. The first and most strident objectors are the communists and their pro-communist allies in media and the clergy who know or fear that a �strong republic� would deal a fatal blow to their socialist revolution-in-process, as in fact it did in South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Suharto�s Indonesia. They will not appreciate being reminded that the �strong republic� in China also crushed and continues to crush what do not even remotely resemble an anti-communist opposition (such as the Falun Gong and the Tienanmen demonstrators). Or that the �strong republic� in North Korea (actually, a socialist hereditary monarchy), once trainor and financier of the New People�s Army, operates a hermetically sealed society where even radio waves emanating from other countries are not allowed to pollute their people�s brains. (North Koreans can own and operate only radios and TV sets built by state factories with pre-set frequencies, permanently tuned only to state radio and TV stations.) As I wrote previously, the Golden Rule of Filipino communists and pro-communists is �Do not do unto us what we will do unto you once we are in power.� A second opposition to the �strong republic� comes or would come from the chattering class, with more personal grievances, people who do not like President Arroyo because she is short, because she is a woman, because they don�t like her voice, because they don�t like her short temper, because they were not appointed to her Cabinet, because they were not appointed period, because they want someone else to become president in 2004. They take an adversarial position to anything she says or does. If she says the sky is blue, they will protest that it is pink, and would be prepared to demonstrate on the streets and go to court over it. This kind of contrived drama is so common here we are really a nation of protestants pretending to be Catholics. The third oppositionist group to the idea of a �strong republic� are the bleeding heart liberals, prominent in media, in academe, among the clergy, in the NGO community, even among some members of the AB socio-economic class (either out of guilt or a psychological need to show a liberal social conscience). Their objection to a �strong republic� is that such a state would marginalize and victimize those identified as enemies of that state, would deprive them of their rights to free speech, a free press and free assembly, would short-circuit the constitutional due process, and might lead to a dictatorship. Their guiding motto is: Be kind to crooks, be kind to criminals, be kind to kidnappers, be kind to cannibals, be kind to coup plotters, be kind to communists. This type of bleeding heart liberalism became manifest in the US (and was quickly adopted by the usual liberal copycats here) immediately after the September 11 bombing of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. As their government and their military prepared to retaliate against the perceived masterminds, some Americans, not necessarily all disciples of the perennial critic Noam Chomsky, actually vigorously objected to a military response, urging their countrymen instead �to stand around in candle-lit circles singing kum ba yah.� There is, unfortunately, no record of how many members of the al-Qaeda died laughing while reading about it. But, not to be outdone, the pro-communist and anti-American columnist Conrado de Quiros, with his vast experience in managing countries, counseled the evil US government to do absolutely nothing. Yes, nothing. Not even to stand around in candle-lit circles singing kum ba yah. ***** The cozy relationship between constipated liberals and fire-breathing revolutionaries is nothing new. Just before he died in 1924, Lenin publicly applauded the American, British and European liberal intellectuals who, despite the wholesale slaughter and dispossession, saw in his revolution the wave of the future. But privately, he sneered at them as nothing but �useful fools.� To this day, Lenin�s Useful Fools still abound in chic intellectual circles in the rich countries of the First World, except that they no longer have much to be useful for since Lenin�s revolution has made a complete�.well, revolution back to where it started in 1917. The wave of the future seems to be waving goodbye everywhere. Except in the Philippines, where news of earth-shaking events such as the collapse of the Soviet Union and the rise and eventual death of Deng Xiao-ping apparently travel by water-logged canoe, disoriented turtle, and newly castrated carabao and have not reached certain individuals, innocuously called Leftists, who are never home anyway since they are always out on the streets protesting against something. ***** The dilemma for liberalism, which wishy washy liberals have not thought through, is how to reconcile their professed love for democracy, human rights, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly etc. with the logical need to extend this pink umbrella with birds-and-flowers design even to fire-breathing revolutionaries who, however, have nothing but contempt for such bourgeois values and who have vowed in thought, word and deed to flush the disgusting middle-class vomit, together with the umbrella-holding liberals, Lenin�s Useful Fools, down the toilets of Malacanang once they are in power. No such dilemma immobilized the �strong republics� in South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Suharto�s Indonesia and, yes, the people�s republics in China and Vietnam, where wishy-washy liberalism does not/did not get in the way of the state�s duty to enforce the laws and prevail over those who have vowed to destroy it. In its early years, for example, when Singapore was faced with a communist insurgency, one of the members of the inner cabinet of Lee Kwan Yew recalled: �We have placed a lid on politics. We do not allow political freedoms to the fullest extent in two areas. One, where it can cause a communal threat, incite communalism and tear apart the society. We have created a society, a community, which did not exist before. It is absolutely vital that it survives. We will never allow anybody to incite communalism� �Second, we will not allow the communists the freedom to destroy what we have created. Other than that, we allow full freedom to dissent. At the same time, I must say that we come down very heavily on criticism which is not well-founded. A lie often repeated tends eventually to be seen as truth. Our critics must be able to sustain their view in arguments. We cannot let them get away with criticism. We make them feel afraid of criticizing in public unless they can sustain it in argument�..� (Governing Singapore, by Raj Vasil, 1984). Definitely not Jefferson�s idea of liberal democracy. But who can argue against success, not only in Singapore but in the other tigers of East Asia as well? On the other hand, who can endorse and rejoice over failure, even a liberal-democratic failure? ` ***** The bulk of this article appears in the August 19, 2002 issue of the Philippine Weekly Graphic magazine. |
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| ON THE OTHER HAND |
| OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Reactions to �The Dilemma of Liberalism� September 3, 2002 I WISH Filipinos were Singaporeans and had a Lee Kwan Yew. Alas, Filipinos will be Filipinos, no matter the strength or weaknesses of their government. Their government will be run not by Singaporeans but by Filipinos. But I would not like Filipino Communists to kick everybody in the ass�.better to have a chance to kick back, especially with all the kickbacks. Gras Reyes. [email protected]. ***** CHOMSKY and de Quiros are two of a kind; they love to buck the tide of public opinion and stand against common sense. They revel in the aura of the tragic hero. �protestants pretending to be Catholics� is a nice double-entendre in the context of your article. Robert Hanan, Australia. No email address given. ***** GREAT ARTICLE. Our problem is that American colonialists imposed liberalism � which puts as foremost the liberty of individuals, which also as an ideology was a reaction to states (France, Germany, etc) where the �nation-state� was too strong already � on us who still were in the process of conceptualizing a national community. Cheers, Bobi. Rigoberto Tiglao, Kyoto, Japan. [email protected] MY REPLY: How right you are. We Filipinos grew up with the ideological baggage, acquired from the Americans, that the individual is always more important than the community. Our neighbors� cultural baggage, known disparagingly in the West as Asian values, is that in many instances the community is more important than the individual. Thus our neighbors built their successful societies within the framework of a strong state to which the individual had clearly defined responsibilities. On the other hand, President Arroyo has a hard time selling the idea of a �strong republic� because of concerns about the individual�s rights in such a republic. It is, however, futile blaming the Americans for having handed down to us their glorification of the individual. That is their historical experience and that is what they passed on to us. They could not have given us the blueprints for, say, a Singaporean strong state any more than the Soviets could have given the Eastern Europeans the blueprints for a Jeffersonian liberal democracy. ***** SHARP ARTICLE you have here, Tony. And you�ve got it just right as regards Conrado de Quiros, �Mr. Know-It-All� himself. He who confuses emotional, fiery debates with sober and enlightened discussions and he who treats argument as an end by itself. Displease de Quiros and he resorts to name calling, i.e. Duterte is �ugok�, Max Soliven is a �Max Alvarado�, GMA is a �dwarf�, etc. Mr. de Quiros likes to impress everybody that he is conversant with almost every subject under the sun. (Once, he was expounding about the beauty of a Mozart concerto but heck! I seriously doubt if he could even differentiate a �flat� from a �sharp�, a �minor� from a �major�, or even a note from a chord!) And he could really irritate you if you allow him, with his infallible stance that most often projects a I-know-I�m-right-and-I-know-you�re wrong air. I like to think I know de Quiros� type. I finally learned to treat him and his kind � by simply ignoring them. Deprive them of an audience and you practically cut off their reason for existence as well as their air of self-importance. This, Tony, is I think the best approach to �silence� him. Same thing with the NPA and Sison. Regards, Fred. Wilfredo Derequito, Dharan, Saudi Arabia. [email protected]. MY REPLY: But by writing this harangue against him, you have shown that you have not really learned to ignore him. ***** PAHABOL LANG, Tony. With due respect, I really don�t think liberalism is in a dilemma. For the simple reason that I don�t equate Conrado de Quiros and people of similar persuasion as voices of liberalism. The reverse is true: they represent a brand of extremism. A no-holds-barred and no-prisoner-taken type of political grandstanding. You call de Quiros a liberal and you practically turn fanaticism into a virtue. I for one consider myself a liberal. But I sure would feel insulted to be placed in the same vein as de Quiros. Regards, Fred. Wilfredo Derequito, Dharan, Saudi Arabia. [email protected]. MY REPLY. I never wrote that de Quiros was a liberal. He is not. He is a pro-communist defender of and apologist for the communist movement, who has never outgrown his juvenile infatuation with Communism and the �socialist ideal�. He uses the language of liberalism, which is why he is able to deceive many people, including the capitalist owners of his newspaper (the real liberals in this case), into thinking that he is just a liberal. ***** NO DILEMMA for me. �Liberalism�, based on 18th and 19th century Enlightenment, leads by a devious but inevitable path to totalitarianism, Nazi or Leninist, as you should know well. My �liberalism� is based on the �liberty with which Christ has set you free�, as St. Paul says. Read his epistle to the Galatians where he curses those �religious� authorities who would interfere with that liberty by putting on obligations not preached by Jesus or Paul. I believe in freedom of conscience for every man/woman created in God�s image and redeemed by Jesus Christ. I hope you do too. It has nothing to do with politics. John J. Schumacher, SJ, Loyola Heights, Quezon City. [email protected]. ***** OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |