Interesting that this whole business about Magic Hours and other such quaint poetic concepts continues to draw debate here in FV.
Lets get a bit of perspective and use East Timor as a case study, shall we?
That country is a Nobody country. But it managed to marshal sympathy around itself and sucker a bunch of wealthy countries to come to its aid in its bid for independence from Indonesia. Maybe its strategic value as a little community sitting on — what else? — a potential jackpot of fossil fuel deposits helped it out a bit in its sympathy campaign. And, oh by the way, have I mentioned too that almost 80% of its people voted for independence in a referendum?
So here’s the bottom line.
Unless somebody in Mindanao could grow a bit of brain and pull off the same stunt, this whole business about Mindanao or any part of it being anything other than a fiefdom within the Kingdom of the Republic of the Philippines will be nothing more than part of polite conversation over a steak and red wine dinner at the Manila Hotel.
And to be fair, contrary to my use of the word “stunt” to describe this adventure, this one requires a bit of thinking as well (ergo, bad news for its proponents!); specifically around:
- :D Coming up with a value proposition that appeals to at least 51% (or whatever the hell is the minimum required by Law) of qualified Mindanao residents;
- :D Coming up with a whats-in-it-for-me proposition for whatever foreign power Mindanao folk would decide to go to bed with in order to pull this thing off; and,
- :D Coming up with that elusive post independence game plan to ensure that it does not become another Third World shithole that will depend on foreign aid to survive for the next 50 years.
Until then, all the Joey Ayalas and other tubao-wearing maka-masa and kalikasan poets can churn out volumes of tula and awit and and come up with quaint phrases like “The Magic Hour” ’til they turn blue. But at the end of the day, when REAL people with REAL resources, REAL politics, and REAL intentions to invest ask the million dollar questions…
Where are the results?
What’s in it for me?
Show me the money!
… and these “proponents” have got nothing but their poetry to show, guess what we get back in return:
Poetry in the form of diplomatic and political lip service.
And that folks is pretty much the only thing left that ties the plight of Mindanao and, for that matter, the rest of the Philippines to the larger awareness of the global community. We are nothing but a sad legacy of imperial hubris and an embarrassment to those who once preached of a strong causal relationship between prosperity and democracy.
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East Timor was a Portuguese colony,while the rest were Dutch.
They got a feel of independence for a while, until Indonesia invaded and occupied them.
Sa Mindanao naman, sabi nila di daw sila ginalaw ng mga kastila at kano kaya Misuari wanted his own Minadanao Republic.
yung timor pwede pa sila mag appeal for symphaty dahil ininvade sila ng Indonesia, e tayo ininvade ba natin ang Mindanao .Yung sinasabing Influx by the visayans is different from being invaded by another country .
sorry for my taglish and wrong spelling of sympathy.
For integration.
I think the way Indonesia resolved the Free Aceh issue, should at least be emulated by the Philippines.
Compassion is what gets us started…(Grace and the Mushroom Hour)
But enlightened self-interest is what makes us serious…(Benign0′s Steak Dinner).
Right on!
We should not underestimate the power of literature and poetry though, because even the Filipino nation was launched by a pair of absurdly romantic roman-a-clefs that turned out to be prophesies that have outlasted Empires.
The curious thing about Benign0′s post is that he [rightly] cites East Timor as a success story as far as independence movements go and yet he overlooks the manner in which it was able to achieve independence, i.e. with people’s organizations such as the East Timor solidarity movement.
The U.N. sponsored elections came much later.
In East Timor, it was not quite the ‘show me the money’ approach that Benign0 recommends.
What strikes me as an obvious difference between East Timor and Mindanao is that in East Timor the people who wanted independence were the majority. In Mindanao the people who want a separate state are actually a bunch of minority warfreaks, peppered with occasional poets who write pieces like The Golden Hour or something like that.
If those people wanted to be recognized as an independent state and the best they could throw at us is a bunch of tantrum-throwing murderous “macho men” with big guns and small dicks, it’s too late for that.
^^Oh, I meant the magic hour. Or again something like that.
Jon, i think you have the wrong impression of where the author of the Magic Hour is coming from. That you mistake her for an MILF-sympathizer says something.
chuck,
What gives me a reason NOT to think that?
The author of that Golden Hour thing or whatever its title is also can’t seem to make up her mind.
On one hand she sees the army and government as members of the same big bad Satan that is oppressing “her people”.
And yet in the same breath also mentions how “her people” are entitled to protection extended by this same government that she satanizes.
Anu ba talaga? :D
Benign0, are you saying that the people have to live with oppression in order to enjoy protection from the government?
benignO’
This poem may have inspired the solidarity movement that chuck is referring to.
“O Timor . . .”
by AVCAT
O Timor “O Timor…”
Tears are shed when I think of you,
in my old melancholic eyes
I see you dancing in my dreams
ever farther as I try to reach you
disappearing in the seem, unvanished.
There stood a young child who called you home,
nourished, nurtured by your children
You let them bear, and the child is born once upon a time
You want it free, but freedom you cannot afford
The child you let grows to be
the beholder of freedom
But when love exhausts, freedom flies through the window
The child vanishes into a terrible tragedy (December 7, 1975)
O Timor….
So many worlds remain me of you
Amour, valour, colour, etc…
But none of these words were related yours
Terror, horror, Timor…
My Timor.Your sun peaks through my window
Looks upon me while I sleep”
“Wake up child, seize the day!
The earth is yours,
Wake up child, seize is yours,
the water is yours,
this land between the continents and the oceans is yours
This is yours… Timor”
Out I step through the steel prison door,
I am an exile in my own Timor…
Abe, thanks for that. And at the risk of belaboring the point, ‘show me the money’ does not appear in any of the stanzas.
@chuck,
I think what benign0 is saying is that Grace should decide whether she wants to be under the protection of the Philippine government, or under the protection of the MILF.
Abe, I’m sure that piece of poetry you posted kicked off the process. But the point I make was that we need more than poetry and song to sustain the effort — which is where my whole spiel about clear and REAL value propositions and what’s-in-it-for-me‘s (WIIFM’s) come to play.
cvj, again thanks for your rather literal and one dimensional insight into all this.
@Jon, kinda like Colonel Jessep’s (as played by Jack Nicholson) justification in ‘A Few Good Men’?