The continued hostilities in the Palestinian-occupied territory known as the Gaza Strip in the Middle East is yet another telling demonstration of how difficult it is to achieve peace. To put the matter in perspective, it may be recalled that this troubled land was held by the victorious Israelis following the defeat of the Arab world (composed of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria) in the “Six-Day War” of June, 1967. From then, the nation of Israel governed Gaza until 2005 when the Palestinian National Authority (“PNA”) under its president, Mahmoud Abbas, took over the territory, pursuant to the “Oslo Accord” between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, in a significant step towards establishing peace in the area.
In 2007, the militant anti-Israel Hamas faction of the PNA gained control of Gaza by election. It appears that Hamas is hell-bent in pursuing its avowed intention to wipe-out the Jewish nation from the face of the earth, and to regain dominion over its “ancestral” land which would include what is now known as the State of Israel that was established in 1948, and recognized as such internationally. In the latter part of 2008, Hamas stepped-up its rocket and mortar attacks bringing death and destruction mostly toward the southern part of Israel, indiscriminately killing and injuring civilians and children. A few days before Christmas, Israel resumed enhanced retaliatory measures with air strikes and which now include ground and sea warfare.
What is happening in Gaza mirrors to some degree the pestering problem in Mindanao and elsewhere in the non-Islamic countries of the world where there is a significant Muslim presence. The Muslims in Mindanao, calling themselves “Bangsamoro”, generally view themselves as a separate and distinct nation entitled to its own territory, self-government and sovereign rights. This separatist mindset has, since time immemorial, led to a never-ending armed conflict that has claimed countless innocent lives over the years and effectively thwarted efforts towards sustained economic growth and development in the “land of promise”. There is a lingering belief among many Moros that they are not part of the Filipino nationhood, and that the current Philippine government is but a mere extension of foreign domination, first by Spain and later by the Americans.
Apart from ancestral claims to territory, both the conflicts in Mindanao between the MILF and the Philippine government, on one hand, and in the Middle East between the Hamas and Israel, on the other, have religion as a common denominator. Religious intolerance to the point of denying opposing faiths the right to survive is impervious to the idea of peaceful and mutually beneficial co-existence. This is a dilemma that is as old as humanity, with no hope of ever achieving a solution. Meanwhile, more death, suffering and destruction – all in the name of religion.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Not too sure but the religious aspect of the Mindanao conflict has long been abandoned?
wow, Bencard, I was so happy to see that you are one of the contibutors here.
Im in a rush ( I need to be in the project site 7 am) so I ve read only a couple of lines in the first paragraph. I will read the who;e artocle when I got back home tonight.
Congratulations!
I believe Mindanao root conflict is not about religion.
It is our religion (Islam) what unites us – Bangsamoro People, to pursue and fight for our RSD. We have a legal and historical basis to reacquire our freedom, identity and ancestral domain.
Jun,
Are you guys not tired of fighting? bwehehehe
Life is short, might as well enjoy it or spend it to do other things…instead of fighting.
Freedom? what freedom? you are not being restricted..are you? and your hands are not tied up to prevent you from doing what you want to do…right?
We are all Filipinos, and living in a country called Philippines…you hate being isolated, but it seems to me you are the one creating your own isolation..by stating ¨ancestral domain¨, it sounds like its your land…and yours alone.
Why dont you guys join the fight to reacquire sabah from malaysia? ah I forgot, malaysia is a muslim country…they are your kind, right? afterall, you are muslim first, before filipino. And we non-muslims are infidels and non-believers..and therefore we are not your kind.
What a sad life you have.
Jun M:
You probably have to press the issue against the writer who thinks the historical parallelism is rooted in religion when it is already on something else.
Jun Macarambon,
So you agree with the post’s main thesis that at bottom, the Mindanao conflict, like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is essentially about Religion? Don’t you think it might be untenable to insist upon the establishment of a new fundamentalist Islamic theocracy in Mindanao in the 21st Century? And what would you do with all the non-Muslims in Mindanao? Dhimmitude?
When you say you have “historical basis” to “reacquire” your “freedom, identity and ancestral domain” do you mean to imply that under the Moro sultanates there was personal freedom for the people, that their identities were not how far below they were below the Sultan, and that your ancestors owned the land you now claim as your own? That it is just a matter of reacquisition?
Why should the Filipino and Bangsamoro people allow the re-establishment of slave-trading, slave-raiding religious sultanic dictatorships?
Frankly I think the best course for the Bangsamoro people without tarsilas is to stick with the rest of the Archipelago and make a go of Democracy. The alternative looks like Gaza…
karlpopper, in the mindanao case, money and power may have supplanted religion as prime motivation. but still religion, rather than race or culture, is the sole factor that makes most muslims unwilling to be identified as “filipinos”.
hi, rego. thanks. glad to hear from you here at FV.
stay warm and dry.
Bencard,
Unfortunately, Filipinos who continue to identify the islands and lobby its laws in line with the Philippines being a “Catholic country” does not help.
Unless we shed that image (“only Christian country in Asia” — one of the poorest too!) Muslims will continue to be discouraged to “join us”.
jon, you raise a good point but i doubt it. india, which is by no means a catholic or Christian country, has somewhat similar problems with its muslim inhabitants in kashmir. so with thailand, indonesia, and so forth, and so on.
Having been born and raised in Mindanao, I say the “areas of social and political pressures” are rooted in differences in cultures, which have bred a panoply of causes that tend to divide rather than unite. Unless both sides willingly opt for co-existence, or hitch their hopes to more meaningful adaptation involving serious “give and take” in making changes.
These difference in cultures may involve differences in attitudes in life, religion of course, even ways of daily living which can be as petty as manner of dress or dialect spoken, keeping house, or as profound as ways of earning a living (whether legal or illegal), one’s purpose in life, etc.
Thus, religion is a part but not necessarily the only primary cause for this protracted stalemate. Nor is it always the case. Toleration of Islam is no less difficult or sticky as toleration of other religions extant locally, whether Christian or not. With the accepted premise that even in Mindanao, Catholics are the majority.
Do I speak with gospel truth? Not by any stretch.
The only message being sent is the utter complexities of the situation exacerbated by many obtaining flashpoints like extreme poverty, the very long and thorny history of the situation itself, and mind you, even the economic and political disparities between Christians and Muslims.
There is no such thing as a Filipino.
What there is are Ilocanos, Tagalogs, Cebuanos,(and everyone else in between)… all held, or should be… must be held together by something.
Something to be proud of.
Like Manny Pacquiao.
Bencard,
Touche.
Does that mean that Muslims want an all or nothing proposition wherein it’s their way or the highway? It’s either an Ottoman Empire or they’d see the world burn?
I apologize for this rather controversial opinion, but do not see any Muslim nation that espouses true tolerance to diversity and inclusionism.
Blind_Dog,
As someone born and raised in Manila, I see myself as “Filipino” rather than a “Tagalog”. Perhaps there’s a degree of myopia required so that a person would box one’s self in tribal identities, transcending language used.
“As someone born and raised in Manila,…”
There you said it yourself.
Blind_Dog,
Which is stating nothing but a demograph and a circumstance, and not an identity. I don’t label nor think of myself as “Manilenyo”.
“Which is stating nothing but a demograph and a circumstance,…”
There, you said it again.
Blind_Dog,
So if someone states where they grew up, they’re not anything? If a person born and raised in New York says so, he’s not American?
“There is no such thing as a Filipino.
What there is are Ilocanos, Tagalogs, Cebuanos,(and everyone else in between)… all held, or should be… must be held together by something.
Something to be proud of.
Like Manny Pacquiao.”
The word “American” and “New York” is not there.
My point was not destruction of unity nor of identity. It was, in fact, the opposite.
“… all held, or should be… must be held together by something.”
Blind_Dog,
Which is precisely what I’m trying to point out.
You’re pulling a strawman on me in positing that by me identifying myself as someone who was born somewhere, the concept of “Filipino” is absent, whereas my point is that I identify myself as “Filipino”, and by nothing else.
Blind_Dog,
Indeed…a Blind dog you are hehehehe
what an argument you have there….siguro filipino ka hahahaha
jon limjap @ 2:08pm, it sure looks that way, isn’t it? i’m not sure if it’s something in the holy book of islam, or in the way it’s interpreted by its followers. either way, no amount of peace agreement, compromise, treaty, accord, truce, ceasefire, can completely eliminate the problem till the end of days.
i’m interested to hear from scholars, in or out of this blog, who could dissect this enigma and offer some insight as to how best to deal with it.
amadeo @6:51am, tolerance by catholics in general, i have no doubt. as to tolerance by muslims, i’m not too sure. but what i cannot believe is the proposition that GOD, howsoever viewed by any faith, would prevent by force the peaceful exercise of free will, freedom of belief or unbelief, freedom of choice, until the judgment day.
blind_dog, it seems to me that we are being held together by our constitution, our laws and our general sense of nationhood. they were purchased by the blood of our true heroes and martyrs of whom we are all proud.
A blind dog cannot see. It can smell, taste, hear and feel. But it cannot see. As such, it cannot understand the full meaning of things, including other blind dogs. Remember the “Blind Men and the Elephant”? But what can it do? Will it deny it’s blindness? No, it will not. Indeed, it cannot. Yet, despite that, it will live… somehow. As will all the other blind dogs.
Will they be able to live together? Ah… Dogs have their territory. Dogs will happily eat the carcass of other dogs. Dogs care only for their own… But, somehow, curiously, sometimes, they are together. Is this what would one call a “pack of dogs”? A “pack of blind dogs”?