The Democratic State and the Myth of Nationhood
The Right to Self-determination
The state, the country, and the nation are human constructs. There is no metaphysical reason to place national boundaries where they are nor to count a number of persons and ‘say here is one people and there is another’, ultimately there is no reason for boundaries to exist at all and no reason that the whole human species should not be one people, one nation. No reason except that we make boundaries and demark differences.
This is a completely valid thing to do, especially for as long as that thing which we call the state exists. If a group of persons see in themselves a single community and do not wish to be ruled by the state which claims the right to rule them then that state can only rule by tyranny. For that reason—and several other more historic ones, which I might talk about another time—the Bangsamoro people must be given independence now. Not autonomy; independence.
Independence having been won, the people must then go on to make their community. They will have to struggle with each issue as they come. The case of the Bangsamoro people is instructive: it is claimed that within this population is a smaller Islamist group that would have pogroms against homosexuals, against Christians, against the left, that would increase the exploitation of women, etc., etc., etc. And this is used as an excuse by some to say that the entire people are not capable of self-rule, and that therefore the Philippine Government must impose unity and its own authority for the sake of these people.
The hypocrisy of such a stance is mind boggling—as if the human rights track record of the Philippine Government has been anything but abysmal, as if the Philippine Government and the long standing conflict it has with Bangsamoro population were not responsible for uncounted deaths and humanitarian crises in the region. But all that is beside the point. When the Bangsamoro people gain independence they will have to make their own society—the struggles for gay rights, women’s rights, freedom of religion and political opinion must be seen as separate from the struggle for sovereignty. We will each of us have to stand in solidarity with whatever side we agree with, we will, in as much as we are able to do so, have to lend what help we can to these struggles—but ultimately they are matters of self-emancipation for the people, and not ideals for us to impose upon them. Failure to admit this fact is firstly impractical: for as long as the Philippine Government continues its tyranny the Bangsamoro people are more likely to fight against the foreign occupation than the tyrannical elements within itself thus giving the MILF and their ideologues greater currency. Even I, who cannot stand by the strategies and most of the politics of the MILF believe in their right to struggle against Philippine Government, even I stand in solidarity with them more and their struggle—how much more so members of the Bangsamoro people themselves?
Beside that practical—or if you like strategic—question is one of principle. To stand-by the Philippine Government’s imposition is nothing short of defending an act of colonization that is now more than 400 years old.
The National Interest
Why then are so many otherwise reasonable people becoming hysterically patriotic over the Bangsamoro question? Because there is a myth that we are one nation (again, a cruel hypocrisy—we have had 100 years to convince these people that they could stand with us as one country. Instead they got slaughter and subjugation and racism. Cruel and outright racism.) with a single national interest that is more important and ultimately better than the interests of segments of the society.
But what exactly is the ‘National Interest’?
Why is it so important to us that the GDP continue to grow? Why do we propagandize the ‘heroism’ of the OFWs silencing that voice that says heroism is inherently tragic? Why do we worry about the Philippines being ‘competitive’ in the global market? Why do we worry about the profitability of our economy?
And there is the rub. Just who profits from profitability?—simply put, the capitalists. Since the end of the Marcos regime, the Philippines has experienced more or less consistent growth, not counting the Asian financial crisis, yet the population of the poor has more or less consistently increased and gotten poorer.
The national agenda is set by the ruling class, but their interests are fundamentally opposed to the interests of the majority of the population. PGMA is not some mad aberration, she is only the representative of the strongest section of the ruling class; virtually the entire government is only the battlefield were rival sections of the ruling class vie for power and position and the soldiers take every opportunity to loot. Helping the majority of the Filipino people is not ultimately about reforming the government: there is no way to make this government anything but the tool of those who hold the money, just like all governments the world over. And while those who own everything may occasionally want to help those who work everything, ultimately this help can only go so far and historically has never been sustained anywhere.
Consider the constitution. Who wrote the constitution? A cabal of lawyers, politician, priests, and special interest groups (including the pinker factions of the largely Maoist left) working behind closed doors. Ultimately who writes our laws but the exact same sore of people?
The world over, and the Philippines included, is divided. We mark these divisions in many ways: the haves and the have-nots, the rich and the poor, the exploiter and the exploited, the capitalist and the working class. Ultimately an exploited Filipino worker has more interests in common with an exploited Bangsamoro, Chinese, Indian, American, European worker than with the ruling class of his own nation. And so I reject patriotism, I reject the idea that interest of communities should be subsumed under the interests of the state (because all this means in practice is that the interests of the poor are subordinated to the interests of the rich), I reject the idea that a people and a land are more worthy than any other and more deserving of my defense, and I reject the idea that I am in competition with other nations. I am not a patriot, I hate the state, I hate its machinery, and I hate the myth that claims that all Filipinos are one.
There is a community whose interests I believe all others must be subordinated to, there is a community that truly is in competition with everyone outside of it, there is a community that is worthy and deserving of our defense. That is every human being that is exploited and oppressed. And to make it so that exploitation and oppression cease to exist will take nothing short of class war.
Partly this is why the rhetoric of how much autonomy for the Bangsamoro people will cost the Philippines is hollow. It is self evident that sections of the ruling class would be hurt by this, it might (as many insist) hurt Philippine profit but the only people who should care about that are the sections of capital that will feel the pinch. The majority of the Filipinos have more to gain by an alliance with the exploited sections of Mindanao’s population—especially the exploited sections of the Bangsamoro nation—than by an alliance with the ruling class. The ability to stand in solidarity with them, and to ask them to stand in solidarity with us means that in times of struggle both sides can expect help from the other. How can anyone doubt the need of the Filipino working class to struggle for wages and conditions, for better legislation, even for political causes? The Filipino working class has a tradition of struggle—and very often, defeat—that stretches back to before the American occupation! With such perennial and necessary conflict, it is necessary to choose alliances wisely and on sound principles.
Democracy
Many of us have contradictory ideas about democracy. Many of us think that the Philippines is a democracy, albeit a degenerate, co-opted one. Some, and I have in the past been guilty of this, believe that electing people is about getting the most well intentioned and competent people into government. Others—apparently a good part of America—seem to think that you have to find the person who appears most like you, someone you might “sit down and have a beer with.” Really, neither of these positions is quite right.
Democracy is about electing the government that will best execute the popular will. At the moment I can think of no state government on earth that does this—in fact they are all designed to do just the opposite.
Consider America. The latest poles show that President Bush’s approval rating is around 30% his disapproval rating is 66%. His approval rating has been below 50% since March 2005—and yet this man has remained president. He has waged 2 wars that have only gotten more unpopular since they first began and blustered about a third, and lo! the American people can do nothing about it. The only electoral action given to them is to choose between two candidates whose policies—in as much as they have been articulated—are virtually indistinguishable.
The very idea that this government should ever be an expression of the popular will is laughable! Even the idea of a popular will to speak of is almost fatuous when those in power use unequal access to information and outright lies to dupe the public.
For a government to be democratic we would need complete transparency: no state secrets, no closed door meetings, and no back room deals. The idea that knowledge must be hidden for the purposes of national security forgets the fact that these threats to national security are the result precisely of undemocratic state action. America created every threat its ever faced since the end of the Cold War, the Philippines did exactly the same on a smaller scale and with considerable help from the American Government.
Furthermore, all government officials should be recallable at any time. The idea of a set term of office is ridiculous, that the popular will should make itself known only every x number of years and then swallow whatever the government decides after that is precisely what makes these governments so undemocratic. Possibly, the vote, as it is structured in elections, is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on mankind. It gives the impression that every individual has a say in his government, gives the impression that the governments are answerable to the people—but who really feels this to be true? It gives governments the façade of legality, and tells people that this is the avenue—the only avenue—by which they can affect society. It gives governments the pretence of a mandate, but choosing among the lesser of two evils is not a mandate!
The party system will also need to be changed. How is it that an elected official becomes the leader of his/her party? How is it that suddenly by virtue of holding office in a completely separate entity he gains influence within his/her party? An elected official should be answerable to his/her party’s central committee (and the party’s central committee must come from and be answerable to the rank and file), he/she should be the mouthpiece of his/her constituents—not some talking head that curries their votes with promises only to do as he pleases afterwards, such people should be expelled from their party.
Most importantly, political equality cannot exist without material equality. Without that, what purpose could it serve anyway? The idea that democracy can exist while a select few control all of society’s wealth is simply a lie. For as long as this is so governments will never attain neutrality, they will always serve the interests of money and states will always be tools of oppression—the rest of society will be cheated out of their rights by lies and corruption, and when push comes to shove, by violence. But when material equality is attained, when ownership over the things we need to live and work is not controlled by the few but by all, then the state as we know it will not even need to exist.
