SAGIPP: Solidarity Action Group for Indigenous Peoples and Peasants
by Bishop Reuel Norman O. Marigza
UCCP General Secretary XII
This story has always captured my imagination and thinking for the powerful message it conveyed. I see in them two underlying motifs or themes:
One is their defence of culture. They were a minority being swallowed up by a big and powerful Empire which insists on its culture as the norm (while seemingly paying respect to the culture of the vanquished). This imposition of a mono-culture by the conquering power has always been one of the tragedies in the story of conquests and colonization.
The imposition may come in violent forms, like when Charlemagne created a mass conversion in Europe (Become Christians and adopt the Christian culture or face death). This is what I call “massacre evangelism.”
Or it could come in subtle form, brought about by mass media, the advertising industry and/or the educational system that puts down local or minority culture as “baduy,” or backwards or as something laughable and treated with disdain; while at the same time, putting up on a pedestal as something to be desired, something that you should have if you want to be in, the trappings of the main or promoted culture. The aim is to assimilate minority cultures into the mainstream or dominant culture.
In any case, whichever way, the result is the same - the death of indigenous and minority cultures.
Masada stands as a symbol of defence of minority cultures. Masada was the last stand of the Jewish people resisting the Roman way, the Roman culture.
The second one I see is their defence of land. Pretty much like the indigenous peoples all over the world, the Jews, too, were closely associated with their land. They considered as a desecration, their land being occupied by outsiders.
Conversely, being away from one’s land was a slow painful death. The exiles from their land used to lament and mourn in their songs like: “By the river of Babylon where we sat down, There we wept when we remember Zion” (Psalm 137:1). That kind of deep connection to the land.
When they were in bondage in Egypt, what kept them sane and alive was the vision of the Promised Land - a return to the land of their ancestors, a land described as flowing with milk and honey. (Unfortunately though, the present government of Israel now denies land to the Palestinians).
Land was life. We do not own the land.The land owns us. These are at the very core of the indigenous person’s DNA. As one American Indian chief puts it: “When the blood in your veins return to the sea, and the earth in your bones returns to the ground, perhaps then you will remember that this land does not belong to you, it is you who belongs to this land.”
Our IP hero of the Cordilleran struggle, Macli-ing Dulang puts it this way: “You ask us if we own the land and mock us, ‘Where is your title?’ Such arrogance of owning the land when you shall be owned by it. How can you own that which outlive you?”
At one point he said: “If the land could speak, it would speak for us. It would say, like us, the years have forged the bond of life that ties us together. It was our labor that made the land she is. It was our labor that made the land she is. It was her yielding that gave us life. We and the land are one.”
“But who will listen? Will they listen? Those invisible ones, who, from unfeeling distance, claim the land is theirs because pieces of paper say so? The pieces of paper are backed by men who speak threatening words. Men who have the power to shoot and kill. Men who have the power to take away our men and sons. If the land could speak, it will speak for us. For the land is us. We will not move away from our land.”
They tried to bribe him many times. One time he was given a thick envelope by no less than Manuel Elizalde, of the Presidential Assistance for National Minorities (PANAMIN). Macli-ing replied: This envelope could only contain one of two things: a letter or money. If it is a letter, I do not know how to read. And if it is money, I do not have anything to sell. So, take your envelope and go.”
Threats and bribe did not work. So the answer of the State at such rejection and resistance was was brutal force. The Cordillera became heavily militarized. And on April 24, 1980, several soldiers murdered him. But his death was not in vain. It galvanised the resolve of the IP communities to resist.
The reality of the Empire today still stares us in the face. It sports a new name, like globalization, or liberalization, or ASEAN integration — but it spawns the same evils and feeds on hapless States it gazes its eyes on. The vassal states of old are now called neo-colonies: still supplying the rapacious and greedy Empire what it desires: raw materials, logs, precious stones and minerals and slave labor. Those who hold power in the neo-colonial, if they want to remain in power, seek to appease the Empire, give it what it wants — and so persecutes and exploits the indigenous peoples in its territory.
But as in ages past, there are those who resisted, whose voices have not been silenced even at the threat of life and limb; who took a daring stand against the might of the Empire and its national cohorts; people who took on courage even under fire.
They have formed communities of resistance, and would not bend the knee and bow to the powers-that-be.
Today, we gather to form such community of resistance through SAGIPP. Today, we gather as IPs and IP advocates to strengthen our ties of solidarity. Today we declare our resistance to the exploitation and marginalisation of our indigenous peoples.
In humility, let me propose three (3) ways by which we could do that. This list is not exhaustive but could be a starting point for the discussion and planning later:
1. Apology
In the last two months I have attended two big church assemblies: the Uniting Church of Australia and the United Church of Canada. What makes these two churches significant is that they expressed their official apology to the IPs of their land.
What can an apology do? Can it bring back the past and correct history? No, It cannot. But the apology is a recognition that a wrong has been committed in the past and that we cannot fully move forward if we do not face up to those historical wrongs. We cannot just gloss them over by saying, “Let us just forget the past and just move on.”
“The apology was about responsibility,” according to Rev. Prof. Andrew Dutney, who was President of the Uniting Church Australia in 2014. He added, “The apology was also about guilt, or about being weighed down by the past. Instead, it was an acceptance a fundamental truth: the responsibility to come to terms with our history is a morally inescapable element of what it means to be Australian. Without this acceptance, our nation would have remained diminished. The apology enabled us as individuals to acknowledge that the wrongs committed against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people did not represent the ‘ideal’ Australia - the nation we wanted to be. . .”
“It would be flippant for us to suggest that the apology has corrected our past errors . . . There is a great deal deal to be done before justice for the First Peoples is achieved … and realised … However, through the apology, we have the foundation for substantive, long-lasting and positive change for the First Peoples of this nation.” (Dutney)
Similarly, the United Church of Canada through its Moderator apologised in 1986 and subsequently other official statements and actions followed:
“Long before my people journey to this land, your people were here, and you received from your Elders and understanding of creation and of the Mystery that surrounds us all that was deep, and rich, an to be treasured.
“We did not hear you when you shared your vision. In our zeal to tell you of the Good News of Jesus Christ, we were closed to the value of your spirituality.
“We confused Western ways and culture with the depth and breadth and length and height of the Gospel of Christ. We imposed our civilisation as a condition for accepting the Gospel.
“We tried to make you be like us and in so doing we helped destroy the vision that made you what you were. As a result, you, and we, are poorer and the image of the Creator in us is twisted, blurred and we are not what we were meant by God to be.
“We ask you to forgive us and to walk together with us in the Spirit of Christ so that our peoples may be blessed and God’s creation healed.”
An apology like those would acknowledge our complicity in the national oppression and exploitation of our IPs and may pave the way for correcting the historical wrongs and addressing the current ones.
2. Accompaniment
This is to walk together in solidarity. “Redressing the pain and the sufferings of the victims and providing pastoral care and concern has been an important part of the ecumenical agenda on human rights. In the Nairobi WCC Assembly, the Assembly noted: The struggle of churches for human rights is a fundamental response to Jesus Christ. The Gospel leads us to become ever more active in identifying and rectifying violations of human rights in our own societies, and to enter into new forms of ecumenical solidarity with Christians elsewhere who are similarly engaged. It leads us into the struggle of the poor and the oppressed both within and outside the church as they seek to achieve their full human rights and frees us to work together with peoples of other faiths and ideologies who share with us common concerns for human dignity.”
We should be bold and of good courage in accompanying our IPs and all others who are victims of oppressive and exploitative political and economic powers and structures.
3. Advocacy
An advocate is someone who acts and pleads, or argues for someone else, or for a cause, idea or policy.
We may not be IPs ourselves and may belong to the dominant majority culture — but we must speak out. We must not be silent. We must confront the powers-that-be who or which exploit our IP brothers and sisters.
Like the prophets of old, we must denounce the wrongs and expose them in the light.
As long as the call to make a stand for what is right and for what is just is issued, there will always be people who will answer, who will stand, who will face the Empire and its local minions, with the will to resist, and with courage even under fire.
May we be counted among them.
Maayong hapon kanatong tanan!
No comments:
Post a Comment