NATIONALISM AND CULTURE

Claro M. Recto

Perhaps because of our seven hundred years of servitude, the traits that will us
take us time to outgrow is colonial-mindedness, and an indiscriminate
imitativeness of whatever we see in our former masters. We took after the
Spaniards in many of their predilections, often to excess --witness Dona Victorina
de Espanada in Rizal's NOLI - and we behave in the same fashion under
American influence. This undiscerning imitativeness is especially notorious in our
youths, notably in what they acquire from American movies. You can hardly take
ten steps in any of our streets without running into a swaggering, brown would-be
James Dean.And if you come across any number of our female teenagers, it is
certain 90 percent of them are crazy over Elvis Presley.

We are disturbed and embarrassed when we are charged with being pro-
Western, particularly in our manners and habits that are patently American or
European.

But we also are disturbed and humiliated if criticized for apparently returning
blindly to ,and reviving, our faded oriental traditions as rooted in our ancient past;
in our embarrassment we seem to be the first to laugh at ourselves.

The indiscriminate assimilation of the grossest aspects of foreign culture; the

aimless Americanization of our ways, our customs and attitudes; the disregard,
bordering on contempt, for all things native; all these attest to the near fulfillment
of Rizal's melancholy forebodings and premonitions. "Their spirit was broken and
they submitted," said Rizal of the Filipinos under Spain. I may paraphrase this
sentence in the light of current events:"their understanding was clouded and they
acquiesced.“ Because our neglect and perhaps our disregard of Rizal's
teachings, it seems that we are wittingly offering ourselves to total foreign
domination. Already we are allowing our minds, our beliefs, and our economic life
to be enslaved; we have even allowed our tongue to be enslaved. Because of
this tendency of ours, the distinguishing traits of our race will gradually disappear,
as will the native customs bequeathed to us by our ancestors, and the natural
resources that Divine Providence destined for the enjoyment of our race. Was not
one of Rizal's most valuable admonitions that we should not behave as if we
were strangers in our own land? If we analyze our present our situation, we shall
find it the very opposite of what the hero had advised! We are indeed strangers in
our own country --in our appearance, our customs, our economic life, and our
language-- even many of our shortcomings appear to have been imported.

We apologize for our western customs because we know we are orientals. But
we are ashamed also of what characterize us as orientals, fearing that such traits
are old-fashioned and backward.
I feel that we should not pretend to be occidentals when everybody knows we
are orientals. On the other hand, it is a shame to regard older and more
backward eastern ways as genuinely Filipino, because no matter how much we
love our own we can not go back to the year 1300.

The education of our people for more than half a century has been based on
alien standards with complete disregard of our idiosyncrasies and indigenous
habits. Cultural channels have been crowded with American bestsellers,
American movies, American music, and American comics. The simple fact that
fourteen years after our independence, English is still our medium of instruction
and our national language has still to struggle to keep its humble place in our
educational system, is the best evidence that our minds are yet those of
bondsmen.

...It is well that we follow the march of progress and civilization. We can imitate
and adopt the laudable usages and customs of other peoples; ....but we can do
all that without having to surrender what is peculiarly our own.
 We should cherish, bless, safeguard, and develop all that is our own. Let us
comport ourselves like true Filipinos like Rizal wanted us to be, and take pride in
it, just as Rizal did while traveling and residing in foreign countries. When all of us
shall have become true Filipinos by following the example and teachings that are
Rizal's precious legacy to our people...only then shall we be redeemed from this
situation in which we seem to be strangers in our own country. Let us strive to put
our country in its proper place because the security and dignity of a state rest on
the security and dignity of its citizens.

Our patriotic duty as citizens of this Republic is clear and inescapable. Politically,
we must reassert our national our rights, drawing inspiration from the nationalist
spirit that animated our heroes of 1896. We must unshackle ourselves from the
chains of the colonial economic system which can bring us nothing but poverty
and economic stagnation. For both tasks we need only the capacity to make a
through reappraisal of the economic realities of the nations, the courage to
decisively implement the resulting programs of action and a dogged
determination reach our chosen goal no matter what the cost.
I have always had faith in our people. A race that can boast of the intelligence of
a Rizal and Mabini, the courage of a Bonifacio, the abnegation of a Marcelo H.
Del Pilar, and the devotion and spirit of sacrifice so magnificently
displayed by the whole nation in its three epics struggles for freedom and
independence is a race that can, with the right leadership, perform such feats of nation
building as well command the respect and admiration of the entire world.
I trust that a generation from now, the Filipino people may stand with legitimate
pride before the world and before history as a paragon of democracy and that it
may be said of us that in adversity we were united and undismayed; in prosperity
magnanimous and prudent; against dectators, whether fascistic or communistic
or just opportunistic, relentless and uncompromising; against demagogues, aloof
and contemptuous; in fulfillment of “our duties earnest and self-exacting; in love
of country pledged with our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor” and
 practicing in a firm but restrained nationalism illuminated by the thought that this
world is one world and we are one with humankind.

Vocabulary Words

 Predilection-a tendency to do or to be attracted to something.

 Swaggering- behaving in the manner of a person

 Idiosyncrasy- a characteristic, habit, mannerism, or the like, that is peculiar to an

individual

 Melancholy- a gloomy state of mind or depression.

 Acquiesce- to accept or agree

 Bequeath- to hand down; pass on

 Admonition- a criticism or warning about behavior

 Abnegation- giving up a right, possession

 Paragon-a model or pattern of excellence

 Type of Essay:
 Persuasive Essay

 Theme: Nationalism
 Patriotism
 Number of Paragraph: Twelve Paragraphs