It’s been said many times that the pen is mightier than the sword. Rizal’s ideas are hence as relevant today as it was yesterday. His wisdom has surpassed decades and a century. His pen served as the embodiment of his revolutionary ideas, ideas that are not only Filipino but also universal.Rizal only dreamed for the liberty of the Philippines, for it to finally witness the light of its redemption. Now that it has finally released itself from the chains of the Spanish tyranny, American and Japanese rules, the question now is did Rizal’s revolutionary ideas finally succeed?With what has happened to our country, that is hardly the case. Yes, through Rizal’s pen that served as an inspiration for the Filipinos to draw and raise their swords, bloody revolutions transpired. Yes, it is through his pen that we later realized our independence (genuine or not) on 1898. Yet, has there really been a change? Has there really been a “revolution”, a transformation, a conversion of our nation? Have we really risen from the depths of misery? Have we really regained our dignity, honor and liberty as Filipinos?Perhaps, but if Rizal would only see what has become of his country, he may probably think otherwise. The problem was, and still is, we concentrated so much about liberating ourselves and putting our sufferings to an end (things that Rizal fought for) but forgot to heed Rizal’s notion of regeneration. His revolutionary ideas are cored on changes, on reforms. But those changes and reforms must emanate from within. It must begin as a change of one self.
Sadly, we really haven’t seen the glorious light yet that Rizal dreamed for the Philippines to see. But to say that his revolutionary ideas thwarted us is an idiocy. Rizal did not thwart us. We thwarted Rizal.
Filed under: Opinion | Tagged: colony, history, jose rizal, nationalism, Opinion, patriotism, philippines, Pinoy, regeneration, rizal, spain, spanish
As far as I’m concerned, Rizal didn’t really dream of a ’separate’ Philippines. He was for equity, for reforms. He wasn’t pro-arms uprising. Same with ilustrados(Philippine-born Spaniards, Chinese immigrants, mestizos, native elites). If we are going to dissect his novels, we;’ll be able to see that he was critiquing the entire Filipino nation — form the internal Spanish government, to the Criollos, to the Mestizos, to the Frailes up to the Idios(remember Do&ntild; Victorina?).
Obviously, the pronlem is the entire Filipino people. Not the ones who “conquered” us.
Yes, he really didn’t dream of an independent Philippines but he demanded equality and freedom from the tyrannical rule of the Spaniards. It’s through his novels that uprising transpired. He may have not asked the Filipinos to fight but his universal ideology certainly inspired them to revolt.
The revolution I wrote in here is the “revolution of the self.”
The revolutionary ideas of Rizal are: nationhood, building modern/Enlightenment ideas on hegemonic level, creating new economic institutions such as coops, ideas on nationalist economics, modern woman (women of Malolos) as erasure of the feudal woman (signified by MaClara), Filipino identity (formerly Spaniards born and raised in RP, to all islanders regardless of ethnicity), modern education to spread modernist/Enlightenment culture, new analytical methods akin to phenomenology combined by medical diagnosis (he’s a doctor)…If you assess this point by point, which is the scientific/empirical way of evaluating level of success, you’d see variances in the levels of success of his innovative ideas. In the social sciences, INNOVATION means REVOLUTION. Revolution should not be reduced to POLITICAL REVOLUTION which means overthrowing established authority, as any parochial viewpoint is neanderthal.
Excellent points, Erle. However, I don’t have to assess each one of those points you raised empirically as you’ve suggested because aside from the fact that it’s tedious, again, I am specifically talking about the revolution of the SELF not a POLITICAL REVOLUTION or otherwise.
i need much more sites about rizals revolutionary ideas…