I'm on a Boat

Just a short post this week: on Saturday evening I went for a little dinner cruise around Manila Bay, which provided a good occasion for some pictures of the Manila skyline, albeit at night. (I should highlight just how huge Manila is: Metro Manila has about 12.9 million people, according to 2015 numbers -- http://www.nso-ncr.ph/. That puts Manila on par with cities like Kolkata/Calcutta, Lagos, and Los Angeles. The Metro Manila area includes about 15 separate municipalities.)

Here is the aforementioned boat, where dinner was served:

One of the passengers was celebrating a birthday, which the crew and the musicians announced at least 10 times. It made me think of my dad, because of how much he loves that.

But here is seaside Manila at twilight:

The pier from which we left is off a small peninsula which juts out into the bay off the city, which stretches up and down the coast, and then continues inland. Here's that peninsula, which has casinos, a large mall (more on that in a bit), and hotels.

And, they just happened to do a little fireworks show--just for me, I'm sure.

So, back to malls. Manila, and the Philippines as a whole, is mall-crazy. Right on the peninsula with the pier is a gigantic mall, the Mall of Asia. (I think there should be a World Series of Malls, with the Mall of Asia vs. the Mall of America.) I just have a small piece of it here; just imagine this, but continuing forever.

This is terrible, but whenever I'm near a mall, I can't help but think of the Blues Brothers, and thus I will leave you with that edifying question, "Yes, do you have a Miss Piggy?"

Fear Itself

I hope you'll forgive my soapbox, as I think about being an American outside the country on an important day.

On January 6, 1941, FDR articulated a vision of what the United States of America could, and should, represent in the world. As part of his State of the Union address, he was explaining why the USA should support the British against the Nazis, and he said:

We look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression -- everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way -- everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want, which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants -- everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear, which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor -- anywhere in the world.

That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called “new order” of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.

To that new order we oppose the greater conception -- the moral order. A good society is able to face schemes of world domination and foreign revolutions alike without fear.

Since the beginning of our American history we have been engaged in change, in a perpetual, peaceful revolution, a revolution which goes on steadily, quietly, adjusting itself to changing conditions without the concentration camp or the quicklime in the ditch. The world order which we seek is the cooperation of free countries, working together in a friendly, civilized society.

This nation has placed its destiny in the hands and heads and hearts of its millions of free men and women, and its faith in freedom under the guidance of God. Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights and keep them. Our strength is our unity of purpose.

To that high concept there can be no end save victory.

This speech reflects ideals which the United States has rarely lived up to, but that doesn’t make them less valuable. The America that FDR describes here is one I want to live in, that I am proud to call my home. At the time, the Four Freedoms proved as inspirational outside the United States as they were inside the country. But the freedoms serve as a goal for Americans to pursue, both within our borders and around the world.

At a time when our country seems more divided than ever, and the world seems drawn more and more to a ‘new order’ on offer from Russia or China (one where political freedom is traded for material prosperity), I think we need to remember this speech, and its moment. January 1941 was a pretty dark time for democracy: the Nazi-Soviet pact still held, the British were on the ropes, France had fallen, and Japan was on the march. FDR had just been elected to an unprecedented third term, and had instituted the first peacetime draft in U.S. history.

Keeping the differences between 1941 and 2017 in mind, the Four Freedoms still offer us a path forward, through:

• Common goals (securing freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear), even if we disagree on how to achieve those goals.

• A resolve to refuse the power of fear: even though FDR refers to arms, I also love how the speech urges Americans to refuse fear more generally: “A good society is able to face schemes of world domination and foreign revolutions alike without fear.” This should be familiar for Christians: “For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control” (2 Timothy 1:7, ESV).

• The choice to accept and commit to imperfect processes: After all, the good society can refuse fear because, even though it “placed its destiny in the hands and heads and hearts of its millions of free men and women,” who are fickle and feeble, it also puts “its faith in freedom under the guidance of God.” Our American experiment, the American Revolution, continues, “steadily, quietly, adjusting itself to changing conditions without the concentration camp or the quicklime in the ditch.” To refer back to 2 Timothy, God replaces fear not simply with power but also with love and self-control.

• The reminder that no matter what divides Americans, or even what divides freedom-loving people all over the world from each other, “Our strength is our unity of purpose. To that high concept there can be no end save victory.”

This is not to paper over the real differences and divisions within the United States; rather, let’s acknowledge those (provided for under the First Freedom), and move forward from that starting point to try and empathize with one another and find some unity of purpose. It takes a conscious choice to refuse fear, and to pursue unity. But if we choose to see from others’ perspectives, and assume others are acting in good faith rather than bad faith, I think it would be a good start toward achieving that unity of purpose. After all, “to that high concept there can be no end save victory.”

National Museum of the Philippines

Last Saturday (Jan. 7) I went down to Intramuros, the old section of Manila (as in, 16th century old) and looked around the National Museum of the Philippines. The Museum is housed in the old legislative building where the Philippine House of Representatives and Senate met during the U.S. colonial period (1898-1946). Where beautiful art now hangs, Philippine leaders crafted a constitution in 1935 which led to the Philippines' independence as a republic in 1946, and that constitution held until Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law and established a dictatorship in 1972.

Here are some of the treasures from the National Museum:

This is a sculpture by the great Filipino patriot, poet, doctor, Renaissance man Jose Rizal, whose novels Noli Me Tangere (1887) and El Filibusterismo (1891) were the backbone of Philippine nationalism. Rizal was executed by the Spanish for subversion in 1897, but he remains the national hero of the Philippines. The sculpture, "The Mother's Revenge" (1894), depicts a dog attacking the crocodile who has taken her pups.

In the old House chamber hangs one of the masterpieces of Filipino art, Juan Luna's Spoliarium (1884), which won the first prize at the National Exposition in Madrid that year, heralding Filipinos as having "arrived" in the Spanish art scene. Juan Luna had an illustrious career in Spain, and several of his major works remain in Spain. The painting depicts the area of the Roman circus where gladiators are disarmed and disrobed.

A place of shame and defeat, it makes me think of the passage in Hebrews where the writer reminds us that "Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come" (Hebrews 13:12-14, ESV).

Luna spent much of his career in Europe, including in France. I enjoy the expression on the face of this sleeper from Domestic Scenes in Paris, ca. 1887-92. Looks like me when I have to get up:

Later in his career, Luna turned to social realism, and produced works depicting life in Asia as well as in Europe. I love this piece in particular for its isolation. (Philippine Scenes, 1894/5)



Fittingly, this watercolor is the first depiction of the Philippine national flag, and the last work of Luna (ca. March 1899), when he was in Europe working as a diplomat for the Philippine Republic, which declared its independence from Spain in 1898 and which the United States fought from 1899-1902. This bloody war (which occasioned Rudyard Kipling's famous "White Man's Burden" poem) is often forgotten in the United States, but not in the Philippines.

Now some more recent works: this sculpture from 1949 is entitled "Plea for Freedom from Fear," referring to FDR's famous 1941 speech (the sculptor is Fermin Gomez). The work shows the raw emotion and pain of a nation destroyed and scarred by the Second World War. By 1949, a Communist insurgency (the Huks), dating from anti-Japanese guerrilla forces, was also engulfing the main island of Luzon.

These striking, modernist wall-sized paintings were in the cafeteria for the International Rice Research Institute, a Rockefeller and Ford Foundation-funded think tank set up in the 1960 here in Manila. The paintings show Philippine life, as depicted by Vicente Manansala, one of the great 20th century Filipino painters.

Finally, just because of the nature of my work on anticolonialism and internationalism, I was drawn to the title of this piece (I can't say I care for the painting itself, though): Third World (1981), by Papo de Asis.

I didn't even make it through the entire museum. It holds lots of treasures! Here is the building, in the sunset as I was leaving:

And the memorial to Jose Rizal at the site of his execution in 1897, in nearby Rizal Park:

For your viewing pleasure, the greatest of guides to any city or art museum: Sister Wendy.




*Sorry for the weird size issues with the text. I'm still figuring it out.

Mabuhay!

(Mabuhay means welcome in Tagalog, the main language of Luzon, of which Manila is the main city. That’s pretty much all the Tagalog I know. Check back with me later.)

Well, after about 24 hours of air travel, I made it to Manila in the Philippines on January 4. Friend-of-a-friend (and now just a friend!) Ramon Dimacali was incredibly generous to host me in Makati, a pretty affluent area of Manila, for my first week while I got over jetlag and readjusted. (If you’re looking for insurance in the Philippines, you can’t go wrong with his FPG Insurance: http://fpgins.com/ph; he’s a really savvy businessman.)

Moreover, Mr. Dimacali provided an invaluable connection to the family of Carlos P. Romulo (CPR), the politician whom I am studying here. So, last Thursday, I got to meet Roberto Romulo, the son of CPR—and a fascinating figure in his own right. The former head of IBM in the Philippines, Mr. Romulo then served as the Philippines’ ambassador to the European Community (now the European Union) in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Mr. Romulo provided helpful insight into CPR as a man and a father—perspective you don’t usually get from archival documents.

With Mr. Roberto Romulo (on the right, in case you don't know what I look like).

I also got to meet Mr. Romulo’s daughter Liana, who is responsible for taking care of CPR’s papers and created the wonderful content about CPR at the Carlos Romulo Foundation website (http://carlospromulo.org/). She also curated an amazing set of photographs to decorate Romulo’s Café in Makati, a delightful restaurant which she showed me around after lunch with her dad. If you’re in Manila, be sure to check it out!

I’ll have more in the coming days on museums in Manila, as well as where I’m working (the University of the Philippines). Until then, here is some footage of CPR on a 1955 TV program very different from what passes for news these days.