nationalism

[ShayanMirza]

Originally Posted by Manolo

I think that nationalistic fervour is born from one's need to portray one's country in a greatr light than it is. A nationalist will see his/her country as occupying a unique important role in the world, or representing some unique aspect of humanity that cannot be found anywhere else.

I strongly agree and disagree--I think nationalism tends towards emphasizing the positive in order to an imply a negative about everyone else. However, I think there is such a thing as positive nationalism, since every country has something unique that is unknown anywhere else. Nationalism can be made to overemphasize it and turn a point of pride into a tool of hate, but I don't think it does so by nature. In my opinion, it is distinctly possible to be proud of one's country and its unique contributions to human heritage and at the same time respect the contributions of other societies and countries as well, much as a musician may be proud of their knowledge and skill and still revel in the contribution of their colleagues to the greater sound of the symphony as a whole. Perhaps my disagreement is just semantics--constructive nationalism may just be called patriotism, in which case nationalism would always be the negative flip-side.

And David, that was ridiculously well-said. I couldn't agree more with your summary.

[Emanuel]

Originally Posted by ShayanMirza

Perhaps my disagreement is just semantics--constructive nationalism may just be called patriotism, in which case nationalism would always be the negative flip-side.

Agreed!
Here "nationalist" carries a somewhat negative tone. I think I better say that the nationalist or overly-patriotic individual tends to over-emphasize or exaggerate some aspect of his/her culture. This feeling may escalate into an air of superiority and turn nasty. I'm all for patriotism and pride though, as long as it is founded on truth.

[Emanuel]

About the Philippines...the discussions on this forum have been my introduction to this country and its people. I am impressed and feel that Filipinos justly have plenty to be proud of. As I understand so far, they lost in their struggle against the Spanish and later against the Americans. That battles were masscres is undeniable I think and a moot point - wars are ugly. In the need to conquer fast and show success to the upper hierarchy, rough measures are carried out. The Americans massacre as every other colonial power did, and their motives are irrelevant. Whether it was because they couldn't tell women apart from men, or that they specifically wanted to kill the women is again irrelevant - they did it. I'm certain that the people of the Philippines did the same in their own wars prior to colonialization. So it goes and so it has always been. Filipino manuals will write the Filipino part while American manuals will write the American part. The researcher (of weapons or other things) will sift through all this and find out the simple cold truth of action and events. He can determine the credibility of each source in providing each piece of data and work with it accordingly.
Numbers become irrelevant in conflicts I think- whether 100 were killed or thousands were butchered, the fact remains that a lot of people were killed at one specific moment in time as the result of deliberate action. Questions of resistance, insurgents, bandits or terrorist are moot in this point I think. The invading powers are ultimately responsible for this, since death is a result of their presence.

I think that invading powers will always try to present their actions as good and heroic against unruly, mean savages in order to preserve moral justification even when there isn't any. The indians were beastly savages for attacking poor settlers who only wanted to cultivate the land given to them by the government. The Filipinos and Moros were savages for not accepting benevolent Spanish/American rule. On the other side, the savages were heros bravely defending their homeland against the barbaric invaders who wanted to steal their God-given land. In most cases I think the invaded has the moral justification to resist an invader...not everyone agrees with this though.

Emanuel

[Tim Simmons]

What it really really is not true!!!!! I will start to cry.

[LabanTayo]

Originally Posted by Manolo

About the Philippines...the discussions on this forum have been my introduction to this country and its people. I am impressed and feel that Filipinos justly have plenty to be proud of. As I understand so far, they lost in their struggle against the Spanish and later against the Americans. That battles were masscres is undeniable I think and a moot point - wars are ugly. In the need to conquer fast and show success to the upper hierarchy, rough measures are carried out. The Americans massacre as every other colonial power did, and their motives are irrelevant. Whether it was because they couldn't tell women apart from men, or that they specifically wanted to kill the women is again irrelevant - they did it. I'm certain that the people of the Philippines did the same in their own wars prior to colonialization. So it goes and so it has always been. Filipino manuals will write the Filipino part while American manuals will write the American part. The researcher will sift through all this and find out the simple cold truth of action and events.

Manolo,
We can't rewrite the history that has already been written. All we can do is put out for everyone to read, is the other side.

Am I bitter that the Spanish took over the islands and called them the Philippines? No.
Am I bitter that the Americans won the Philippines? No.
The Spanish did some great things for the islands they called the Philippines.
The Americans also did great things for them. Without the Americans, I wouldnt be here today.

Am I bitter that the history that was written about them might be skewed? Yes.
Am I bitter that history written today has factual errors? Yes.

Unfortunetely, we cant go back in time and write the real history, whether the truth hurts or not.

I am willing to accept the truth if it hurts, as long as its the truth.
I will not be bias in my search for the true facts of any event. If we lost, we lost. Can't be biased if the facts are true.

Everyone heralds MacArthur as the savior of the Philippines during WWII.
Read the history books.
Now, go ask any of the vets living today, that he left behind when the Japanese took over, if he was a hero. Ask them what their side of the story is. Ask the Bataan death march survivors. These are people that today, we can get the real truth from.
I understand that war is war and you have to do anything to win, but to leave out facts in the history books about what really took place, is wrong. Thats National pride at its worst.

I praise our famous writter, Mark Twain, for trying to relay the real truth.
And he was American. He didnt have National pride bias when writing his letters about the Battle of Bud Dajo.

http://www.boondocksnet.com/ai/ailte..._featarms.html

[David]

Shelley, i am all for seeking alternatives to the side of the story that has been presented by the U.S. Government in this and ,in fact, many other actions, both past and present. But i wonder if this forum is the place for a debate of this scope. I would hope we could keep this discussion on topic, which from my perspective is how we study ethnographic weapons. I fear that this conversation has the potention to spiral into a much larger debate on international politics and morality. Can we talk about the weapons? How has the western perspective skewed the history of the Moro kris, for instance, or the barong. The historical perspective that you are raising here is indeed tragic, but can we tie this into the topic?

[LabanTayo]

Originally Posted by David

Shelley, i am all for seeking alternatives to the side of the story that has been presented by the U.S. Government in this and ,in fact, many other actions, both past and present. But i wonder if this forum is the place for a debate of this scope. I would hope we could keep this discussion on topic, which from my perspective is how we study ethnographic weapons. I fear that this conversation has the potention to spiral into a much larger debate on international politics and morality. Can we talk about the weapons? How has the western perspective skewed the history of the Moro kris, for instance, or the barong. The historical perspective that you are raising here is indeed tragic, but can we tie this into the topic?

to fully understand the the weapons we collect, we have to learn about the people who used them, the way they used them, and against whom they used them.
if we believe gen. wood and his report, the moros used the barong and kris as a projectile weapon.
thats news to me and i tried it out on one of my ivory kris's. i tried to kill a defensless rabbit with it. i threw the sword too hard, overshot my target, and the rabbit came up and bit my toe.
i went back in the house and told my wife i got in a horrible fight with a carrot weilding rabbit and stubbed my toe, hence the bloody cut.
as far as she's concerned, i told her the truth.
but the truth is that i thought what gen. wood said was true and tried it myself and failed.
so, in collecting philippine swords, i had to read the history books and got bit.

there, i tied it to a weapons related subject.

[ariel]

Originally Posted by LabanTayo

to fully understand the the weapons we collect, we have to learn about the people who used them, the way they used them, and against whom they used them.
if we believe gen. wood and his report, the moros used the barong and kris as a projectile weapon.
thats news to me and i tried it out on one of my ivory kris's. i tried to kill a defensless rabbit with it. i threw the sword too hard, overshot my target, and the rabbit came up and bit my toe.
i went back in the house and told my wife i got in a horrible fight with a carrot weilding rabbit and stubbed my toe, hence the bloody cut.
as far as she's concerned, i told her the truth.
but the truth is that i thought what gen. wood said was true and tried it myself and failed.
so, in collecting philippine swords, i had to read the history books and got bit.

there, i tied it to a weapons related subject.

You are the second person in the American history attacked by a rabbit: the first one was ex-President Jimmy Carter.
http://www.newsoftheodd.com/article1021.html
An epidemics in the making....

[Emanuel]

Originally Posted by LabanTayo

but to leave out facts in the history books about what really took place, is wrong. Thats National pride at its worst.

Thas is true LabanTayo, and it is sad when it is still ongoing. That's when nationalism becomes politics. A government will not teach new generations that some of its passed actions were bad. That's just a sort of propaganda. The important thing is for people to seek alternative sources and find all sides of a story in order to make up your mind and form an understanding of the matter. That people are kept ignorant of their country's true history is visible in the US and Canada as well I think. I don't think that can be changed to easily. The best thing a prof or even a parent can do is direct students to different views to make them understand that there are different sides of history and different truths.

The other thing about nationalism is that it renders one blind. The nationalist may forget history for the sake of patriotic pride, and his/her resulting actions may certainlly have adverse effects on others.

That's frustrating as hell I think...not meant in an offensive way but there is the expression of the "self-righteous idiot" the one who may be totally wrong, but so determined that his/her view is the God-given truth that he/she will not see reason no matter how hard one tries to show them. The self-righteous idiot knows that his country is great and good and has always been so, and any point to the contrary is wrong. Not much you can do against this attitude.

[Emanuel]

David, I also think you summarized it quite nicely. American accounts and photographs may present the cold facts about what weapons were used and how they were employed. The native population will know what the weapon was and what its intended purpose was.

As for perception of the kris, my own experience has been that nowadays any wavy/snaky blade is called a kris blade, and there is the misconception that it will cause greater damage in a stab than a straight blade because it stakes its way into the body. I found it hard to detract some people from this view. There is also a seller on ebay that claims the kris was known to be superior to Toledo swords...whatever that may mean I do not know if the seller is Filipino/Indonesian or not but that's a big claim to make.

Emanuel

[Emanuel]

LabanTayo, are there any Filipino knives used as projectiles? If so, Wood's account could be understood as soldiers would group all the weird Filipino weapons as kris and barong.

Emanuel

[LabanTayo]

Originally Posted by Manolo

Thas is true LabanTayo, and it is sad when it is still ongoing. That's when nationalism becomes politics. A government will not teach new generations that some of its passed actions were bad. That's just a sort of propaganda. The important thing is for people to seek alternative sources and find all sides of a story in order to make up your mind and form an understanding of the matter. That people are kept ignorant of their country's true history is visible in the US and Canada as well I think. I don't think that can be changed to easily. The best thing a prof or even a parent can do is direct students to different views to make them understand that there are different sides of history and different truths.

The other thing about nationalism is that it renders one blind. The nationalist may forget history for the sake of patriotic pride, and his/her resulting actions may certainlly have adverse effects on others.

That's frustrating as hell I think...not meant in an offensive way but there is the expression of the "self-righteous idiot" the one who may be totally wrong, but so determined that his/her view is the God-given truth that he/she will not see reason no matter how hard one tries to show them. The self-righteous idiot knows that his country is great and good and has always been so, and any point to the contrary is wrong. Not much you can do against this attitude.

agreed.