I agree with Prof. Jojo Abinales that historians are badly needed in the peace process and even at this stage where agreements have been made and will now be implemented. My experience in the past was that it was difficult to counter arguments based on history when the interpretation of that history seemed so one-sided even distorted. When I was in the peace panel in 2010, its Chair Rafael Seguis, and several of us in that panel from Mindanao, knew instinctively that this interpretation was wrong and not borne by our experience. This was specially true for lumads and for Christians whose families who have lived in Mindanao even before large scale settlement programs were Implemented in the island. As for me, I am glad that my understanding of the Mindanao conflict squarely begins with the 1974 MNLF war and its immediate antecedents. I know that there is a link to the longer history but I believed this was tangential and more symbikic; the key marker is that period when Nur Misuari and other young Moros broke from their traditional leaders to wage a rebellion against the Marcos led central government. If we understood what let to that, how and why is happened, and more important see the seeds of renewal in that impulse, the opportunities that provided for change in Mindanao, then pathways forward would be pinpointed. Another discipline we sorely need in the peace process, including in this debate on the Bangsamoro, is anthropology. We could be helped and enlightned in the issues of territory and indigenous peoples, both very contentious and emotional, if we had the benefit of anthropological experts that could shed light on how the concept of political boundaries differ for the notion of real boundaries among peoples and communities.
Posted on: Sat, 22 Nov 2014 01:57:19 +0000
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