| 27
May 2003
Of empires and
vassals
ROME started out as a
small city, but today what we know of ancient history revolves around
the Roman Empire. The Mongolians, who began as nomadic tribes, were able
to occupy China and establish the Yuan dynasty. And Britain, with a land
area smaller than that of the Philippines, carved out an empire on which
the sun never set.
How were these empires built? Brute force certainly played an important
role, with millions of lives lost to the onslaught of the imperial
armies. Military might was important as well to intimidate the new
subjects and to extract taxes and tributes to sustain the empires.
But we have to pause, too, and wonder, how the imperial powers, with
relatively small home bases, could deploy so many of their soldiers and
administrators to watch over such vast territories.
Actually, they didn't. The most successful empires sent only a handful
of colonial administrators and troops to maintain the colonies. The key
to the colonizers' success was their ability to transform the local
elite into loyal intermediaries. The British were masters here, managing
to control the huge Indian subcontinent through a network of vassal raj
states, each nominally headed by a maharajah.
Tapping the warlords and their armies was useful to keep the natives
from uniting and revolting. The effects of this divide-and-rule strategy
remained long after the colonial administrators left -- just look at the
Philippines and the way we continue to be divided by loyalties to
individual leaders than to a nation.
Mind you, it was important to give the local warlords a sense that they
were in power. Historical archives are filled with accounts of the
extravagant lifestyles of these local satraps, lifestyles that were
sometimes even more opulent than those of their colonial masters. The
historical accounts speak, too, of how these local leaders would go off
to the imperial courts to pay homage to the empire, where they would be
wined and dined with great fanfare.
The imperial courts knew how to play on these local hirelings' conceits,
extolling their loyalty and friendship, proclaiming them as invaluable
allies. Their puppets were not completely guileless either. They knew
that their loyalty to powerful emperors meant that they, too, could bask
in imperial glory, which in turn legitimized their own power back home.
It was important for stories of the grand receptions in the imperial
courts to circulate back home, to let the natives know that the local
chief was backed by even more powerful lords.
Today we don't talk of empires and vassals, but future historians will
find that even in the early 21st century, such relations persisted, and
the Philippines provided a perfect case example. The historians will
marvel at the way our President's state visit was covered in the
Philippines, with front page headlines and photographs proclaiming a
triumphant visit, praising President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's loyalty
to the United States and how this would usher in an era of peace and
prosperity. They will read of Senator Aquilino Pimentel Jr. calling on
the United States to broker peace in Mindanao, and the growing clamor
for Ms Macapagal-Arroyo to remain President beyond 2004 to guarantee
continuing US support for the Philippines.
Local media coverage of the President's state visit was quite different
from what the US media had. On the East Coast, the state visit made it
to the front page only in the Washington Times, a right-wing newspaper
owned by the Moonies. The New York Times featured the visit in the
inside pages, the articles mentioning Ms Macapagal-Arroyo almost
incidentally, as part of Bush's war against terrorism.
Almost as if there was nothing to report on, an Associated Press
dispatch on the state dinner focused on what the guests wore (Ms
Macapagal-Arroyo in a "purple dress with a lime-green sash,"
Laura Bush in "a shimmering golden gown"), on the food served
(crabs, mango sorbet with coconut mousse), on the floral arrangements
and table settings (do you really want to know?). The AP dispatch was
used by both The New York Times and the Washington Post, the latter
carrying the article in its Style section.
I sense there was more than a reference to height in this excerpt from
the AP dispatch: "Arroyo, considerably shorter than Bush, stood on
a box at his lectern in the State Dining Room to return the toast.
'We've stood side by side at every crucial point in modern history,' she
said."
Another New York Times article, headlined "Bush promises more US
troops to Philippines (sic) leader," gives this version of our
history: "The United States won possession of the Islands in the
Spanish-American War of 1898. They were later a commonwealth, and became
an independent country in 1946." Yup, just as Ms Macapagal-Arroyo
has no persona apart from Bush, "the Islands" have no identity
except as an object of Mother America winning us, possessing us,
civilizing us, granting us independence.
The New York Times article described how "eager" Ms Macapagal-Arroyo
was "to acquire contracts for Philippine businesses in the
rebuilding of Iraq" and how she wanted "to see more American
investment in the Islands," the desire for trade being, of course
"in the context of fighting terrorism."
The Islands again. That term, together with "Philippine
Islands" and "PI," are hangovers from the colonial
period. ("PI," I should remind expats and Filipino-Americans
who still use the term, is also an abbreviation for an obscene
expression.) But we shouldn't be surprised with such terminologies,
given that we've prostrated ourselves as unquestioning Bush lackeys,
offering our men to help fight imperial wars, and turning somersaults
when the imperial commander in chief offers us "non-NATO ally"
status and a return visit (actually, a stopover for a meeting of the
Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation).
How was the coverage in the media of other Western countries? Kris
Aquino's senatorial ambitions was given more substantive coverage.
We shouldn't expect the Americans, or the world, to respect us, to
recognize we're no longer "PI" but an independent
"RP," unless we learn to respect ourselves.
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