Bangsamoro is not Gaza

Nation-state is a relatively new concept in the Middle East. This geographic demarcation was a creation of their recent occupiers, the British and the French. However, this is one concept that Muslims around the world do not believe. As Bernard Lewis says, “Muslims tend to see not a nation subdivided into religious groups but a religion subdivided into nations.” That Muslims feel affinity and solidarity with fellow Muslims around the world, especially those that are oppressed, is an understatement. So when the Palestinians and Israelis went shooting at each other, again, this time in Gaza, the rest of the Muslim world felt obligated and duty bound to show camaraderie. 

One such act happened in Marawi City, Philippines last 17 July 2014. One local newspaper described it as ‘Israel’s invasion in Gaza’ probably likening it with the recent Russian-backed separatists’ occupation of Crimea perhaps to elicit greater emotional response. Invasion or not, both Hamas and Israeli leaders, I believe, are complicit in this decades old religious conflict. Both are guilty in perpetuating this senseless war. But as religious wars go, it is very hard to think rationally when faith is involved. Muslims around the world will always see this conflict as Israel’s fault. To make matters worse, Muslim leaders prop up Israel as a common enemy of Islam. In fact the protesters in Marawi held up an Israeli flag with a word that reads Dajal, before deciding to step on it and light it up just what one would normally do with a PNoy effigy. Now I am not familiar with Islamic eschatology so I have to google the word up. Dajal or Masih ad-Dajjal refers to an evil figure, an impostor, the antichrist, the deceiver or a living devil. Call me pessimistic, but if you start calling your enemy as pure immortal evil, talk of peace becomes impossible. This strategy, at the end of the day, will not serve the Islamic cause well in the long run.

I came across in YouTube a Q&A episode back in 2009 when one female Iranian audience member asked “why the Islamic country Iran is a threat to the peace in the world and not Israel?” I noticed that it is becoming a habit to lay blame on Israel whenever the subject of human rights is discussed. What about the injustices and oppression committed by the leaders of those Islamic nations to their own citizens? Don’t the people have their own say in their country’s internal affairs and not to be told by their leaders what the problem is all the time? In the same vein, Muslim Filipinos for decades since the Jabidah massacre had to endure being told by their so-called leaders that the problem in the Bangsamoro was all about religion.

In 1996, while doing a research paper as a student for a 3-unit course in Notre Dame University Peace Program, we arrived conclusively at the root cause of the Mindanao conflict: land. I still believe a lot of scholars would agree with this assessment. Even before the arrival of Islam in the Philippines, indigenous Filipinos from north to south had been brothers and sisters. Historically, ‘Christian’ Filipinos and ‘Muslim’ Filipinos were one people. The Christian –Muslim conflict was an imported issue from Europe and Middle East and still been currently portrayed by politicians and religious leaders on both sides. Nevertheless, the recent creation of the Bangsamoro, though long overdue, is still welcome. In Gaza however, religion and land are still inseparable issues. For example, Israel was created as a state for theological reasons. Jewish scholars were even sent out to locate the birth place of Moses, to justify their occupation of Israel, but did not find anything. Like the Muslims, Jews believed that Israel is their Promised Land ordained by Yahweh. Again this is not the case in the Bangsamoro.

So while it is notable to condemn violence in Gaza, it must not be done for religious reasons. It is a religious falsification that religion promotes peace when in fact it has mostly been the cause of wars. Bangsamoro leaders may well heed this fact as they walk the path of progress and peace.


Read the Inquirer.net version: http://opinion.inquirer.net/78070/religion-not-root-cause-of-mindanao-strife 

Install secular gov’t in the Bangsamoro

Calling the Bangsamoro government a secular government might be an oxymoron. Why? Bangsamoro, a relatively new term, refers to the original ethnic inhabitants of Mindanao. But it’s not just an ethnic identifier anymore; it is religious as well. To state the obvious, the word “Islamic” appears in the official names of both the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters. Right after launching an offensive in Cotabato, the BIFF, true to its name, reiterated its intention to found “an independent Islamic state.”

I lived in Cotabato and the Sulu islands in the ’90s as a seminarian. Religion aside, it was not hard to sympathize with our Bangsamoro brothers and sisters, who, I thought, genuinely have fought for decades for the right to live in their own land. When Nur Misuari and the Moro National Liberation Front made a peace deal with the Philippine government, he envisioned a modern and prosperous Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), not some theocratic state like Afghanistan. (Although I noticed that labeling a region “Muslim Mindanao” seems by definition obviously countersecular.) For a time I thought Misuari was to become like Kemal Ataturk, Turkey’s secular champion. That is until Misuari, in November 2001, in a desperate grab for power, muddied himself with a sordid act of rebellion, which left 100 dead; an act that was repeated just last September when he organized an assault on Zamboanga City in protest over the MILF-GRP peace deal. This negation of the “peace deal” by Misuari, however, could not poison relations with the Philippine government. Misuari, a renowned UP professor, did not explicitly espouse a religious struggle. Building a secular government in the ARMM was obviously far from his mind.

When the MILF broke away from the MNLF, it did not help that that Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines brokered peace talks in 2003 between the MILF and the Arroyo administration. Archbishop Antonio Ledesma, in July 2008, said that “they should get some religious leaders and look at the peace process itself, because it’s the religious leaders who can provide the moral and spiritual underpinnings of the peace process.” Surely the archbishop must have realized at the time that the conflict in Mindanao was not about the lack of morality and spiritual insight. Christopher Hitchens famously said that “religion poisons everything.” We must well remember that in politics, religion is the problem, not the solution. This scenario has happened before in cities like Belfast, Belgrade, Bosnia, Berlin, Bethlehem, Bombay and Beirut where religious solutions to political problems were installed. This is a fact that the MILF, the current peace panel led by Miriam Coronel-Ferrer and even President Aquino realized. No wonder Catholic priest, Fr. Jun Mercado, principal founder of Kusog Mindanaw, to his consternation, is not the head of the current peace panel. Former party-list Rep. Patricia Sarenas in 2007 pointed out, “I guess we should consider the reasons why the MILF would not want a Catholic priest to head the GRP.” Even fellow priests cautioned that “the Church may be perceived to be on the government side rather than on the side of justice and peace and thus become ineffective as mediator. Clergy should be advocate and mediator, not negotiator.”

What’s crucial in the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro is the “right to freedom and expression of religion and beliefs.” Is it possible to be a Moro and respect the secular government? I may be asking too much. While the 1987 Philippine Constitution explicitly states the “principle of separation of church and state,” equally guilty is the Catholic Church which still exerts a powerful influence on state affairs. Marites Vitug in her essay “Are we truly a secular society?” (Rappler 5/3/2013) believes that secularism does not work in practice in the Philippines. “Like many others, I feel the omnipresence of the Catholic Church in government. It’s a layer that seems to permeate policy-making (remember 14 years of the RH bill), government buildings and offices, the way our public officials conduct themselves, and now, our elections.”

In order to build an effective and working secular government, the solution not only rests on whether Catholic and Islamic religious leaders will exercise restraint. The national government must encourage and enforce equal representation of all religions in public life, and start a national conversation on the benefits of a secular government.

Read more: http://opinion.inquirer.net/71565/install-secular-govt-in-the-bangsamoro#ixzz3ASjOZH5D