{"id":10174,"date":"2022-01-08T03:53:19","date_gmt":"2022-01-08T13:53:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/?p=10174"},"modified":"2022-01-08T03:53:20","modified_gmt":"2022-01-08T13:53:20","slug":"the-jan-6th-insurrectionists-arent-worthy-of-the-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/2022\/01\/08\/the-jan-6th-insurrectionists-arent-worthy-of-the-name\/","title":{"rendered":"The Jan. 6th Insurrectionists Aren\u2019t Worthy Of The Name"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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by Emil Guillermo<\/em>

<\/strong>It\u2019s been a year since the Jan. 6th Capitol Riots of 2021. Please don\u2019t call the perps \u201cinsurrectionists.\u201dCall them what they are.

Lawless, unprincipled rioters. Right-wing political looters. Deluded Donald Trump supporters. Acolytes of an authoritarian.

Insurrectionists take down authoritarians like Trump in the name of democracy. Insurrectionists are serious people, not armed lunatics lured by the smell of burnt gunpowder and the sound of broken glass.

\u201cInsurrectionists\u201d is the legal term for people intent on revolt against the established government, in this case our democracy.

The Jan. 6 rioters were anti-democracy to say the least.

So, leave the term \u201cInsurrectionist\u201d for the history most people don\u2019t even know. Leave the word to describe the Filipinos who after the Spanish-American war, stood up to the American imperialists and established a new Philippine republic, said to be the first democracy in Asia. It was so significant the revolt became the Philippine-American War.

By that standard, the Jan. 6th insurrectionists couldn\u2019t carry a Filipino insurrectionists\u2019 jockstrap.

As they say, the Jan. Sixers just don\u2019t have the balls. Q-balls, maybe?

Or maybe if all those subpoenaed by the bipartisan committee in Congress investigating the matter comply, we might actually uncover the truth of that day. That instead of a revolt in the name of democracy, what we had on January 6th<\/sup> 2021 was essentially a coup led by forces loyal to an ex-president who lost the election in November 2020.

That\u2019s why the work of the committee is important and Jan. 6th<\/sup> should be declared Democracy Day in America.

That\u2019s when the vote of the people was protected by an outmanned Capitol Police force that thwarted an unruly mob out to destroy the basic right of all Americans. The mob couldn\u2019t stop the votes from being certified and the election made official. Democracy survived on January 6th.

The real insurrectionists in history
<\/strong>And let\u2019s not forget those real insurrectionists of the Philippines.

Though they fought bravely and were defeated in the end, were they really defeated? It took nearly 50 years, but ultimately the US realized the idea of the world\u2019s leading democracy being a colonizing force was a bad look.

Still, when you tell people about the history of the Malolos Republic, and the Philippine-American War, most today will say, \u201cDid that really happen?\u201d

It did. It was maybe a paragraph in your 9th<\/sup> grade US History textbook.

Nearly a million Filipino casualties resulted from the war. But the lasting aspect of the war has been what I call the \u201cColonial Fog.\u201d Something happened, but how can you remember when it\u2019s never really taught? Or when the information and documents stay untaught, unexamined, buried in research libraries few people visit.

But something did happen. And you don\u2019t have to be a scholar to realize it.

The experience has given Filipinos a psychological ailment that\u2019s been passed on in our DNA for generations. You may call it \u201cColonial Mentality.\u201d But it has affected Filipinos from 1902, the official end of the Philippine-American War, to now.

Do you ever wonder if you\u2019re good enough?

Do you think the colonization period was a good thing because it got many of us to America?

Do you ever think that, well, at least we got English out of the deal?

That\u2019s the problem.

Between the \u201cFog\u201d (the lack of knowing our history) and the \u201cMentality,\u201d the colonial impact is always there.

I\u2019ve been writing about this practically my whole column life. But lately I read a piece by a young American Filipina, just beginning to struggle making sense of the colonial past.

Oakland resident Eleanor Wikstrom is a second-year student at Harvard. And her essay published last December in the Harvard Crimson made me think about the things I experienced during my undergraduate years there more than 40 years ago.

The Filipino American experience hasn\u2019t changed much there.

Wikstrom just wanted to know why there weren\u2019t Tagalog courses at Harvard? There is no good answer.

And then in researching the colonial period, she found the confirmation of the history seldom taught. The first superintendent of education in the Philippines under President Taft included academic elites like one Fred W. Atkinson, a Harvard graduate, who was charged with making English the new national language.

The better to subjugate the people whom the elites considered no better than illiterate savages.

Wikstrom learns this at the very school that attempted to counter authentic Filipino identity with a colonial salve.

Just as it was for me, assembling the Philippines\u2019 colonial puzzle has been a source of both irony and trauma for Wikstrom. \u201cOf the jagged wound that is U.S. colonialism in the Philippines, a gun is smoking in Harvard\u2019s hands,\u201d she wrote.

I contacted Wikstrom for a conversation about our experiences with the \u201ccolonizing force\u201d separated by generations to learn more about the enduring presence of the colonial fog. Listen to the podcast on Emil Amok\u2019s Takeout on Apple, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts. Or see it posted on www.amok.com<\/a>.

Happy New Year!
<\/strong>Just Google \u201cNew Year Baby,\u201d or \u201cFirst Baby\u201d and you\u2019ll see. It\u2019s a thing. Right at the start of 2022, that\u2019s always the big news.

So, this year, I hope you took my advice. Just rebirth ourselves. We all deserve it after 2021 and 2020, the twin towers of Covid, and now with Omicron following Delta. (Remember it\u2019s pronounced \u201cAwe-micron,\u201d from the Greek, not the Valley Girl, \u201cOh-migawd.\u201d)We could all use a re-birthing, a new beginning right about now, don\u2019t you think?

Just do it. It\u2019s not too late to be your own New Year\u2019s baby.

Think of the final push, the drive through the birth canal like gliding into life with ease. Pain? What pain? We\u2019re bringing the joy, and newness. And after what we\u2019ve been through, we all need that. A fresh start.

Normally, a columnist reviews the year past, but after this particularly grim year, we can\u2019t wait for someone else\u2019s baby.

We need to be the baby. We all could use that baby perspective.

Maybe not the diaper part. But what\u2019s a little poop after 2021?

Let\u2019s all be looking at life like a baby. And if you\u2019re thinking, \u201cI was with you until the diaper part, Emil,\u201d OK, I hear you. You take your past and learn from it. Don\u2019t dwell. Use the past to build back better. No matter what Joe Manchin thinks.

I\u2019m fresh and new. But I\u2019m not dumb. In keeping with my New Year\u2019s Covid Resolution to \u201cStay Negative,\u201d I\u2019m staying in. My self-lockdown.

I\u2019m all for freedom, but this is a matter of public health. If you\u2019re going around, unvaccinated, you are only helping the spread of the virus which is looking for a host like you to glom on to.

How much risk are you willing to take? Is whatever you want to do worth getting sick to the point of death? The U.S. is approaching 850,000 deaths due to Covid. You want to be a number? I\u2019d rather be the New Year\u2019s Baby. Safe and swaddled. \u00a0To hell with Philosopher John Locke. Individual liberty? Public health, I say.A modified lockdown for me. Stay safe and healthy this January, we\u2019ve got a whole year to go.

EMIL GUILLERMO<\/strong> is a journalist and commentator. A former host of NPR\u2019s \u201cAll Things Considered,\u201d he was a member of the Advertiser editorial board and a columnist for the Star Bulletin. Listen to him live at 2p Pacific on YouTube, Facebook @emilguillermo.media, and Twitter @emilamok. Or see recordings on <\/em>www.amok.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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