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The
Discourse of Terror and Its Pacific Effects
By
David Palumbo-Liu
Bulatlat.com
On
February 21, 2003, the United States announced it would send some 1,700 troops
to carry on the war against terrorism, this time, in the Philippines. Despite Manila’s (at least, as that name names the
ruling state leader) welcoming of the troops, there was absolute disagreement
between the US and the Philippines as to the precise role those troops were to
play. The US government insisted
that these troops would be entirely active; the Philippines government countered
that they would remain as security forces and advisors.
Very few in the US press wondered about this contradiction.
Yet a minimal perusal of the recent history of the reterritorialization
of the islands as the “second front in the (US) war against terrorism” would
yield more than enough data for an explanation, and a deeper understanding of
what, exactly, the United States is doing (or supposedly not doing) in the
Philippines. Rather than being
“just” an extension of the “global” war against terrorism, without too
much of a stretch of the imagination the return of the American military to the
islands can be seen to be nothing less than the re-colonization of the
Philippines, or at the very least, a signal of a critical erosion of the
sovereignty of a democratic nation, an erosion predicated upon its leader’s
precipitous deployment of what I will call the “discourse of terrorism.”
That discourse is characterized by the recasting of everyday political, social,
economic, and cultural life as permeated by potential terror or
terror-making, and the consequent use of that possibility in fueling
policy-making and public opinion-shaping.
It is thus not (only) the present that drives policy, but a future particularly
construed as terror-laden. The
trouble is that the logic of pre-emption is always engaged in at once balancing
costs and benefits (the usual policy issues), and the feasibility and
moral rightness of envisioning the possible future to be pre-exempted in this
fashion.
The
discourse of antiterrorism has thus remapped not only the entire world,
parcelling out new alliances and agreements and territorializations, but
also the imaginings of all future worlds.
My main point with regard to the current situation in Asia/America is
that, since we are now told that the US can and should act according to not only
actual situations, but possible situations (the logic of pre-emption), the
mobilization of action according to this logic is prone to contradiction and
yields unexpected consequences as they are mapped simulataneously on the US, on
various Asia states and entire regions.
The indiscriminant use of the discourse of terrorism has raised serious
issues of sovereignty and democratic governance even as it as consolidated
regional and global spaces and local regimes.
Ultimately, the deployment of the discourse of anti-terrorism has been
revealed to have an inherent and tremendous capacity to backfire and negate, or
at least compromise, its pragmatic purposes.
In the Philippines, the government has stragetically decided on a
re-imagining of its national space in ways that might well cost it more in terms
of self-determination that it will benefit by garnering US and other foreign
aid. Furthermore, its strategic
position on the global stage might coincide with its fragmentation domestically.
Almost
immediately after the September 11th terrorist attacks on the United States, the
Philippines government rushed to at once declare its active allegiance to the US
in its response to those attacks, and to characterize itself as already engaged
in anti-terrorist activities. Recently-elected
President Gloria Macagapal Arroyo rushed to embrace the discourse of terror, and
to deploy it to obtain foreign aid for her country.
Nevertheless, this strategy has proven to open up the contradictions of
the “war against terrorism,” especially as those contradictions are
manifested in the Philippines nation. For
in its rush to ally itself with the actions of the United States, the
Philippines government has effectively halted whatever post-colonial efforts had
been in place to finally remove the most visible traces of US “presence” in
the Philippines, and instead awaken the only slightly dormant dreams of American
Empire in the Asia Pacific, thereby sacrificing national sovereignty for
immediate pragmatic gain. (It used
to be that the term “American empire” was only articulated in progressive
circles within American studies in the academy--these days, the term is
pronounced with a spirit at once messianic and terrible by pundits and
politicians of all stripes in the public sphere.)
In sum, the inherent instablity occasioned by the discourse of
anti-terrorism has had deeply unsettling effects for Filipinos and Filipino
Americans. And it is especially
important to examine closely the situation in the Philippines, since the
Philippines has been held up by the US as a possible model for other countries
in the fight against terrorism.
Immediately
after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the Philippines became known in Washington
as the first country to offer military contributions to war on terrorism.
The first Asian leader to reach out to Bush was Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo,
who on September 19, 2001, announced that she would create a regional
anti-terrorism coalition to support looming US retaliation against attackers (Gulf
News, 9/19/01). She promised to
“walk every stage of the way” with the US’s “war on terrorism” [1] and
vowed to bring Filipino “terrorist” groups to justice.
She took care to point out that even before September 11th, the
Philippines had been engaged in anti-terrorist activities, referring to the Abu
Sayyaf group that had allegedly kidnapped and beheaded an American, and were
currently holding two US missionaries hostage [3].
By correlating pre-existing efforts to eradicate outlaw bands of
kidnappers previously associated with Al-Qaeda with the attacks of 9/11, Arroyo
was able to claim a kind of political and moral prescience at once and
globalized a local instance. A
former AFP chief of staff put it concisely: “The Philippine government’s
success in defeating the Aby Sayyaf is a defeat of international terrorism”
[4].
The
remapping of Asia Pacific as a correlate territory of global terrorism thus
occurred immediately. Four
months after September 11th, the Jakarta Post asserted that the United
States had created a “second front” of anti-terrorist war by sending 1,200
troops to the Philippines in January 2002.
This terminology was introduced by Republican Congressman Sam Brownback
of Kansas, who at that time
announced that, “it appears the Philiippines is going to be the second, the
next target, after Afghanistan in the war on terrorism” [51]. More concretely than the lipservice Arroyo paid to the war on
terrorism, the president offered airspace and combat troops to aid in the US’s
efforts, and invited US troops to the islands.
Business World called this a “gesture of solidarity and
friendship as well as political savvy” [11], as it yielded tremendous benefits
to the Arroyo government. Within a
year, the magazine said, “a cold
shoulder turned to a warm embrace” (September 6, 2002).
One
thus witnesses a radical remapping of prior relations according to the new logic
of terrorism, but, more importantly, according to new opportunities for US and
other foreign aid--both to fight terrorism and to prop up national and regional
economies and political power bases.
Arroyo’s public pronouncements on the war on terrorism stressed that
terrorism fed on poverty, and that, besides military assistance, the US and
other countries interested in stopping the spread of terrorism should send
foreign aid to her government. However,
as we will see, this benefit cut both ways.
But before I address that, it is crucial to point out how, while the
strategic epicenter for this second front was the Philippines, a newly-organized
Asia Pacific region was its new circumference.
The
reterritorialization of Asia Pacific has occurred steadily in the year since
September 2001. Although the Jakarta
Post noted that “it is undeniable that Southeast Asia is not a breeding
ground for terrorists,” it noted too that “thanks to the war against
terrorism, ASEAN, which lost its fire and fame due to the 1997 [economic]
crisis, is regaining not only confidence but respect” [Dec 16, 2002].
Such reconsolidation has been dramatically staged.
In November 2002, at least nineteen countries took part in anti-terrorism
conference in Manila (co-hosted by the World Tourism Organization).
The conference was called the “International Conference on Terrorism
and Tourism Recovery.” The
participants included all ten ASEAN countries plus the US, Canada, Australia,
New Zealand, Japan, S Korea, China, and the UK.
Not
only were regional relations revised, but international ones as well. In each case we find a particular correlation between
international cooperation and the re-enforcement of national control.
For example, in November of 2002, the European Commission said that
Europe would “help the Philippines boost its capabilities to fight
terrorism” through “technical and funding assistance,” and
renegotiate a former dispute over high European tariffs on Philippines
tuna. It also offered European
support for development aid for the Muslim-held southern Philippines regions.
[30] And on December 4, 2002,
China’s public security minister, Jia Chunwang, struck an agreement with
Philippines Interior and Local Government Secretary Jose Lina Jr., for closer
cooperation between their respective police forces [18].
Philippines
as beneficiaries of terrorism
As
noted before, right after the attacks of September 11th, President Arroyo not
only announced her country’s unswerving support for the United States, she
also began an energetic campaign to revise prior agreements and gain foreign aid
from key nations. In January 2002,
she visited Canada, and signed six new agreements, including one which
articulated Canadian support for various judicial reforms in the Philippines.
Such agreements were said to be predicated on the two countries’
“common determination to fight terrorism and poverty” [32], but it also
became clear that these and other agreements served as well to support
politically, economically, and militarily the consolidation of the Arroyo
administration’s power. In
particular, and most impressively, we find the resurgence not only of American
military and economic aid and activity there, but also American military
presence.
In
the United States, Bush took credit for Arroyo’s “political savvy,”
calling his acquisition of Philippines’ support “a great success,” but
ignoring the blatant quid pro quo. For
instance, while the Philippines government offered the US combat troops,
airspace, and enthusiastic public relations support, and allowed six hundred
Filipino workers to help build the Guantanamo base camp for Al-Qaeda and Taliban
prisoners, the US offered dramatically increased economic and trade assistance:
Bush immediately directed USAID to increase financial support for
Philippines and gave signs that massive debt relief was on the horizon.
At the same time, he promised $92.3 million in military equipment to
combat terrorists and insurgents [5]. James
Kelly, US assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific Affairs put it
bluntly: “The US may help ease the Ph debt burden as part of a reward aid
package for its support of the US campaign against terrorism” [24].
And after the recent Republican Congressional victories, BusinessWorld
predicted that “economic and political relations between the Philippines and
the US are expected to mount to new levels of vigor and vibrancy.... The Bush
administration is expected to use its new clout to spur the war on terrorism and
win bilateral trade agreements with the Philippines and its neighboring
countries.” [28] The Arroyo
government is looking for more development aid, as well as “improved access of
its tuna, seaweeds and a variety of fruits and vegetables to US markets.” [28] Again, all this has hinged on the discourse of
anti-terrorism. As one journalist
noted, “The most dramatic turn for the better in bilateral ties took place in
the opening of a second front--Basilan Island, the lair of the Abu Sayyaf group
of Muslim extremists, second in the list of foreign terrorist organizations
drawn up by the US State Dept.” [Business World September 6, 2002]. So evident were the new political and economic relations
between the two countries that Business World stated in October 2002
that: “the Philippines could possibly be one of the very few countries in the
world that could benefit from the terrorist attacks on NY, Bali, and Moscow....
Because we have a common enemy, the Philippines suddenly finds itself as
a strategic and important ally of the United States.”
Nevertheless, after this enthusiastic gushing, BusinessWorld hastened
to add: “However, this does not mean that we condone terrorism because in the
end, no nation benefits.”
Not
only did Bush offer economic assistance, more to the point perhaps is the
tremendous amount of military aid bestowed upon the Arroyo government for what
it called its “anti-terrorist” campaign, but what its critics called
political repression. In June 2002,
Paul Wolfowitz visited the Philippines and asserted the increased US role there:
“the US military presence in southern Philippines is the largest mission
outside Afghanistan to fight terrorism since 9/11” [7].
Over and above the aid and resources promised immediately after 9/11,
which included more than 600 military “advisors,” the United States promised
$100 million in military aid and one hundred more special forces units, bringing
the total to more than a thousand US troops.
The Philippines became the fourth largest Asian recipient of US foreign
military financing (FMF) and the first in terms of US International Military
Education Training. [37] August 2002.
Because
the presence of US troops in the Philippines is of doubtful consitutionality,
their role there has been carefully guarded and obscured.
While on the one hand military experts such as William Berry, professor
of political science at US Air Force Academy construed the Philippines as a
“test case to see how this method [only firing if fired upon] works in waging
the rest of the war,” on the other hand US Special Forces Commander Colonel
David Fridovich said in Feb 2002 that officials are “still searching for the
right words to describe the precise obligations of US soldiers in the
Philippines” [Washington Post Feb 1, 2002] [49].
This vagueness creates a dangerous situation for the Philippines--the
deployment of these troops has the potential to both help in the reputed
anti-terrorist war, and work against sovereign Philippine interests.
The very recent announcement of new troop deployments has, as mentioned
above, coincided with an explicit articulation of the difference between what
the US says they are to do, and what the Philippines government wishes. Again, the causes for this difference have everything to do
with the particular agendas and politics of these two countries.
For instance, the Arroyo government understands the instability it has
wrought as well as anyone. Although
in August 2002, Colin Powell declared the Mutual Logistics Support Agreement
critical (“the alliance between the US and the Ph has been a bulwark of
freedom and stability in the Asia-Pacific region” [35]), Arroyo signed this
agreement in secret, and received considerable criticism for doing so when it
was leaked.
The
battle against Muslim agitators threatens to emesh the US in a Vietnam-like
struggle. Since 1898, with the
assertion of US control over the Philippines, no one has been able to control
Muslim sultanates on the southern islands.
US military campaigns against Muslim populations in the Ph can be traced
as far back as the turn of the century, when the US fought anti-colonial
insurgents in Mindanao. In 1906,
some niobne hundred Muslims, including women and children, were massacred on
Mount Dajo. Among those outraged by
the slaughter was Mark Twain, whose satire, “The War Prayer” critiqued the
US government’s glorification of its anti-colonial campaign.
The current difficulty in waging war against “terrorists” is that to
warrant US involvement in the Philippines, terrorism has to be linked to either
radical Islamic movements and/or armed insurgency. One of the clearest candidates for the label of “terrorist
organization” is the Moro National Liberation Front. But although there has been sporadic armed combat despite the
1970s peace agreement between the government and the MNLF was signed, in 2002
the agreement was renegotiated, and Philippine military campaign against them
has ceased. So main target has
become the Abu Sayyaf. The Abu
Sayyaf was conceived by Filipino separatist Abdurajak Janjalani, who may have
fought in Afghanistan against Soviet troops.
The Abu Sayyaf may have initially received financing from Osama bin-Laden’s
brother-in-law, and some Philippine officials assert that the Abu Sayyaf funnels
ransom money to Al-Qaeda. Nevertheless,
these links, especially after Janjalani’s death, have become more and more
tenuous. National security
advisor Roilo Golez has been quoted as saying that there is no proof of ties to
Al-Qaeda since the early 90s. By
all accounts, the Abu Sayyaf groups has now dwindled to a force of about 60
members, regarded more as thugs intent on kidnapping and extortion, with no
particular ideology. Ian
Cuthbertson, the director of the counterterrorism project of the World Policy
Institute, argues: “This wasn’t Al-Qaeda.... What you have is an insurgency
cum banditry on a small island that got attention because they made a habit of
kidnapping westerners and killing them” [13]. July 7, 2002.
Despite
such evidence to the contrary, the Boston Globe pointed out that
“government and military officials privately acknowledge that Washington
focused on Islamic terrorism, [since] it serves Manila’s interests to re-brand
Abu Sayyaf as terrorists instead of bandits and to take advantage of any
assistance in wiping out the rebels” [Boston Globe, 1-26-02, [44]].
In October of that year, Arroyo intensified this trend, and
correlated this pre-existing terrorist activity with the assertion of
“a possible shift in the Al-Qa’idah centre of gravity to Southeast Asia”
[6]. As if to confirm the need for such evidence, in
December 2002, new US military training missions involving some 1300 troops in
the southern Philippines were carried out based on the claim that the Abu Sayyaf
had formed ties to the Jemaah Islamiyah in Indonesia, the group now held
responsible for the terrorist bombing in Bali. [47]
The
timing of all this is crucial to understand.
In 1991 the Philippines Senate rejected a proposal to renew the treaty
allowing the retention of US military bases in the country.
In 1999, there was a fierce fight in the Senate regarding the Visiting
Forces Agreement (VFA), which provides for military exercises within the Ph
between US and Ph troops, and grants extraterritorial and extrajudicial rights
to visiting US servicemen. This
time, under the Estrada presidency and with many anti-bases legislators gone,
the VFA passed.
In 2002, after the fall of the
Estrada regime, new anti-US military presence mobilization occurred, prompted by
the instantiation of the “Balikatan” (“shoulder-to-shoulder”) exercises
between US and Ph troops in the aftermath of 9/11, and under Arroyo’s war on
terrorism. Critics of these
exercises say that they violate even the terms of the VFA, which allow for
exercises of only six months duration or less.
At this time as well, Arroyo secretly signed the Mutual Logistics Support
Agreement with the US.
Critics
of these policies argue that GMA is using anti-terrorism policies against not
only insurgency movements but also simply all anti-government critics.
They also see this as an opportunity seized by the US to re-enter the
Philippines and regain its military presence there in order to re-solidify its
strategic presence in the Pacific. [12/02; 63]
Luis Franca, one of the most astute scholars of the Philippines, put it
this way: “I think the war on
terrorism is being used, in this case, as a Trojan horse on the part of the US
to re-establish its military presence not only in the Ph but in the region.
Two of the largest US bases were in the Philippines, Subic Bay and Clark
Air Base, bases that were extremely important to US military dominance
globally.” [NPR 3 Feb 02 (23)].
Franca’s
theory seems borne out when juxtaposed with statements and documents attesting
to US interest in the Pacific, specifically the strategically critical
Philippines. In 1995, former US Air
Force Pacific General John Lorber declared: “We, the US, are a Pacific nation
where command extends from the West Coast of the US to the eastern coast of
Africa and includes both polar extremes. The
US has seven defense treaties worldwide, and five of them are in the Pacific
region” [53]. Another course
notes, “According to the 1997 Report of the Quadrennial Defense Review by
the US Department of Defense, US national defense and security policy
implemented by 100,000 US troops deployed in the region is intertwined with
economic globalization such as ‘the protection of the sea lanes of trade,’
and ‘ensuring unhampered access to key markets, energy supplies, and strategic
resources.’ Pentagon literature
now treats the operational jurisdiction of the US Pacific Command as ‘highways
of trade which are vital to US security’” [53].
And another report put together by former CIA and State Department
analysts talks about US plans to re-establish ‘forward bases’ in the
Philippines as part of an American strategy against international terrorism.
[53] Indeed, four months before
September 11, 2001, that is, in May 2001, the Rand Corportion issued an
important policy strategy labelled “The US and Asia--Toward a New US Strategy
and Force Structure,” wherein it strongly pushed for the restoration of US
forces in the Philippines through ‘future US Air Force Expeditionary
Deployments.’ This study was prepared by a team headed by Zalmay Khalilzad,
now a senior member of the NSC and Bush’s chief advisor on Afghanistan. [53]
The
terrorist attacks thus served as the opportunity to gain reentrance to the
Philippines for the US military, as long as the US could make the case that the
Philippines was a “second front.” This case was made for it by the immediate
pronouncements and actions of Arroyo. However,
just as the correlation of the US and the Philippines served as an excuse for
both governments to re-exert their particular control over the region, so too
did their actions include similar abuses of civil liberties.
In November 2002, the National Union of Journalists in the Philppines,
the College Editors Guild of the Philippines, the
Correspondents-Broadcasters-Reporters Association Action News Service, and the
Negros Media Council for Press Freedom condemned widespread anti-free speech
actions and the illegal harrassment and detention of journalists in the
Philippines: “in the guise of the war against terrorism, the Arroyo
administration has run roughshod on press freedom, the people’s right to know,
and to free expression and organization.” Student groups, academics also
targeted [71]. The Canadian
human rights group, the “BC Committee on Human Rights in the Philippines”
criticized Arroyo: “Human rights is the biggest collateral damage in the
Arroyo government’s vicious war on terror” [72].
Earlier in 2002, London-based Amnesty International, Washington-based
Human Rights Watch, and even the US State department warned of the rise of human
rights violations in the Philippines [72]. And a UN special rapporteur was sent to the Philippines to
investigate reports of human rights violations. Besides such violations of civil liberties, there have been
severe costs in humn life: the Ecumenical Movement for Justice and Peace noted
that from January to Oct 2002, over nine thousand civilians have become victims
of of bombings and indiscriminate firings from military and paramilitary and
police forces [72]. Finally, “in
a move that the Arroyo administration will likely use as additional
justification for its intensified counter-insurgency campaign, the United States
has declared the Communist Party of the Philippines as a ‘foreign terrorist
organization,’ joining 33 other groups in such a classification by the US
State Department.” Colin Powell
made the announcement August 9, 2002.
Joel
Virador of the human rights group Karapatan in Southern Minadanao said this
could mean more human rights abuses. Since
the US enlisted the support of the Philippines in its campaign against Al-Qaeda,
countless Filipinos have been arrested without warrant and jailed without
charges. “Declaring revolutionary
organizations such as the CPP as terrorist groups is practically a declaration
of an open season against anybody who dares to criticize the Arroyo regime and
US policies against sovereign nations,” Virador said. He noted that, of late, the Arroyo administration has been
branding as Communists those who have been criticizing its actions and
policies” [Bulatlat.com August 12,
2002 [69]]. Such actions have had
the effect of destabilizing Philippine domestic politics, dampening any hope for
peace between the government and opposition movements, which are now
criminalized. In September 2002,
the “International Ecumenical Conference on Terrorism in a Globalized World”
condemned the labelling as, among other things, disrupting the peace
negotiations b/n the government and the National Democratic Front of the Ph
[70].
Criticism
has swelled in the Philippines--Vice President Teofisto Guigona, several,
legislators, and even some pro-government journalists have stressed that
even if they do not support the armed Left’s struggle, it had legitimate aims
for political reform and could not be labelled ‘terrorist.’
In November, United Nations representative Francis Deng visited the
Philippines and asked the Philippines government to refrain from branding the
Moro Islamic Liberation Front a terrorist organization, but rather to continue
peace negotiations with it. The
United States had considered labelling the organization as such, but said it
would take its cue from the Philippines. (Xinhua
General News Service, Nov 13, 2002). What
we have then in the Philippines is a critical drama regarding the stakes
for national sovereignty of playing the “terrorism” card.
Second
thoughts for Arroyo?
The
emphatic response of the Arroyo adminstration to the events of September 11th
should be understood as well within the context of the May 2001, elections, in
which Arroyo was faced with significant pressure from Estrada loyalists.
At that time, many still felt that Estrada was popular amongst the lower
classes, and that Arroyo needed to make a stronger attack on poverty.
The attacks of 9/11 thus served as an opportunity to gain crucial foreign
aid; and, as I have noted, Arroyo has been consistent in her eqauting the war on
terrorism with her war on poverty. Nevertheless,
the bargains struck with the US and other foreign nations have led to unintended
consequences. Given the new
uncertainties opened up by new US actions, Arroyo has started to modify her
position. To begin with, Arroyo
seems to be backing away from “second front” nomenclature. She herself told Le Monde in Jan 2002 that there was
no evidence to link Abu Sayyaf to Al-Qaeda, and she asked Colin Powell to resist
using “second front” language, perhaps acknowledging the possible loss of
Philippinr sovereignty and a unexpectedly high US presence.
Some have voiced the feeling the the Ph was turning into one huge US
military base [55]. And by
September 2002, Arroyo had withdrawn her offer of use of Ph airspace to launch
attack on Iraq. [63]
The
danger posed to the Philippines of being willing to reconstitute its domestic
space as a ‘second front” against terrorism became especially clear in
November of 2002, when the Philippines government explicitly ruled out a
possible US air strike against suspected terrorists similar to the one conducted
by the CIA against terrorists in Yemen, which killed six suspected Al-Qaeda
members. Arroyo’s spokesperson
Rigoberto Tiglao drew out the differences between Yemen and the Philippines,
stressing that, unlike Yemen, there was no strong indication of Al-Qaeda
presence in the Philippines, thus backing away from that posture which the
government struck in the aftermath of 9/11.
Tiglao made it clear as well that any such strike in the Philippines
would be “an intrusion into our sovereignty” (Agence France Presse, Nov 10,
2002). Nevertheless, Arroyo has shown herself too much in the
sway of economic concerns to break away completely from the beneficial aspects
of the discourse of anti-terrorism. This
has exacerbated a split within her own administration.
On
December 4, 2002, Australian Prime Minister John Howard caused great
consternation among the nations of the Asia Pacific by saying that Australia
would not rule out pre-emptive strikes against foreign-based countries if they
appeared to threaten Australia. On
the basis of that remark, Philippines National Security Advisor Roilo Golez
advised reconsidering the proposed anti-terrorism pact between Philippines and
Australia, arguing that Howard’s pre-emptive policy could well result in an
“assault” on the sovereignty of the Philippines, and the Philippines foreign
ministry issued a statement saying that Howard’s pronouncement revealed
“hegemonic ambitions.” But
Arroyo dismissed Howard’s remarks as merely “hypothetical,” and used the
occasion of that day’s press conference to instead ask for more Japanese aid
in fighting the war on terrorism, noting, “the yen is mightier than the
sword’ (Agence France Presse, Dec 4, 2002).
Consequences
for Asia/America
The
interstitial space between the US and the Philippines has been deeply affected
in the radical redefinition of US/Pacific relations according to the logic of
the discourse of terror. I am
speaking of immigrant and diasporic subjects.
Renegotiations of regional and international relations provided the
occasion as well for revisiting new anti-terrorist policies in Europe and the
United States that adversely affected Filipinos.
For example, at the anti-terrorism, pro-tourism conference, Arroyo asked
Francis Taylor, US ambassador to the Philippines, for exemptions for Filipino-Am
security workers who would lose their jobs because of their lack of citizenship.
Colin Powell was also pressed on Asian American issues upon his
announcement of the signing of the Mutual Logistics Support Agreement.
He was tested on the question of US deportation of overseas Filipino
workers, as well as the loss of jobs faced by Filipino Americans whose lack of
citizenship made them ineligible to hold securiy jobs.
And
Philippines Foreign Undersecretary Delia Albert asked the European Union to
remove the Philippines from its list of countries whose citizens have to undergo
special screening before they are granted entry visas [31] (but isn’t this a
paradox? If the Philippines
suddenly appeared as locus of terrorist activities, the center of a “second
front,” and therefore legimate areas for increased policing and warfare, then
why exempt Filipinos from special screening?
Such contradictions became characteristic of the unexpected results of
anti-terrorism policies, that confused not only national, regional, and
international interests, but the internal interests of individual nations as
well).
In
his famous 1882 lecture, “What is a Nation,” Ernest Renan declared,
“Shared suffering unites more than does joy.
As far as national memories go, acts of mourning are more potent than
those of triumph, since they impose duties and require common effort.”
Note how in this essay Renan uses at least two notions of memory--first,
those memories of violence and subjugation that subaltern groups must forget if
they are to sign on to the dominant national project of historical memory and
unity, that is, a necessary amnesia. Second,
an unforgettable memory, a pragmatic and functional memory of the dominant group
of a wrong done to it, to which all in the nation must rise in reaction
to. But in this situation, it is
rather that a memory of a wrong has given rise to a wide set of re-imaginings
and projections forward. And
in that projection forward, a number of pragmatic needs are attached.
The great difficulty we face resides in the fact that the particular
melding of Asia and America in this discursive imagining has served as both a
point of consolidation and for the re-emergence of dominance.
Now what does this mean for Asian American studies? While certainly not
arguing for the abandonment of current explorations of “hybridity” that
break apart the supposedly homogeneous field of Asian America, it strikes me as
urgent to map the new conditions upon which Asia and America have indeed been
fused together in the logic of 9/11. It
will of course not be a permanent state (at least one wishes that it not be),
but for the moment, and for the foreseeable future, it seems impossible not to
factor in this phenomenon into our understanding of Asian America.
Bulatlat.com
=======
[1]
This paper was first presented for the Center for **** at the
University of Oregon in February 2003. I thank Arif Dirlik for offering that
venue as a trial site for the paper, and the audience for their comments.
[2]
Members of Ph Congress called GMA’s invitation to US military as a
gross violation of the Constitution [51]
[3]
Cf. “Increased activity of the al-Qaeda--linked to Abu Sayyaf,
including the May 2001 kidnapping of Americans Martin and Gracia Burnham, made
terrorism a catalyst for revitalizing relations” (Heritage
Foundation Reports, May 13, 2002).
[4]
Journalist: “A connection to Al-Q is critical to justify American
involvement” [8]
[5]
In March 2001 Estrada faced impeachment trials; new elections were held
in May. Macapagal-Arroyo faces a general election in 2004.
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