ILPS Honors Daniel Boone
Schirmer as an Outstanding Anti-Imperialist Fighter
It is of great
importance to hold in the highest regard and constantly honor the noble
tradition of the Anti-Imperialist League and the inspiring work and legacy
of progressive Americans like Daniel Boone Schirmer. The more of such
Americans in the belly of the beast, the greater is the confidence of the
peoples of the world that the No. 1 plunderer and terrorist power will be
defeated in many parts of the world and someday in the
U.S.
itself.
BY JOSE MARIA SISON
Posted by Bulatlat
We, in the International League of
Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS), hereby manifest our high respect for Daniel
Boone Schirmer as an outstanding fighter against U.S. imperialism and as
an exponent of international solidarity of the peoples in the
revolutionary struggle against imperialism and reaction and for a better
world of greater freedom, democracy, social justice, all-round progress
and peace.
We join all the organizations and
individuals in the U.S., Philippines and in the whole world in conducting
meaningful memorial activities from the day after his passing away last
April 21 to June 18 in order to honor him for his militant political
work and scholarship in support of the peoples’ struggle against US
imperialism. He was a genuine American patriot and revolutionary
internationalist in the tradition of the Anti-Imperialist League and Mark
Twain.
He was already a veteran of ideological,
political and organizational work among the youth and the workers when he
went back to school in Harvard University in the 1960s. He became
involved in the movement against the US war of aggression in Vietnam. It
was by way of supporting the Vietnamese people’s struggle for national
liberation that he chose as the subject of his doctoral dissertation the
Anti-Imperialist League and the Filipino-American War which started in
1899.
After he got his Ph.D. in 1972, the
proclamation of martial law in the Philippines and the imposition of the
U.S.-instigated fascist dictatorship on the Filipino people moved him to
work for the organization of the Friends of the Filipino People. This was
accomplished in 1973. It consisted of American and Filipino-American
academics who were determined to support the Filipino people in their
struggle for national freedom and democracy.
Through the Katipunan ng Demokratikong
Pilipino (Union of Democratic Filipinos), I was able to observe
immediately the work of Daniel Boone Schirmer and his colleagues for the
Filipino people. I am always proud to be among the first Filipinos in the
underground in 1973 to read Boone’s Republic or Empire: American
Resistance to the Philippine War. This carried a personal inscription
from him which was very inspiring. It was brought to the Philippines by a
Filipino who had apprenticed in The National Guardian in New York.
Since then, I had occasional
communications with Boone in writing or orally through traveling mutual
friends. I received from him interesting reading materials, even while I
was already under military detention. Julie and I are grateful that he was
able to visit our home in Quezon City twice to express concern about my
situation in prison and about issues.
Daniel Boone Schirmer and the Friends of
the Filipino People had a major share in gathering support from the
American people, in keeping up the spirit of resistance among the
Filipinos in the U.S., in exposing the imperialist motives of the U.S. for
propping up the Marcos dictatorship, in influencing American public
opinion against the collaboration of the U.S. and the Marcos ruling clique
and in contributing to the isolation and fall of the fascist dictatorship.
The service that Boone rendered to the
Filipino people did not end with supporting them in the struggle against
Marcos. He considered the U.S. military bases in the Philippines as the
key point in U.S. imperialist interests in the country. Indefatigably, he
demanded and fought for their dismantling. After the U.S. bases were
dismantled in 1992, he denounced every attempt of the U.S. and the puppet
regimes to somehow allow U.S. military forces to violate Philippine
national sovereignty and territorial integrity and to engage in military
intervention under such deceptive signboards as “status of forces,”
“access and cross-servicing” and “visiting forces.”
It is of great importance to hold in the
highest regard and constantly honor the noble tradition of the
Anti-Imperialist League and the inspiring work and legacy of progressive
Americans like Daniel Boone Schirmer. The more of such Americans in the
belly of the beast, the greater is the confidence of the peoples of the
world that the No. 1 plunderer and terrorist power will be defeated in
many parts of the world and someday in the U.S. itself. Bulatlat
Prof. Jose Maria Sison is the chairman of
the International Coordinating Committee, International League of Peoples’
Struggle (ILPS).
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