Sison’s Praxis

A Book Review on

Jose Maria Sison’s

U.S. Terrorism and War in the Philippines

Published by Aklatang Bayan

Philippines

“By giving up a life of comfort, by electing to go underground, by involving himself not only in leading but also immersing himself in revolutionary armed struggle, Prof. Sison hammered home the ideal of praxis: as you say life should be lived, so should your own life be lived. His life and work exemplified the unity of theory and practice. Armchair or cappuccino political theorists have not been held in any kind of respect in the Philippines ever since.”

By Bobby Tuazon
Bulatlat.com

Jose Maria Sison is a quintessential revolutionary not only because he remains the undisputed guru of the Philippine Marxist revolutionary movement which he -  along with a group of young intellectuals, labor and peasant cadres - founded and led, but also because of his untiring devotion to revolutionary literature. The fact that he uses his pen to create gems of wisdom and analysis while forced to spend time to defend himself against incessant attacks by reactionary enemies and states speaks of a man with inexhaustible energy and the sheer will to fight a just cause.

At 64 - 16 years of that spent in forced exile in The Netherlands - Sison has come out with a new book, U.S. Terrorism and War in the Philippines which will be launched by friends this Oct. 9 at Balay Kalinaw, University of the Philippines campus in Diliman, Quezon City. In his preface, Fidel V. Agcaoili, who also edited the book, says that U.S. Terrorism is being published "to call attention to the unjust and malicious acts" of the U.S., Philippine, Dutch, Canadian, British and Australian governments and the European Council in tagging Sison, along with the Communist Party and the New People's Army, as "terrorist." Sison is the current chief political consultant of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP).

Born in 1939 in Cabugao, Ilocos Sur, northern Philippines, Sison obtained his BA in English Literature with honors and MA in Comparative Liberature from the University of the Philippines. Including works written while in the revolutionary underground and in the rural countryside during the 1970s, Sison’s writings could fill up several shelves of a library today. Unfortunately only a few volumes have been published so far.

Just the same, the prolific writer has received literary awards in the Philippines and in other countries including the 1986 Southeast Asia WRITE Award for essay writing and poetry. He had also taught at UP and the Lyceum of the Philippines. Friends say that Sison could have easily landed a teaching job at Holland’s universities - and there had been offers - but has been denied a work permit on account of malicious and politically-motivated attacks against him.

Incidentally, the book U.S. Terrorism is being launched as negotiating panels of the Macapagal-Arroyo government and the NDFP gear for the resumption of exploratory talks this week in Oslo, Norway. Already, the book sets the tone of the coming talks that seek to resolve the 33-year long civil war in the country. If the talks are to prosper, Sison says in the book, the GRP (Government of the Republic of the Philippines) mush show sincerity by implementing 10 agreements that had been forged between the two sides since the Ramos presidency. He also warns that the "terrorist" tag on him is a ploy to intimidate the NDFP to capitulate to the GRP.

Compilation

Sison's assessment of the peace talks is mentioned in at least two articles in the book. U.S. Terrorism is an anthology of 29 essays and statements which the author wrote between 2001-2003 tackling issues as the "terrorist" tag, the GRP-NDFP peace talks, the crisis of U.S. imperialism, "war on terror" and the world resistance against imperialist globalization and the Bush war.

Justice Romeo T. Capulong of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTFY), who also contributes an article, "Jose Maria Sison: Filipino Patriot and Revolutionary," condemns attempts by both the Bush and Macapagal-Arroyo governments to coerce and intimidate Sison under the illusion that he and the NDFP will eventually surrender to the GRP. He reminds Sison's detractors however that no charges have been filed against the Filipino exile precisely because they cannot build a credible case and yet he has been demonized and convicted in public as a "terrorist" without due process.

"Failing in this," Capulong writes, "is it not the undeniable agenda of the U.S. to scuttle the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations to justify a purely military solution and further escalation of U.S. intervention in the Philippine government's counter-insurgency campaign?" The ICTFY ad litem judge should be talking from his years as a legal adviser in the peace talks. But he also warns the reader that the ultimate agenda of the U.S. is to deepen its armed interventionism in the country with the support of its close ally, Macapagal-Arroyo.

Novelist Ninotchka Rosca, in her "The Sison Way," writes that the governments of the U.S., Philippines, Europe and Canada keep on burying Sison but only succeed in "having songs sung in his praise." "...In the midst of whatever adversity, Joma Sison constantly gives Filipinos a reason to affirm and celebrate themselves. They should continue to do so, the Sison way," she says.

Sison's "unique characteristics (that became) the hallmarks of Philippine militancy," Rosca, who lives in New York, suggests are what his enemies fear. The revolutionary leader's "clarity of purpose and clarity of action,” she adds, “enabled the people to weather decades of the Marcoses...and helped the revolutionary movement weather four decades of repression and suppression."

Global resistance

The Philippines’ national democratic struggle, which Sison continues to inspire, is bolstered by a broadening front to resist the impositions of globalization - that deepen poverty and deprive the poor of decent life - and its own link to the growing global resistance against the U.S. war on terror (see, for instance, "On the Filipino People's Revolutionary Struggle and International Solidarity"). In all this, as Sison keeps watch over the trends and evolving nuances of the struggles in his home country, he also continues to dissect the current crisis of U.S. imperialism and the ensuing war on terror that seeks to tighten U.S. hegemony of the world ("Imperialism Means War and Terrorism" and other related articles).

In "Imperialist Globalization and Terrorism," for instance, the author notes that while economic and financial control appear to characterize neocolonialism, armed aggression and political pressure are also used as tools to subject neo-colonies to super-exploitation. Imperialists "make bilateral and multilateral military agreements in order to have the instruments for enforcing bilateral economic agreements and the dictates of such multilateral agencies as the IMF, World Bank and World Trade Organization," he says.

Sison subjects U.S. imperialism and its puppet governments, like the Macapagal-Arroyo regime, under the most stinging attacks even as he reserves the strongest denunciations to America's terrorist crimes against humanity.

"Terrorism," he says, "may be defined as the willful and malicious infliction and threat of death and other physical harm on innocent civilians. The U.S. no less has been a notorious perpetrator of terrorism on a scale larger than what is now being alleged against the private group of Osama bin Laden. But the people in the U.S. should not be targeted for mass slaughter for the terrorist crimes of the U.S. imperialists." ("Sept. 11 Attacks: Retaliation Against U.S. Terrorism," Sept. 18, 2001)

Revolutionary optimism

Most lucid in Sison's pen is revolutionary optimism in the midst of the U.S.' increasing use of unilateral power particularly against the world's powerless countries. He writes: "The combination of people's war in agrarian countries and various forms of revolutionary struggle in the more developed countries can prevail over the military power of the US. Something more powerful and more widespread than it expects is bound to confront this superpower in the coming years." ("On the Current U.S. Drive for War")

It is with this note that it is fitting to end this review with a paragraph from Rosca's piece:

“By giving up a life of comfort, by electing to go underground, by involving himself not only in leading but also immersing himself in revolutionary armed struggle, Prof. Sison hammered home the ideal of praxis: as you say life should be lived, so should your own life be lived. His life and work exemplified the unity of theory and practice. Armchair or cappuccino political theorists have not been held in any kind of respect in the Philippines ever since.”  Bulatlat.com

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