Catergory Archive for ‘History’ at Joseph Scalice

Archive for the 'History' Category

Pagsisiyam sa Virgen sa Balintawak

Published on April 2, 2008 in Church history, Archives, Southeast Asia, History and Philippines. 0 Comments

I am still hard at work on my thesis. I have been collecting relevant primary source materials during my research, many of which I have scanned as Adobe PDF files. I intend to begin making some of these materials available here.

The first item which I am posting is a Novenary of the Iglesia Filipina Independiente. Originally written by Gregorio Aglipay in Spanish, this text was translated into Tagalog by Juan N. Evangelista and published in 1925 in Manila by Isabelo de los Reyes.

The text is fascinating. It walks through, in the nine days of a novena, a series of scientific, critical, and rational ideas; it instructs the participant in ideas of evolution and natural selection and a historical-critical approach to the Bible and theology.

You can access the entire text from the Documents tab of this website.

Peter Brown’s The World of Late Antiquity, from Marcus Aurelius to Muhammad, a review

Published on February 16, 2008 in historiography, Book review and History. 2 Comments

Peter Brown, The World of Late Antiquity, from Marcus Aurelius to Muhammad (London: Thames and Hudson, 1971).

The World of Late Antiquity, cover Beautifully illustrated and eminently readable, Peter Brown’s The World of Late Antiquity is a fascinating introductory text to the history of the Late Antique period. In a marvelous twist to dominant historiography, Brown traces the evolution of Late Antique society eastward, closing out the volume not with Charlemagne at Aachen but with Harun al-Rashid in Baghdad. This modification of regional orientation is one of several elements in his argument that allow him to shift historical perception from an account of ‘decline and fall’ to one of resilience and rebirth. The period of Late Antiquity has never felt quite so alive, or the implications of its history, culture, theology and art quite so pertinent to later periods of historical study.

Brown states that “[t]he most blatant feature of the society for both contemporaries and for the historian, was the widening gulf between rich and poor. In the western empire, society and culture were dominated by a senatorial aristocracy five times richer, on the average, than the senators of the first century.” (34) Brown uses several verbs to describe this process of maldistribution and expropriation of wealth: “the prosperity of the Mediterranean world seems to have drained to the top” (34) or “[b]y the fifth century, the wealth of the west had snowballed into the hands of a few great families.” (43) [emphasis supplied] While Brown highlights the growing inequality that characterized Late Antique society (”the most blatant feature”) he nevertheless uses passive verbs to describe the process whereby this was accomplished (”drained,” “snowballed”). G.E.M. de Ste. Croix points out the difficulty with such terms in his magisterial The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1981), “If I were in search of a metaphor to describe the great and growing concentration of wealth in the hands of the upper classes, I would not incline towards anything so innocent and so automatic as drainage: I should want to think in terms of something much more purposive and deliberate - perhaps the vampire bat.” (503)

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Tan Malaka in the Philippines

Published on January 31, 2008 in Rizal, Indonesia, Communism, Southeast Asia, History and Philippines. 0 Comments

This fascinating political cartoon comes from El Debate, a Spanish language news daily during the American colonial period in the Philippines. Tan Malaka, Indonesian communist and cosmopolitan provocateur, was in the Philippines and the colonial administration was threatening him with a lengthy prison sentence. A number of prominent Filipinos came to defense.

Notice the towering figures of Rizal and Plaridel [Marcelo H. Del Pilar] and the approach of the guardia civil. The guardia civil was the loathed tool of repression under the Spanish occupation; here they represent the Philippine constabulary, the likewise loathed tool of repression under the American occupation.

I believe that, in life, Rizal was four feet, eleven inches tall. Here he towers over everyone, much as his statue towers today over every town plaza from the top of a pedestal.

Notes on David Marr’s Vietnam 1945.

Published on January 8, 2008 in notes, Vietnam, Southeast Asia and History. 0 Comments

David Marr, Vietnam 1945: The Quest for Power (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995)

David Marr’s Vietnam 1945 is an account of the end of the Second World War and of the August Revolution of 1945. Marr weaves together the historical narratives of a variety of actors in the events leading up to and immediately following August, 1945. China, Britain, Japan, Vichy and Free France, the United States and the various elements of the Viet Minh and the ICP all play prominent roles in Marr’s recreation of the various perceptions and actions in the vying for power until, “by early September 1945, the contest had already been narrowed down to two rivals: France and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.” (xxiv).

Marr is intent on avoiding what he terms the “teleological trap,” examining history in the light of later events and then ferreting out the causes to these events and thereby inadvertently robbing history of the sense of the possible. This, he claims, is but a short step from “crude deterministic expostulation.” (xxv) To this end, Marr has written a dense and remarkably well-documented account of the various forces and events that created the stage upon which it was possible for the August Revolution to occur.

I was put off, however, by the claim on which Marr grounds his anti-teleological agendum: “the only truth in history is that there are no historical truths, only an infinite number of experiences.” This felt strangely disingenuous one page after Marr spoke of the need to ‘routinely exclude’ the ‘deliberate mystification of the past’ that occurred under the ‘Communist Party imprimatur’ (xxiv). Here then was an account of the past that was ‘inaccurate’ because it failed to reflect ‘historical truth.’ Further, while I share Marr’s concern with a reductionist teleology historically retrojected as causal narrative, not all narratives of possibility are equally worthy of recounting. Granted there is not an historical telos to be expostulated; there are, however, actor-intentioned historical tele, whose viability are mediated by concrete historical circumstances. Not all possibilities are created equal and the historian’s concern should be to move from historically determined causes - determined in the etymological sense of ‘limited’ or ‘bounded’ - to their necessary effects.

Stalinism, diaries, and unbelief: a review

Published on January 3, 2008 in soviet union, historiography, Communism, Book review and History. 0 Comments

Igor Halfin, Terror in my Soul: Communist Autobiographies on Trial (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003).

Jochen Hellbeck, “Fashioning of the Stalinist Soul: the diary of Stepan Podlubnyi, 1931-1939,” in Stalinism: New Directions, ed. Sheila Fitzpatrick (London: Routledge, 1999)

Igal Halfin and Jochen Hellbeck examine the ways in which human beings, through the self-constructing narratives of autobiography and diary, were fashioned as Stalinist individuals. Their works are both situated within the Foucauldian framework of the construction of subjectivity and build upon the work of Stephen Kotkin in Soviet history.

Hellbeck opens his article, “Fashioning the Stalinist Soul,” by presenting ‘three different explanations’ for the impact of ‘the Stalinist system on Soviet society.’ (78) He argues that two of these explanations, the revisionist and totalitarian schools of soviet historiography, rest upon a problematic understanding of the self: both assume the existence of a transcendental, ahistorical ’self.’ This self is then used by these two schools of thought as the basis for the analysis of a supposedly separate ‘private sphere’ counterpoised to the historically specific, Stalinist public sphere.

In contrast to these approaches, Hellbeck chooses a third methodology, which he attributes to Stephen Kotkin. This methodology involves the examination of the nuanced interactions of state and society. Hellbeck attempts to extend Kotkin’s approach to the level of the individual; he examines the ’self’ as immanent and historically specific. It is both constructed by and constructive of Stalinist reality. Hellbeck uses the diary of Stepan Podlubnyi, written in the 1930s, for this undertaking. Hellbeck treats the diary not as a mirror of the social world, but as a process of “self-construction” (78) The act of writing an autobiography or diary is not merely a reflection on the self but is also the process of constructing the self.

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on music

Published on December 7, 2007 in quotation, music, Marxism and History. 0 Comments

Aesthetic recognition, or recognition of beauty, aroused by its concrete state, is central to the arts, including music, and marks the difference between art and life. This aesthetic emotion is a special kind of joy. It is a reaction to a leap in knowledge of the kind that transforms the human being by opening up new possibilities of life. It is the joy of discovering a new common tie among people, and the recognition that the mind has grown an inch in stature by becoming aware of new powers.

This aesthetic excitement can equally well be aroused by music of sad or tragic feeling, high gaiety or fierce dramatic tension. It does not rest on the particular moods or emotional complexes that can be described as belonging to a musical work. It rests on the dual nature of music, of every art; its relation to interior life, and its artifice, or objective existence embodying thought about life; the individual’s discovery of how society has shaped him him, the relevance of this discovery to all members of a society.

When the internal can thus become externalized, a new power has been created. A stage has taken place in the humanization of relations among people. Life can be discussed in terms of the innermost yearnings for happiness and mutual growth, through channels that are socially created - inspired by magic rituals, religious liturgies, theaters, festivities, musical gatherings, concerts, music publications - and potentially address all society.

Sidney Finkelstein, How Music Expresses Ideas (New York: International Publishers, 1970), 12-13.

Selections from Z. Salazar’s Agosto 29-30, 1896: Ang Pagsalakay ni Bonifacio sa Maynila.

Published on December 4, 2007 in quotation, tagalog, History and Philippines. 0 Comments

Z.A. Salazar, Agosto 29-30, 1896: Ang Pagsalakay ni Bonifacio sa Maynila, Salin ni Monico M. Atienza (Lunsod Quezon: Miranda Bookstore, 1994).

Bilang pasimula napakalinaw na nagkaroon talaga ng malawakan at koordinadong pagsalakay sa Maynila noong gabi ng ika-29 hanggang umaga ng ika-30 ng Agosto 1896, taliwas sa karaniwang mababasa sa mga libro at artikulo hanggang ngayon. Lumilitaw sa aming pag-aaral na binalak ni Bonifacio na atakehin ang Intramuros mula sa tatlong direksyon: 1) mula sa Silangan (San Mateo, Merikina, pababa ng camino real nagdaraan sa San Jan at papasok sa Sampaloc); 2) mula sa Hilaga (papasok sa Kalookan at Balintawak mulang Bulacan, Pamapangas at Nueva Ecija tungong Tondo at Binondo, kung saan malaki ang baseng pang masa ng Katipunan); 3) mula sa Timog (Cavite at ilang pahagi ng Pasig)…

Bagama’t natuklasan ng mga Kastila ang plano ng Katipunan, itinuloy pa rin ni Bonifacio ang pagsalakay sa Maynila. May mga atake mula sa iba’t ibang sektor, ngunit ang pinakamalakas ay isanagawa sa Sampaloc, Sta. Ana, Pandacan, Makati, San Juan at Pasig. Hindi umatake ang Cavite. Ito ang pangalawang napakalinaw na kaganapan… Bagamat ipagkakaila ni Aguinaldo pagkatapos, klarong-klaro sa mga batis na inaasahan ni Bonifacio ang mga taga-Cavite na sumama sa pagpasok ng Maynila.

Eduardo Castrillo | Spirit of Pinaglabanan (1974)
Cut and welded brass with sculptured concrete
Barrio Paraiso, San Juan.

Napakalinaw rin, at ito ang pangatlong kaganapan, na bagamat hindi naagaw ni Bonifacio ang Intramuros, hindi rin nakuhang lipulin ng Kastila ang kanyang mga puwersa at, sa kabila ng pagtutol nina Aguinaldo, napilitan din ang mga ito na sumama sa Himagsik … Samakatuwid, naging mitsa ng Rebolusyon ang pagsalakay sa Maynila…

Hindi kabuuan - ang kabuuan ng Kapilipinuhan - ang abot-tanaw ni Aguinaldo. Ito ang pang-apat na bagay na nalinaw sa pagaaral. Nakatuon sa pagsakop lamang ng mga bayan (pueblos) ang istratehiya ni Aguinaldo at ng mga kasamahan niya sa Cavite. Masasabing ang pinakamataas na lebel ng kanilang kamalayang militar sa panahong ito ay ang pagugnay-ugnay ang mga bayan sa Cavite. Taliwas kay Bonifacio, hindi nakita ni Aguinaldo sa yugtong ito ng Rebolusyon na ang ulo ng kaaway ay naroon sa Intramuros…

Ang lumilitaw bilang huling napakalinaw na katotohanan mula sa aming pag-aaral ay ang pagiging napakahusay na utak militar, sa istrehiya man o sa taktika, ni Andres Bonifacio …

Pahina vii - xiv.

convergent ahistoricity

Published on December 3, 2007 in anthropology, Indonesia, Book review and History. 0 Comments

Clifford Geertz, Negara: The Theatre State in Nineteenth Century Bali (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980).

Arnold van Gennep, The Rites of Passage, Trans. Monika Vizedom and Gabrielle Caffee (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960).

Negara In his introduction to Negara, Clifford Geertz argues that Bali’s relative isolation caused it to undergo endogenous historical change; Bali was spared a series of external shocks which dramatically altered the histories of its neighbors, viz., Islamicization and Dutch colonization. Its cultural evolution was thus orthogenetic.

Is this explanation convincing? Is Geertz’ therefore assuming that exogenous contact is the necessary cause of dramatic historical change? What of internal struggles and conflicts? Might not these have dramatically changed the face of Balinese culture? To use Geertz’ biological metaphor against him: allopatric speciation can produce results startlingly different from its progenitors.

Geertz’ protestations of dynamism despite isolation are misleading. Whatever dynamism he claims existed was exceedingly viscous, and it is possible, in his account, to read from the present to the past in an almost transparent manner.

His methodology demonstrates this. He claims that he “will construct … a circumstantial picture of state organization in nineteenth-century Bali and then attempt to draw from that picture a set of broad but substantive guidelines for the ordering of pre- and protohistorical material in Indonesia …” (7) Geertz’ account moves from structure to history and reconstructs that history on the basis of a static set of state organizational principles. He has, from the outset, precluded the possibility of dramatic historical difference.

Continuity and viscous dynamism are thus the necessary conclusions to Geertz’ own methodology.

Clade Van Gennep is not claiming to be presenting us with a diachronic evolution of rites of passage. Rather, he presents us with a taxonomy of cultural practice. His categories seem to be useful heuristic devices. They allow us to read phenomena categorically.

Like all taxonomies, however, when historically situated they become deeply problematic. Either the categories evolve and adapt - become different categories entirely at some point - or they cease to represent history, and thereby, reality.

To wit: Linneaus must be subsumed to Darwin. To read one thousand years of ritual using van Gennep’s unaltered categories is much like attempting to outline the taxon Aves in the Ordovician. It does not work.

Engels on history

Published on December 2, 2007 in quotation, Marxism and History. 0 Comments

History does nothing,
it “possesses no immense wealth”,
it “wages no battles”.

It is man, real, living man who does all that, who possesses and fights;

“history” is not, as it were, a person apart, using man as a means to achieve its own aims;

history is nothing but the activity of man pursuing his aims.

Frederick Engels, “Absolute Criticism’s Second Campaign,” in The Holy Family.
In Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Collected Works, Volume 4, 1844-1845 (New York: International Publishers, 1975), 93.

the grammar of colonialism

Published on November 29, 2007 in colonialism, tagalog, translation, History and Philippines. 1 Comment

The aging binding cracks audibly whenever you turn a page. Fray Totanes’ one hundred fifty seven year old instructional grammar of the Tagalog language is bound in a soft, flexible and yellowed vellum. In fading calligraphic script, Lengua Tagala is branded onto the spine.

A colonial dictionary or grammar is always, at least in part, a technology of rule. The Tagalog language is divided into discrete Spanish units of meaning; its fibres are parsed into Romance syntax. Totanes’ one hundred forty page grammar was not created to promote mutual understanding; it was written to enable the linguistic competencies of inculcation, exploitation and domination.

We do not have to read in this manner, however. A lexicon can be read with an eye to other ends. Used with caution the colonial word book allows us to reconstruct the linguistic evolution of the language that has been parsed, to suture and poultice the vivisected speech of a dominated people.

This is not all. The grammar opens a window onto the collective colonial psyche. Every example, every demonstration of the subjunctive mode or the passive infinitive, allows us access to the speech patterns and daily routine of the colonial friar.

Flipping through Arte de la Lengua Tagala, I find page after page bearing silent witness to the terror of the quotidian.