Cauldron of violence, epicenter of poverty and illiteracy (Muslim Mindanao)

[Lee]

Good read.

 

Quote

 

NUR Misuari and his close associates took pains to undergird the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) with a political and military rationale, a manifesto on the imperatives of secessionism in the specific context of Muslim Mindanao before the military actions to make the dreamed-of secessionist state even started. That was in the late 1960s, and by that time, Jose Ma. Sison, Nur's contemporary at the University of the Philippines, had finished his magnum opus on national democracy and his repudiation of the moribund Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (Pekape) in favor of a new party — the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).

Because Nur and his associates, some of them children of the Muslim political elite utterly disillusioned with the feudal ways of Muslim Mindanao, intended to build a secular Muslim state like Malaysia and Indonesia, the religious undertones of the MNLF were unrigid and subtle. The focus was building a modern, progressive Muslim state out of the ruins of the feudal society. The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) that came later was the antithesis of Nur's secular secessionist movement. The "I" in the MILF was the precise counterpoint to the secular orientation of the MNLF.

Nur and the MNLF's violent secessionist dream, as we all know, failed. Along with the secular nature of the secessionist struggle and the foundational doctrines upon which the MNLF was conceived and organized. But even the old, retired MNLF commanders who fought with the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) in the trenches of Mindanao cannot make sense of the carnage that has been rocking the Muslim part of Mindanao over the past several years.

Like planting a grenade in a gym at the Mindanao State University in Marawi City on the first Sunday of Advent, a special day for Catholics across the country that was timed to blow up during the celebration of the Mass. The result: four dead and dozens injured, probably maimed for life. Violence for violence's sake.

There was no message delivered, no political or religious point scored, no cause promoted, even if the whole point of the bombing and killing was to focus the attention of the nation to the plight of Muslim Mindanao. To Catholics across the country, the first Sunday of Advent is a solemn day for reflection, for self-evaluation. Am I a worthy child of God and worthy of saving in a proverbial Second Coming? It was probably during the most somber point of the Mass that the bomb exploded, and the mayhem ensued. And the blood of Catholics in deep reflection over their worth as Christians spilled senselessly all over the MSU gymnasium.

Like the May to October 2017 siege of Marawi City that killed over a thousand, including dedicated young army officers. A siege that left Marawi in tatters, over 400,000 people displaced and much of the city's population scarred by trauma.

Like the suicide bomber who massacred 23 people at the Our Lady of the Mt. Carmel Church in Jolo in 2019.

In the 2017 siege, purportedly, the whole point was to make Marawi the first experimental city for Philippine theocracy under harsh, unforgiving edicts of religious fundamentalism. Some kind of Asean version of the current Afghanistan where the whole purpose is to go back to life in the Dark Ages. Where even the simple quest for learning and enlightenment is forbidden. Where women are invisible. Where illiteracy and poverty are considered virtues.

Many have the sense that the whole point of the architects of the carnage and violence in Muslim Mindanao is not the successful carving out of a little, independent caliphate there because that cannot simply be done, as history has shown. The agenda is to lock up Muslim Mindanao in a perpetual state of mass poverty and mass illiteracy. Because amid such an environment, it is easy to lure jihadist recruits.

If the purpose is to lock Muslim Mindanao in a perpetual state of poverty and illiteracy, they have half succeeded in their mission.

Official data say the poverty rate in Muslim Mindanao is the highest in the country, and that has been true from time immemorial. It is between a range of 39 percent to 55 percent, the only region in the country with a poverty rate so depressing. No other region in the country has fallen that low in terms of poverty measurement.

Worse, many in the Mindanao political class live in style and opulence and excess like it were the Gilded Age, their bullet-proof SUVs moving in convoys across the blighted areas of their suffering constituencies.

Close to 20 percent of the population can neither read nor write. No other region in the country has that horrible 80 to 84 percent official illiteracy rate of Muslim Mindanao. Just imagine the functional illiteracy level under such conditions.

The political representation, the political leverage rather, that is required to push for a more equitable share of state resources in the direction of Mindanao is non-existent. The 8th Congress that ended in 1992 was the last with two Muslim senators. After that, zero.

So, the story of Muslim Mindanao is by now a very familiar one. The region most mired in poverty and illiteracy. And the region that is definitely a cauldron of impossible violence.

 

Cauldron of violence, epicenter of poverty and illiteracy (msn.com)

 

 

[Kingpin]

Too much diversity, soon it will be clear.