Violence has spread in several towns in Mindanao, including the killing of 33 people, in the aftermath of a collapsed peace talk between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. The MILF leadership, however, distances itself from what has happened, saying that it has no control over its rampaging field commanders. A Filipino political scientist, in an op-ed piece, points out the importance of making this distinction between the leadership of the insurgency group and its uncontrollable fighters, arguing that if ever peace efforts are to advance in Mindanao, reasonable elements within the MILF are what the Philippine government must capitalize on.
I will argue, however, that if the MILF leadership wanted genuine peace from the very beginning, the first item that should have been discussed during those peace talks was on how to disarm the rebel organization, whether voluntarily or involuntarily. Any peace talk is premised on this issue. But the MILF has another agenda in mind: its intent all along is to secede from the Philippines, establish its own Islamic republic, implement its own laws, and create its own security force.
So, if war is taking place in Mindanao right now, it's because it never went away; the lull that took place during the peace talk was artificial, where the MILF, thanks to ignorant and unsuspecting forces, gained the upper hand.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Sunday, August 17, 2008
“In Egypt, Some Women Say That Veils Increase Harassment”
In a Muslim country where the numbers of women wearing the veil are rising, and so – by most accounts – are incidents of groping and catcalls in the streets . . .” The more women veil the less men learn to behave as decent and civilized members of society . . . And the more women are harassed, the more they veil thinking it will ‘protect’ them,” says Mona Eltahaway, an Egyptian
social commentator.
The above seems to contradict the moral purpose intended by shari’a laws on why Muslim women should wear their veils: to inculcate modesty in women and self-restraint in men. But as this piece shows, it seems to have an opposite effect. The veil has come to represent fear in Egyptian women and uncontrollable desires in Egyptian men. This has both moral and political implications.
Morally speaking, virtue, as everyone knows, should not depend on externalities but on one’s personal cultivation of it, in the way he or she habituates himself in the ways of virtue. Politically speaking, if Egyptian women want to be treated as human beings equal to all and not as objects of sexual harassment, they should rethink why they would like to continue wearing the veil.
Georgia: On Citizenship and Territorial Integrity
I have been following the events that unfolded in Georgia last week, as I know very little about Georgia and its problem with Russia. I read with interest a piece that appeared in today’s Washington Post, providing a description of the role the players played as events unfolded: Georgia’s Saakashvili’s grab for Tskhinvali in his desire to restore Georgia’s traditional borders, which the author deemed as a mistake; Russia’s support for the right of Ossetian self-determination, and its real goal of reasserting Russian influence in that part of the world; and the US sending mixed signals to Georgia while paying little attention to Russian concerns in the region and beyond.
If one comes up close, however (that is, putting international relations framework of thinking aside), it seems that the question to ask is this: what do you do to a people who live within the geographical limits of a country and yet do not want to pay allegiance to it? What does citizenship entail? How does a country preserve its territorial integrity against citizens who want to secede from it?
Citizenship entails duties, obligations, and allegiances. Preserving territorial integrity entails defending one’s territory from foreign invaders. People living in those two breakaway provinces of Georgia must understand the duties and obligations of citizenship. They can leave if they don’t want to be part of it, but they can’t take the land with them.
Of course, in a republican setting the remedy is readily available: allowing the majority to rule while ensuring the rights of the minority.
If one comes up close, however (that is, putting international relations framework of thinking aside), it seems that the question to ask is this: what do you do to a people who live within the geographical limits of a country and yet do not want to pay allegiance to it? What does citizenship entail? How does a country preserve its territorial integrity against citizens who want to secede from it?
Citizenship entails duties, obligations, and allegiances. Preserving territorial integrity entails defending one’s territory from foreign invaders. People living in those two breakaway provinces of Georgia must understand the duties and obligations of citizenship. They can leave if they don’t want to be part of it, but they can’t take the land with them.
Of course, in a republican setting the remedy is readily available: allowing the majority to rule while ensuring the rights of the minority.
Federalism May Not Be the Answer Either
It seems that the Philippine government is not ready to give up the idea of renegotiating the agreement on ancestral domain with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), according to this article, although talks in Manila have now included a proposal to amend the Philippine Constitution in order to convert the Philippines into a federal state in order to give greater autonomy to Filipino Muslims. I don’t know how federalism could solve a problem that is rooted on ethno-religious conflict, except perhaps exacerbate it. Federalism is supposed to cut across ethnic, religious, linguistic, cultural, and commercial lines when it divides power between national and local governments.
Filipino lawmakers are interested in the idea of federalism because they think that it offers the structural solution that will provide local governments in Mindanao more power to attend to problems endemic to the region. Before they rush into it, I think that they must first weigh the national consequences of adopting federalism. For such structural change in a tiny country of disparate islands, where 80 or so dialects are spoken, may lead to confused allegiances and disunity. But the more serious problem this portends is a potential disproportionate increase in the number of characters unfit to rule. As pointed out in the Federalist Papers, the disproportion of unfit rulers against available remedies might be greater in small republics rather than in large ones.
Filipino lawmakers are interested in the idea of federalism because they think that it offers the structural solution that will provide local governments in Mindanao more power to attend to problems endemic to the region. Before they rush into it, I think that they must first weigh the national consequences of adopting federalism. For such structural change in a tiny country of disparate islands, where 80 or so dialects are spoken, may lead to confused allegiances and disunity. But the more serious problem this portends is a potential disproportionate increase in the number of characters unfit to rule. As pointed out in the Federalist Papers, the disproportion of unfit rulers against available remedies might be greater in small republics rather than in large ones.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Peace Talks in Mindanao
While the rest of the world was sleeping, the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) last Tuesday, August 5th, 2008, were poised to sign a set of agreements on how to achieve peace in Mindanao from a series of peace talks brokered by the US and Malaysian governments. The particulars of the agreements have not been publicly revealed, although newspaper reports indicate that the MILF, understandably in a hurry to seal the deal, would get legitimate control over a huge chunk of Mindanao, a conflict-ridden area south of the Philippines, to be governed by its own Bangsamoro Juridical Entity, with its own sharia laws, and security force.
Pressured by local officials in the area who are worried that their constituencies will be affected by the new political arrangements, the Philippine Supreme Court issued a temporary restraining order the day before the signing ceremony in Kuala Lumpur, thereby preventing the signing to take place on grounds that the agreements violate the constitutional provisions of sovereignty and territorial integrity.
In effect, the Philippine Supreme Court prevented a potential selling out of Mindanao to a secessionist Islamic organization whose main reason to exist is to secede from the Philippines, establish its own independent state, separate from the jurisdiction of the Philippine government. That they almost got away with it should be cause for serious concern on the part of the Filipino people. They have every right to question the intentions of those who brokered these agreements, including the Philippine government and the Philippine military. The US government for its part should question how its military and financial aid towards the resolution of this conflict might have been put to misuse.
From the very beginning of the crafting of the Mindanao policy here in DC, I had questioned the wisdom behind the principles that informed the policy and rejected the idea of engaging an insurgency group to a peace talk. In an article I wrote earlier, I laid out my arguments, questioning the Philippine government’s belief that self-determination and cultural separatism would solve the Muslim conflict in Philippine politics. The issue of “ancestral domain” became the centerpiece principle of the peace talks, viewing it as key to settling Muslim grievances. In their draft proposal, the MILFs argue that all lands, including natural resources, occupied by Filipino Muslims since time immemorial by cultural bond, customary law, and historic rights be declared as rightfully belonging to the Bangsamoros.
There seems to be a strong consensus among scholars of Philippine Muslim politics that the only practical and just solution to the ethnic problem in Mindanao is to grant them exclusive right to these lands based on the principles of self-determination and cultural separatism. Muslim leaders argue that since their people are of a distinctive minority, differing from the majority in religion, ways of life, and language, they are entitled to autonomy if not independence.
On the surface, self-determination looks like a reasonable and just policy. However, as I pointed out in my article, in many countries torn by ethnic conflict, self-determination based on ethnicity, race, and religion seems only to exacerbate the problem. The reason is because these factors, in fact, sharpen group differences; they fuel ethnic wars.
This kind of thinking lumps people into groups and categories rather than as individuals, free to exercise their rights apart from their group and map out the directions of their lives. It creates divided allegiances and promotes group entitlements, but often at the expense of the common good.
What should the Arroyo government do instead? First, it should stop pursuing the “peace talk route” for the reasons mentioned above. Since the conditions for the proper exercise of the right political principles have yet to be created, the government should take the economic route instead. Arroyo should open up the region to free-market activities, with provisions for competition and individual responsibility, open investments and foreign trade, hence, more jobs for individual well-being and prosperity. Instead of engaging insurgent groups in peace talks, the Philippine government should be conducting economic summits, taking up measures on how to convert the entire Mindanao area into an economic/free trade zone, awarding investment privileges and labor opportunities to the locals of the region.
For the attainment of genuine peace in Mindanao, right principles must inform the process of conflict-resolution.
Pressured by local officials in the area who are worried that their constituencies will be affected by the new political arrangements, the Philippine Supreme Court issued a temporary restraining order the day before the signing ceremony in Kuala Lumpur, thereby preventing the signing to take place on grounds that the agreements violate the constitutional provisions of sovereignty and territorial integrity.
In effect, the Philippine Supreme Court prevented a potential selling out of Mindanao to a secessionist Islamic organization whose main reason to exist is to secede from the Philippines, establish its own independent state, separate from the jurisdiction of the Philippine government. That they almost got away with it should be cause for serious concern on the part of the Filipino people. They have every right to question the intentions of those who brokered these agreements, including the Philippine government and the Philippine military. The US government for its part should question how its military and financial aid towards the resolution of this conflict might have been put to misuse.
From the very beginning of the crafting of the Mindanao policy here in DC, I had questioned the wisdom behind the principles that informed the policy and rejected the idea of engaging an insurgency group to a peace talk. In an article I wrote earlier, I laid out my arguments, questioning the Philippine government’s belief that self-determination and cultural separatism would solve the Muslim conflict in Philippine politics. The issue of “ancestral domain” became the centerpiece principle of the peace talks, viewing it as key to settling Muslim grievances. In their draft proposal, the MILFs argue that all lands, including natural resources, occupied by Filipino Muslims since time immemorial by cultural bond, customary law, and historic rights be declared as rightfully belonging to the Bangsamoros.
There seems to be a strong consensus among scholars of Philippine Muslim politics that the only practical and just solution to the ethnic problem in Mindanao is to grant them exclusive right to these lands based on the principles of self-determination and cultural separatism. Muslim leaders argue that since their people are of a distinctive minority, differing from the majority in religion, ways of life, and language, they are entitled to autonomy if not independence.
On the surface, self-determination looks like a reasonable and just policy. However, as I pointed out in my article, in many countries torn by ethnic conflict, self-determination based on ethnicity, race, and religion seems only to exacerbate the problem. The reason is because these factors, in fact, sharpen group differences; they fuel ethnic wars.
This kind of thinking lumps people into groups and categories rather than as individuals, free to exercise their rights apart from their group and map out the directions of their lives. It creates divided allegiances and promotes group entitlements, but often at the expense of the common good.
What should the Arroyo government do instead? First, it should stop pursuing the “peace talk route” for the reasons mentioned above. Since the conditions for the proper exercise of the right political principles have yet to be created, the government should take the economic route instead. Arroyo should open up the region to free-market activities, with provisions for competition and individual responsibility, open investments and foreign trade, hence, more jobs for individual well-being and prosperity. Instead of engaging insurgent groups in peace talks, the Philippine government should be conducting economic summits, taking up measures on how to convert the entire Mindanao area into an economic/free trade zone, awarding investment privileges and labor opportunities to the locals of the region.
For the attainment of genuine peace in Mindanao, right principles must inform the process of conflict-resolution.
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