SYRIA AND ARAB SPRING

SYRIA AND ARAB SPRING
by Wilhelmina S. Orozco


Why is it always so difficult to shift from an authoritarian to a democratic regime? Why is there so much bloodshed nowadays? Way back in the 80's, when we started our pro-democracy movement, it was a breeze going from one rally to another, bringing flowers, leaflets and food. We never bothered if we would be killed by Marcos' forces or not. We just went to those venues in search of a more meaningful existence, that we may be able to regain our human rights. 

I remember one Communist diplomat who made a mistake of congratulating Marcos after declaring himself the winner of the fraudulent elections of 86. We were so appalled by his statement and so we asked, where was he all this time?

 And  now reading what is happening to Syria, we are made to see how the hardline dictator

President Bashar al-Assad could really be digging his heels on Syrian pavement just so he could remain in power, and with two communist countries, Russia and China, backing him up. 

Come to think of it, why are the leaders of these two countries so desensitized to the massacres in Syria? Are they afraid that the same thing could happen to them, that the people would opt for a democratic atmosphere and then kick them out? If they are respectful of the rights of their people, then why should they be afraid at all? 

Isn't it a very normal occurrence for people to want to be able to speak, act, write and feel freely on their own, while not stepping on other people's toes? What kinds of parents reared the leaders of these two countries that they have turned rigid and unmindful of the rising numbers of widows, orphans and dead? What kinds of methods were used to train their minds and hearts to be desensitized?

One time I met a teacher of Chinese children in physical education. At a very young age, they are town away from their parents so that their bodies and minds would be turned to physical objectives. I asked, don't children need caress and touch as they are still very young, and barely out of their mothers' wombs? The teacher answered that the trainors provide themselves as surrogate mothers. But I think there is really nothing much better than your own real parents around you as you grow up. 

When my children were young, I had my parents and the yayas to take care of the children while I had to write and join rallies. At times I brought them, but because of the danger of being hurt, I refrained from doing so. But then, I was always around to see them at any time, unlike in those countries whereby the children were brought to a home away from home to train.

Anyway, given the situation in Syria, I think that the UN has to develop standard operating procedures already on how to deal with dictatorial regimes. The UN cannot possible have country-members with repressive regimes. This is highly anti-UN in character and should not prevail at all. 

I suggest that the countries come up with procedures on how to allow people to assert their human rights on a gradual basis, and for the heads of states to allow these steps to be followed stage by stage. 

Or are we being cock-eyed optimists?

ON FEMINIST WRITING

On Feminist Writing
by Wilhelmina S. Orozco

Some people have a mistaken notion that when a feminist writes, she or he invariably becomes biased. Folks a man can be feminist too as he believes in equality of the sexes.

                                                                          

I heard a writer say that she is not a feminist, and I was very surprised because she has been around since the 80's. So I am now writing down what could be called feminist writing. I invite the readers to send me their own opinions at my email: miravera2010@gmail.com

1. Feminist writing means that the writer takes particular care of pointing out the status and condition of women on the issue. If the issue is politics, then women's roles have to be highlighted, their number, their achievements, the obstacles to their full participation. If it is economy, then women's businesses, livelihood, and all means of eking out a living also have to be mention, including their population. You could do comparison, contrast or just plain description. The point is that things, issues about women and their views too have to be read. This is putting women as subjects not objects of media;

2. Feminist writing does not use the pronouns, he, his for describing professions, as these will masculinize them, meaning only men are considered appropriate for handling them;

3. Feminist writing is recognizing women's contributions in society, whether at home or in society;

4. Promoting equality in society is not abolishing men, but rather making society recognize everyone is valuable in the development and  advancement of societies; and

5. Mentioning the history of why women are pushing for equality will deepen the public understanding and make them look kindly at every girl, female teenager, woman, mother, and grandmother.

Writing is more historically accurate and meaningful if people advance the role of women in society.

Picture from from Shifting the Gaze: Painting and Feminism September 12, 2010, to January 30, 2011, the Jewish Museum

FAKE HEROES AND HEROINES

Wilhelmina S. Orozco

When I think of airports being the channel through which pass criminal elements -- going in and going out of the country, the first thing that comes to my mind is, how do the gatekeepers regard the Filipino people? I have a nasty feeling that we, residents of the country are being discriminated against, that we are being treated as low-class citizens meant to hobnob with these supposedly outcasts of a decent society. We are made to feel comfortable with their presence despite their notorious backgrounds.

And to allow them to go out of the country, without regard for the laws of the land, is tantamount to treason. Those so-called gatekeepers who allowed criminals to go scot-free are guilty of scoffing at the law, of not only disregarding it but also creating a law unto and among themselves. They have become the powers behind the throne, judging and administering moves as to who should go in and out of the country.

As far as integrity of our government is concerned therefore, those employees of the Bureau of Immigration who allowed the killers of Ortega the broadcast journalist from Palawan to leave the country are no longer true but rather fake employees. They ought to be removed from the service because they connived with the criminal elements and set them free despite the warrants of arrest for them.

I think it is time for the government to put its foot down against such erring employees. They are no longer serving the Filipino people but themselves. Worse yet, they are bringing in criminal elements who could wreak havoc on the peace, stability and integrity of the nation. What for should these employees be allowed to continue in office when they have misused and abused their positions to line their pockets with money?

I don't think those employees would even believe in the Christian faith. They are no longer part of that Christian society where we need to be good to those who have less in life, and not those who oppress them. 

Furthermore, wouldn't it be good for each government employee entering the service and thereafter, on a yearly basis, to undergo a test of their patriotism? The Civil Service Commission should conduct tests to determine if we have governing people who love our country, who love the people and who will defend our laws though death should face them.

We need heroes and heroines in government, real angels, not fake ones;

POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS

POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS

By Wilhelmina S. Orozco

Every November used to be our election time patterned after Americans’. But now we have ours every May. Yet November is still politically interesting because we get to watch how the American people conduct their elections, who they vote for, for what (now there is the why they vote for this and that candiate) among so other hosts of reasons.

American presidential elections are especially interesting for me because we suffer from a deluge of things American, from Starbucks to American Idol on TV, up to Walt Disney in comics, and Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts, question are they or aren’t they married yet? I mean all the gossips, rumors, and news altogether are right here on our soil. And everyday we get a dose of them, over print, radio, tv, and the movies. And who is the Filipino woman or man who does not have a glimpse or dose of these?

My particular interest in the elections hinges on how we could also strengthen our own love for our cultural products as the proliferation the above products reflects pride of Americans in them.  

Today we know that there are only two contenders for the American presidency, unlike ours when we had four aspirants in the past. They are the Republican aspirants, Mitt Romney with Paul Ryan as VP candidate, versus incumbents, Pres. Barack Obama and VP Joe Biden. On Thursday evening, the Dems, Democrat for short, will be officially announcing their candidates. The Republicans did their national convention Thursday last week greatly criticized by some journalists. (But if you watch NBC, you would think Romney is winning already. The station devote 3/4 of its news images on the elections on the Reps. so better watch out for propaganda and its hidden messages.  I had to surf the internet for other views in order to get a balanced picture.)

What is interesting in the American campaigns is that the candidates focus on substantial matters – what occurred during four years of the Obama administration – his policies and programs, and to the Republicans, what new things they can offer. Both also use name-recall media personalities who give the campaigns great hurrah.

If you listen or read the write-ups, they are in English, we can see the high level of debates that are occurring with subtle innuendoes on who the writers are for. But when you read their short bios, you would find out that they belong to either the Dems or the Reps, or they have had direct dealings with the candidate/s, like this professor who said that he knew a candidate personally in the university years back. In other words, they speak from experience.

How do they tackle the issues? The writers have a good grounding on facts based on history. They know when Ryan is obfuscating the issue of Medicare; when Romney is not clear, meaning specific,  on what his economic goals and when he is promoting his past economic achievements, but fails to present how many jobs were lost during his heading that company. 

I think we need to read up on the American elections now because as we have said, America is printed in our cultural psyche through its businesses here. We need to see how the American people vote and listen to the candidates. Now, the people no longer look at personalities but what they have to offer. I think that when Obama won, he already turned the election color upside down. Voters look beyond skin color (or majority do), but rather try to find ways of seeing something more from the individual. Is the candidate articulate, honest, truthful, empathic?

Yes, empathy is very important for a country that has suffered from the bombings of its iconic World Trade Center and the Pentagon, from the hurricanes, and are trying to be more savvy economically as they are deluged with Chinese and Japanese goods that upset the dominance of American products, especially cars and electronic gadgets, 

Obama seems to offer an empathy which is very difficult to cultivate actually in a country steeped in rationalistic atmosphere and material pursuits. He comes out as more approachable than Mitt Romney. I don’t know if all the Americans would value that totally but for sure, the immigrants, like our own Filipino Americans, would find that appealing. Having had to immigrate to America in search of greener pastures, certainly they would search for an official who would give them a listening ear to their woes, and who would move to make their lives better. Reports show that Obama is winning the preferences of this particular sector. But what is their percentage in the voting population?

The Filipino-Americans have an edge over the other immigrants. We know the American psyche as our country lived through 50 years of American rule and who gave us the education (highly skewed to American ideals) and governing patterns. Thus if there is any sector that can help Obama win, it is this sector, which by the way helped him in 2008 as the National Fil-American Association headed by the departed ex-priest Ernesto Ramos, brother of Luis Ramos who is now giving many jobs to the Tondo poor through his magnetite business in Zambales. Brod Ernesto was able to swing the Fil-Am votes to Obama’s favor so much so that upon his urging,  the latter signed the Filipino veterans act right away upon his assumption into Oval Office.

It might interest  you to know how US presidents fared in handling the American economy by their reining or not reining in their national debt. A graph of US debts can be found at  http://www.groupnewsblog.net/2010/02/since-1950-republican-presidents.html

snews.com/8301-503544_162-20027... - 

In our case, our economic problems stem from lack of export destinations, and possibly lack of products too that could compete with other countries’. You see we have rich soils that could possible be a good source of food crops; but our business people, instead of turning them into profitable export products, they build subdivisions which stop the fertility of the soil. It is really depressing when I see candies made from vegetables which can be found here, yet they are manufactured in Thailand, Malaysia or Indonesia. It is more depressing when we see our relatives, friends and workers in general migrating to other countries just to have jobs, like Singapore and Canada.

Hence, we look at American elections and try to see if we can reverse what is happening to us economically, too, aside from being just a consumer of every product they turn out. We need the winning party to give us more liberal access to American markets.

For that, we need to study as backgrounder, the record of each party in helping us rise economically. As we say, when the Americans sneeze, the Filipino people catch the colds, and we could even suffer from pneumonia. Luckily, we have not really gone into that state, especially when recession hit the American economy. Our OFWs served as buffers to that huge problem, but come to think of it at what costs to family ties and social stability?

Changing institutions and societies can be done through the ascension of sincere, trustworthy (pro-people), and knowledgeable political officials. Let the American elections serve as one of our reference points for judging our own.

(picture from canstock 1476 376)

WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE

I LIKE going to libraries and browsing books. I also do some of my writings inside them since I have ready access to books that could have relevant contents for my topics. However, there are some constraints when we consider the opening skeds of libraries. 

The UP libraries are closed at lunch except for, according to a new friend of mine at the Bible Studies Foundation and who works with the UP Archives,the main library I really do not understand that at all. Students are students the whole day. Ergo, libraries should be accessible during those hours. 

Public libraries are closed on Saturdays and Sundays. 

I used to go toe the Goethe Institut library near our house way back in the early millenium years but now it has gone to Makati, where intelligence is high, where the people can afford books and CDs all the time, etcetera.

What is the purpose of a library, to serve only minds and not to consider the social conditions of the reader? John Dewey, Rousseau, Simone de Beauvoir, and many other writers would not like that very much. Books, CDs, VCDs, DVDs should all be accessible at most times, not only when it is convenient for some institutions to provide them. 

Intelligence is one problem of our country. The heated debates, the sensitivity of officials to criticisms, the violence attendant to arguments, all these reflect a lack of, fear of, and even disgust for intellectual defense, which is the bedrock of democracy. 

I think that if we are going to bring up people of high intelligence, libraries should be open everyday, up to 10p.m. Why 10 p.m.? Because professionals could be off by 7p.m. and they might want to go to the library at that time, to borrow or return a book. They couldn't possibly absent themselves from their work simply to do that just because the library sked is limited. Schools and universities should open their libraries all day when the students are there. (Faculty also should have unhampered access to them, of course.)

Moreover, some schools have done away with card indices. I think they should be restored. Some computers for searching books are not functioning properly. I even suspect, the people -- management information system of the institutions have the tendency to hack those computers if only to distract some radical students and faculty, especially at the social work and  community development offices. 

Also, I hope that all libraries would have computers that would require low fees, something like P15 per hour, instead of anything higher since Knowledge should be freely given or at the least cost to everyone. 

Without knowledge, there would be no morality. Without morality, what is life?