THERE is nothing new with the revelations of the AFP about schools penetrated by communists. Foremost, universities and colleges in the Philippines have been fertile grounds that formed ideologies. Second, this is unavoidable because ideologies are responses to the many social problems that have not been addressed by the government. Where poverty abounds, ideologies abound all the more.
I understand however that in the military’s lexicon, communism is not academic topic but an act of subversion and rebellion. Communism for them is dangerous just as any virus is to an organic system. What for professors is a matter of academic freedom may not necessarily be so for the military.
To what extent should the state respect academic freedom? What divides, for example, the mere teaching of Marxism as a topic in social science from using the same as a blueprint for indoctrination? Whether Marxism (or any ideology) poses a threat or is a danger to society – depends on the political system of the country. In a democracy, Marxism may not be a dogmatic basis for social analysis. However, it cannot but have its place among the various competing forms of discourses.
Thus, in a democratic state, the government cannot be too naïve or allergic, to say the least, to all forms of criticism including that of Marxism. In the end, the best idea will win. Of course, the state’s agencies of social control will have to do something whenever dissenting forces that promote violence.
The reaction of the military and PNP is, therefore, alarming. Why are they suddenly trumpeting all these warnings? Are we back to the period of the Cold War? Practically there is nothing new because all of us know that there are and have been insurgencies in this country. It is common knowledge that the military and the NPAs have been having encounters. We also know that UP and the other schools each have their own homegrown activists.
The more fearful thing is the military’s intrusion into the academic sphere. Ideas are supposed to be protected. I am speaking as an academic who believes that thinking must be, as much as possible, free from political constraints. Precisely, academic freedom is not just limited to a teacher’s liberty to lecture. It includes research, investigation, and publication.
Only dictators or fascists are afraid of ideas. Even the Medieval Church eventually allowed itself to be revolutionized by the challenges of the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation. Much as I do not want to believe that dictatorship is back but it seems that the military’s announcement will have inevitable chilling effects on the academe. Indeed there is so enough reason to worry when censorship would constrain and restrain academic life. Apparently this isn’t the last and only step. Eventually, the state’s expansion of its fascist wings will cover media and religion.
But what if the threat is real; what if communists are really growing in number? Questions like this remind me of a book written by the Italian philosopher Umberto Eco: “Inventing the Enemy.” Without delving into the depths of Eco’s work, I can only but say that most of the time there really are no monsters to fight. But because of the need to stay in power, not to mention the need to sustain relevance – the state has to make its own drama. An enemy has to be invented to justify the very reason for controlling people’s lives.