Carvajal: Nationalism

MAYBE President Noynoy Aquino will be no different from Gloria Arroyo on extra-judicial killings. But for the mainstream left to judge him as such this early in the game is something totally unfair and smacks of an ideological bias.

The allegation reminds me of another instance in our troubled past when extreme leftists proved themselves to be more ideologues than nationalists.

Extreme leftists worked the front-lines of the resistance to Martial Law, providing the ideological underpinnings for the smattering of violence the anti-Marcos movement engaged in.

They dismissed Christian activist personalities and organizations--which did not accept their credo that “political power comes only from the barrel of a gun”-- as having practical value only as legal fronts in their build-up towards a violent overthrow of the government.

Thus, when people gathered at Edsa armed not with guns but with raw courage and a prayer, the extreme leftists were nowhere to be found. The people decided to take it upon themselves to end the dictatorship and the true nationalists followed them.

The ideologues, however, stayed away, true to their ideology that “political power comes only from the barrel of a gun.”

Without giving him a chance to even start to work some issues out, they are now saying PNoy is no different from Gloria Arroyo on extrajudicial killings. Since this still remains to be seen, it is safe to conclude their statement must be dictated by ideology, the ideology that says the upper class, the ruling class to which President Noynoy belongs, will only make cosmetic socio-political changes that will not make them give up their positions of wealth, power and privilege.

We live in a world where social problems can no longer be framed by the fixed categories of Marx. More than strictly class issues are the many more minority issues like those involving women, children, the elderly and the differently-abled. Many of these problems require us to go beyond logic and think creatively of solutions.

Indeed, the world has felt the positive contribution of people who transcended the limitations of their class.

PNoy is definitely upper class. But this time people voted him into office for the distinct possibility he would transcend his class and live out his parents’ libertarian legacy. In any case, whether he could and would remains to be seen. To say he couldn’t or wouldn’t is to prejudge him on the basis of ideology.

It is said that if you are not part of the solution then you are part of the problem.

I now say that if you insist you are the only solution then you are a very big part of the problem. We are a community that should work out our problems as creatively as we can without hurting each other. That is nationalism.

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