DISSENT FROM THE STANDPOINT OF A NATIONALIST HISTORIAN

Below are excerpts taken from Renato Constantino’s book, Dissent and Counter-Consciousness, which he wrote and published more than three decades ago. You might be asking why I painstakingly took the time to encode at most eight paragraphs of his work (I couldn’t find an online copy). You might also be wondering if his views are still relevant considering the passage of time and of the possibility that the conditions then obtaining may no longer exist at present. Nevertheless, allow me to share his insights on what he calls the state of “dissent” in Philippine society. Quite expectedly, nothing has changed despite the lapse of 35 years since he introduced said ideas. The nation is still engulfed in massive poverty while our institutions, most notably Congress and the Executive Department, are still infested by crocodiles disguised as politicians.

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On the other hand, dissent has metamorphosed into various forms, just as the holders of power have mutated from one ruthless dictator to an allegedly fake and immoral one. Some even confuse dissent with apathy, contempt and cynicism. It is therefore high time we examine our own criticisms if we are to have a better understanding of the problems facing our country.

Read the following article and try to assess whether or not your version of dissent fits one of his descriptions:

PERIPHERAL DISSENT

We proudly claim that ours is a democratic society, that we enjoy the fruits of freedom and civil liberties. From the way our politicians attack each other, from the manner in which some writers express themselves, we might be led to conclude that our society is so free our freedom borders on license. Our leaders boast of this supposed freedom, pointing to current expressions of dissent as positive proof of the health and vitality of our democracy. Let us use their own yardstick. Let us examine the nature and scope of present dissent.

Much criticism today is peripheral, concerned with details. Falling under this category are the complaints of civic-minded citizens regarding junkets, misuse of official cars, the rudeness and laziness of government employees, poor garbage collection… bad roads, poor law enforcement, and rich criminals. Such matters though important are not central. For the evils pointed out are only random manifestations of a basic disease in the body politic. They are results, not causes.

FRAGMENTED DISSENT

Another characteristic of dissent in our society is its fragmented nature. Many critics are writing valid criticisms of important aspects of government and society, but because these are only personal reactions to specific problems and are not based on a well thought out philosophy or ideology, they cannot give our people a systematic, over-all view of what is wrong with our society.

This makes dissent ineffective since it cannot give direction to popular dissatisfaction. There are truths in their criticisms, but our critics do not pursue their analysis into the roots of the social evils that they decry. For example, they have been exposing corruption for years. Since we have witnessed the same corruption in each succeeding administration, corruption must be springing from the social system, not just from bad officials or bad parties. It is therefore time to analyze the system itself in order to understand the cause of corruption.

Another consequence of fragmented dissent is its often contradictory nature. For example, some critics deplore widespread poverty and blame government for rising unemployment, but they will fight tooth and nail against any proposal which would undermine economic privilege in a colonial economy, which is precisely what is keeping so many Filipinos poor.

DISHONEST DISSENT

But the most obtrusive and the lowest quality of dissent comes from what we consider the cornerstone of our democracy — the existence of a political opposition. If dissent from other souces is peripheral, trivial, fragmentary, contradictory, at least much of it is honest. Political dissent, especially of the pre-election variety, is largely personal, self-serving, and dishonest. It is mainly motivated by a desire for position and power so that the new possessor of power my do exactly what he knew he would do — which is exactly what he criticized the other fellow for doing. No wonder each new election is the mirror image of the previous one, the new outsiders castigating the present power holders for their old sins — graft and corruption, rising prices, worsening peace and order, one-man rule. And does the relative importance of each problem dictate what shall be stressed? No, the “issues” brought before the people are what the politicians think the people will understand, surely an insult to their intelligence. The “stands” politicians take are those calculated to earn them the most votes, surely an indictment of their intellectual integrity. Pre-election dissent is dissent at its lowest level — mere posturing, gimmickry, and sloganeering — dishonesty propagated and cynically received.

SELF-CENSORSHIP

Dissent is often weakened, revised, or stifled altogether by self-censorship. The dissenter may see more than he reveals. He may understand the true nature of our problems and may already have glimpsed the nature of the solutions. But fear of consequences were he to write down each unthinkable thought deters him. His fear may only be the opportunist’s fear of losing certain lucrative connections, or it may be the fear of being stigmatised, persecuted openly or insidiously, blacklisted as a radical. Both the opportunist and the weakling are confirmed in their betrayal of their own minds and of their duty to dissent, by public apathy and indifference.

We live in a climate of intellectual frivolity. We have developed many forms of escape which entertain us and at the same time prevent us from thinking of really serious matters. Many of us are afraid to think. The rest of us never learned how. We live in an intellectual desert whose oases are few and far between.