Boning up on Mindanao

One’s interest in Mindanao shouldn’t stop with the death of Martin Burnham and Deborah Yap and the release of Gracia Burnham, and what is claimed by the government as the beginning of the end of the terrorist Abu Sayyaf band. The destruction wrought by the hostilities between this notorious group and military forces has been incalculable; i.e., aside from the loss of many lives on both sides and the devastation of homes and communities, there is the great waste of affected living human resources – the pain and trauma suffered by families, by men and women and children who have been displaced from their homes and shorn of their means of livelihood and a vision of a future.

What has happened in Basilan clearly points to the bleak, unhappy fate of the residents in the Muslim-dominated island. The poverty in other areas majority of whose population are Muslims, is unbelievable. Why have these places remained in the clutches of poverty? What has the government not done for the southerners? What are the roots of conflict among the Muslim and Christian residents that have produced bitter feelings of hostility among them? Can peace ever be had among these people?

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To understand the problems of Mindanao, one would do well to get hold of literature written and researched painstakingly by Christians and Muslims, by sympathizers, by those who want to see peace in a shattered land. A number of books and periodicals remain to be taken down from shelves of libraries and bookstores.

They cover a range of topics, from Islam cultural beliefs and practices to politics and religion, diplomacy, economics, family life, trade and commerce, women, justice and the Sharia court, laws, education. They tell us what the Muslims believe in, why they are misunderstood, why they are being discriminated against.

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The following are new books that ought to be in one’s reading list:

From the Asian Institute of Journalism and UNESCO National Commission of the Philippines, Muslim and Christian Cultures, In Search of Commonalities. This book is a compilation of articles by noted scholars who "share that rare quality of perceptiveness that have enabled them to grasp the underlying conditions which have led to the escalation of the Mindanao conflict." The authors are Datu Michael Mastura, Soliman Santos, Carmen Abubakar, Fr. Oscar Ante, Luis Lacar, Mohd, Musih M. Buat, Hadja Roqaiya Maglangit and Abhoud Syed M. Lingga.

Anvil Publishing Inc.’s National Bookstores make available a scholarly driven and written piece of research by Thomas McKenna — Muslim rulers and Rebels, published by Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. It took McKenna more than a decade to finish the project, a social analysis of the layers of power as well as inter-and intra-relationships amongst various tribes in the Cotabato basin. Anvil published and distributes Jalan-Jalan, A Journey Through EAGA, by Marites Danguilan and Criselda Yabes. The book talks about the authors’ leisurely stroll through EAGA, which means East Asia Growth Area. Asiaweek chose it as one of the best books on Asia for 1999.

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* * * The Ateneo Center for Social Policy and Public Affairs and Institute for Popular Democracy published (and later the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism) Under the Crescent Moon": Rebellion in Mindanao by Marites Danguilan Vitug and Glenda M. Gloria. The book is described as "an exhaustively researched, evenhanded, and briskly written report on the Mindanao that most Filipinos read about everyday but have never really known. It holds great value for scholars and pedestrians alike a sifted mass of detail that often reads like a political thriller." All the characters of "great drama" are in the book – "upstage, downstage, and in the shadows – and all the powerful emotions: courage, betrayal, anguish, and even the occasional flash of humor. To read it is to begin to understand, after all these centuries, what Manila, Mindanao, Malaysia, and Mecca have integrally to do with one another."

One should also get hold of a copy of the video tape on the Bangsamoro woman, entitled Behind the Veil of Moro Women, which is produced by the Women’s Desk of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism. According to PCJ, "Three decades of war have caused untold anguish to Bangsamoro women. But they have remained resolute and strong. Now they face a dilemma. War or Peace? War is bloody and costly. And peace does not always right old wrongs. As they contemplate their situation, Bangsamoro women hold on to Islam. The veil is the symbol of their commitment to their people and their way of life. It is the mark of their faith."

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And what about literary outputs on Mindanao? New Day Publishers has answers to that, with Mindanao Harvest 1 and Mindanao Harvest 2, both anthologies of contemporary writing. I’m sorry I don’t have a copy of the first anthology, but of the second, it is edited by Jaime An Lim and Christine Godinez —Ortega and contains poetry by Cesar Ruiz Aquino, Tita Lacambra-Ayala, Anthony Tan, Francis Macansantos, Don Pagusara, Jaime An Lim, Christine Godinez-Ortega, Victor Mangubat, Eduardo P. Ortega, Mae Monteclaro Roca, Elson T. Elizaga and Ralph Semino Galan. Three dramas are in the book by Leoncio P. Doriada, Steven Patrick C. Fernandez and Rolando Bajo. The writers are from Mindanao — but no Muslim is included in the anthologies.

New Day has also published Triumph of Moro Diplomacy, which dwells on the Maguindanao sultanate in the 17th Century, by Ruurdje Laarhoven, a Dutch married to a Filipino scholar.

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In 1998, New Day and the Gowing Memorial Research Center published a collection of 17 articles which were delivered at 10 conferences on themes revolving on Islam and the Muslims in this country. Moctar I. Matuan, director of the Gowing Memorial Research Center, wrote that it is the center’s "fervent hope that the volume can "serve as a modest contribution to self-clarification on the part of the readers which may lead to the elimination of prejudices, false images and hatred."

New Day published Farah, a novel on a Muslim woman by the late novelist Edilberto K. Tiempo.

So, you have from political to cultural writers to poets and a novelist writing on Islam practices and Muslims. There are many, many publications one must read to understand that the way to peace in Mindanao is long and tortuous, but possible.