After reading your Chair Wrecker’s October 14 column — The US recycles China as its latest bogeyman — Carol, a dear friend from a Chinese-Filipino family, emailed me a poem written by Professor Duo-Liang Lin, Ph.D. A Professor Emeritus for Physics at the University of Buffalo, State University of New York — Professor Duo-Liang Lin’s poem was published by the prestigious Washington Post.
The professor’s poem cleverly outlines the many reversal of postures the US had made during their over 200 years of warring and trading with China which started with US participation in quelling the Boxer Rebellion. It reads:
When we were the Sick Man of Asia, We were called The Yellow Peril.
When we are billed to be the next Superpower, we are called The Threat.
When we closed our doors, you smuggled opium to open markets.
When we embrace Free Trade, You blame us for taking away your jobs.
When we were falling apart, You marched in your troops and wanted your fair share.
When we tried to put the broken pieces back together again, Free Tibet you screamed, It Was an Invasion!
When we tried Communism, you hated us for being Communist.
When we embrace Capitalism, you hate us for being Capitalist.
When we have a billion people, you said we were destroying the planet.
When we tried limiting our numbers, you said we abused human rights.
When we were poor, you thought we were dogs.
When we loan you cash, you blame us for your national debts.
When we build our industries, you call us Polluters.
When we sell you goods, you blame us for global warming.
When we buy oil, you call it exploitation and genocide.
But when you go to war for oil, you call it liberation.
When we were lost in chaos and rampage, you demanded rules of law.
When we uphold law and order against violence, you call it violating human rights.
When we were silent, you said you wanted us to have free speech.
When we are silent no more, you say we are brainwashed-xenophobics.
Why do you hate us so much, we asked.
No, you answered, we don’t hate you.
We don’t hate you either,
But, do you understand us?
Of course we do, you said,
We have AFP, CNN and BBC’s...
What do you really want from us?
Think hard first, then answer...
Because you only get so many chances.
Enough is Enough, Enough Hypocrisy for This One World.
We want One World, One Dream, and Peace on Earth.
This Big Blue Earth is Big Enough for all of Us.
Really, when you study the imperial character of the US, the personality that will form in your mind is that of a schizophrenic. The US will turn around to befriend a former enemy and will maltreat a loyal ally like the Philippines as if we were their most bitter enemies in the planet. Filipinos shed blood for the US during World War II but after the war — they did more for Japan than for us.
During the Cold War, the US conditioned us to fear and detest the Communists in Russia, China, North Korea and later on — in Vietnam. While we feared and hated the Communists, the US turns around and makes China and Russia their new friends and big trading partners. Vietnam is now being similarly worked on. If North Korea is smart, they should drop their belligerent posture and start prospering as a US trading partner.
During the Cold War, at the height of the US fear that their weak ally states will fall to the Communists like dominoes — The Domino Theory — they conveniently forgot their posture as the promoters and protectors of democracy and transformed our country into a dictatorship. Ferdinand E. Marcos may have signed Presidential Decree 1081 which imposed martial law but the dictatorship here was all part of the US sponsorship of dictatorships in South America, Central America and here in Asia.
Poor Marcos — after allowing the US to use him for imposing the dictatorship here, which happened to coincide with his own plan to stay in power — the US eventually became alarmed by the growth of the Maoist CPP-NDF-NPA Movement and actively helped to oust the dictator that they had created.
Now, we have a US that is posturing to mediate a peace between our government and the MILF (Moro Islamic Liberation Front). Alas, many Filipino idiots – Filipinos who do not know the truth – are still welcoming the Americans as peace brokers. They’re ignorant of the US plan to create a virtual, albeit concealed, Muslim State in Mindanao which will provide them the military offensive capability in their looming conflict with China.
A US military offensive capability in Mindanao, as what the MOA-AD (Memorandum of Agreement-Ancestral Domain) almost facilitated, will place us in the frontline of that dreaded US-China conflict – a much larger and more severe theatre of war than the MILF rebellion. The government’s war with the MILF at its worst can never approximate the casualties and damage of a US-China war that will be fought here.
To avert this potentially catastrophic national experience, Filipinos must learn the historical truth, know their real friends and enemies and unite for the sake of national preservation.
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Chair Wrecker e-mail and website: macesposo@ yahoo.com and www.chairwrecker.com