Monday - October 17, 2005
Zara, Gloria and Demosthenes walk into a bar...
I rarely write about politics. I disliked Political
Science 101; perhaps my teacher wasn't entertaining or annoying enough, but
there you go, three hours a week for half a year now mere neuronic
gibberish.
Over the weekend, I received a text message from Budj. He was in Rockwell, marveling at the volume of people lining up at Zara, which is Spain's attempt to relive its days of world domination through frocks and frippery. First they came with the Cross and the Sword, and now it's the Shrug and the Floaty Skirt. The queues were a sign, for me, of how dislocated Rockwell truly is from the rest of the Philippines. It floats in its own space-time continuum. Its trimmed hedges and clipped grass and aligned bromeliads have never felt the trudge of tired protesters going home after yet another fruitless rally. On weekends, Rockwell actually closes streets to make room for tables and chairs and night owls having dinner and drinks - in any other neighborhood, you would be assaulted by street children pointing at your unfinished food, or ballpen sellers pretending to be students in need of tuition money.
In the Great Unconscious of the Philippines, it's places like Rockwell that breed evil. It's where the evil rich family lives, the one that speaks English and abuses the poor maid from the province who is both pretty and has a golden heart. It's where the villains live off the broken backs of the serfs, who suffer quietly and go to church. It's what is held up for scorn by opinion manipulators like ex-President Estrada, who blamed the rich for the further impoverishment of the poor, never mind that he was never poor, and in fact took steps to make sure his balance sheet was as far away from poor as possible.
It is simple, and its simplicity makes it sound true.
We are not equipped, by our schools or our media, to pick our way through gray. We are culturally unprepared for "win-win." To negotiate is to admit defeat.
And so Gloria is the villain, and whatever she does is viewed through that lens. I don't think there's any room for the truth, if there is such a thing, or even if it is needed beyond the revolution its various versions are meant to ignite.
Of the truth of which it was thought to be no small sign, that he was very rarely heard to speak upon the occasion, but though he were by name frequently called upon by the people, as he sat in the assembly, yet he would not rise unless he had previously considered the subject, and came prepared for it. So that many of the popular pleaders used to make it a jest against him; and Pytheas once, scoffing at him, said that his arguments smelt of the lamp. To which Demosthenes gave the sharp answer, "It is true, indeed, Pytheas, that your lamp and mine are not conscious of the same things."
- Plutarch's Parallel Lives
Over the weekend, I received a text message from Budj. He was in Rockwell, marveling at the volume of people lining up at Zara, which is Spain's attempt to relive its days of world domination through frocks and frippery. First they came with the Cross and the Sword, and now it's the Shrug and the Floaty Skirt. The queues were a sign, for me, of how dislocated Rockwell truly is from the rest of the Philippines. It floats in its own space-time continuum. Its trimmed hedges and clipped grass and aligned bromeliads have never felt the trudge of tired protesters going home after yet another fruitless rally. On weekends, Rockwell actually closes streets to make room for tables and chairs and night owls having dinner and drinks - in any other neighborhood, you would be assaulted by street children pointing at your unfinished food, or ballpen sellers pretending to be students in need of tuition money.
In the Great Unconscious of the Philippines, it's places like Rockwell that breed evil. It's where the evil rich family lives, the one that speaks English and abuses the poor maid from the province who is both pretty and has a golden heart. It's where the villains live off the broken backs of the serfs, who suffer quietly and go to church. It's what is held up for scorn by opinion manipulators like ex-President Estrada, who blamed the rich for the further impoverishment of the poor, never mind that he was never poor, and in fact took steps to make sure his balance sheet was as far away from poor as possible.
It is simple, and its simplicity makes it sound true.
We are not equipped, by our schools or our media, to pick our way through gray. We are culturally unprepared for "win-win." To negotiate is to admit defeat.
And so Gloria is the villain, and whatever she does is viewed through that lens. I don't think there's any room for the truth, if there is such a thing, or even if it is needed beyond the revolution its various versions are meant to ignite.
Of the truth of which it was thought to be no small sign, that he was very rarely heard to speak upon the occasion, but though he were by name frequently called upon by the people, as he sat in the assembly, yet he would not rise unless he had previously considered the subject, and came prepared for it. So that many of the popular pleaders used to make it a jest against him; and Pytheas once, scoffing at him, said that his arguments smelt of the lamp. To which Demosthenes gave the sharp answer, "It is true, indeed, Pytheas, that your lamp and mine are not conscious of the same things."
- Plutarch's Parallel Lives