The poet Wilfred Owen used some poignant descriptions of gas warfare in the First World War. The soldier in Owen's poem didn't simply succumb to gas: he had a “hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin.” He didn't simply collapse into the narrator's arms: Owen writes “he plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.” The damage to the body was not in medical terms: “the blood / Come gargling forth from the froth-corrupted lungs / Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud / Of vile, incurable sores from innocent tongues.”
Gas warfare is banned today if not for a few belligerents and terrorists using them, but tear gas is no different. In the case of the kuliglig drivers of Manila, who were violently dispersed by the Manila SWAT team last Wednesday, it involved tear gas, water cannons, and trucks.
It's easy to dismiss the lowly, rickety kuliglig as an obsolete piece of transport that should be banned, with each tricycle dismantled. But in a country trying its best to move forward into first-world status, police brutality remains a choice weapon of the State to drive its people. We're no strangers to gassing and water cannons in the Philippines, and we're no strangers to praising the use of force. “It's for the good of the country,” some of us claim, the bloodied faces and the chilling effects of gas and truncheons merely collateral damage to progress.
I'll be the first to condemn a rallyist for breaking barricades or beating up policemen in the name of a cause. Poverty is no excuse for rowdy behavior, and passion is not a justification for irrational action. Yet in the same vein, there is no reason for the enforcing elements of the State to resort to force and violence. The use of force – whether it borders on the excessive or if it is indeed excessive – is proof of a failure of negotiation. It proves the inability to dialog, to discuss, to settle things in a peaceful manner with respect to people's rights.
Let's not talk about the theoretical constructions of the petit-bourgeoisie and the abstractions of class structure, but let's look back at this from the use of force. Had the Manila City Government presented alternatives to kuligligs, like electric-powered public transport or demanded the registration of the vehicles (or set prescribed routes), there would have been no need for a dispersal. Yet they didn't: in some desire to show power and demonstrate force they gassed where negotiation failed. They used truncheons in place of a discussion. Force is never used in peace. Where negotiation fails, negotiate again. Where discussion is not heard out, attempt discussion again. When they cast stones, cast bread. When they themselves reject the offering of dialogue, offer it again while keeping the law in place.
Yes, and I must emphasize this: you can disperse peacefully. Back in the day, I walked away from more rallies unscathed than actually being wounded.
I believe that modernization is necessary, and indeed we must get rid of kuligligs in the streets of Manila. But a “modern,” “first-world” state of mind is not paved with tear gas canisters and lined with barricades. Force keeps the poor in their place, violence inculcates a mindset of victimhood. There are alternatives to kuligligs, like environment-friendly transportation and making registration accessible for all. However, there are no alternatives when you pelt rocks or swing batons. There is no alternative in a context framed by violence.
Owen ends his poem with some harrowing lines: “My friend, you would not tell with such high zest / To children ardent for some desperate glory / The old Lie; Dulce et decorum est / Pro patria mori.” It lends itself well to a sense of irony and an indictment of the tableau the story is taking place...
But that's for another column altogether.