Festival known as Al-Janadriya

By the time you will be reading this column, I shall be in Riyadh to attend the Al-Janadriya, an annual Saudi festival of Heritage and Culture. This is the first time I will visit this country which is home of more than a million Filipinos. As the country which houses the holy places of Mecca and Medina it is also the religious capital of Islam, the religion of Filipino Muslims.

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The festival originally began as a sporting event featuring camel races to which Saudi Royals invited guests from all over the world. But through the years, through the watch of Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, the festival gradually changed and expanded to become a comprehensive display and celebration of Islamic heritage and culture. In a way, it did not cease to be a sporting event, except that the occasion is for a cultural marathon. Artists, intellectuals, writers as well as politicians are invited to contribute to a festival of ideas on Islamic culture, which the Saudi government considers "a major axis for development.".

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For the festival, I have contributed a paper which highlights the part that Islam played in the history of the Filipino nation. Indeed it is entitled, Islam is a part of the cultural identity of the Filipino nation. Like most Christian Filipinos, I have remained too long ignorant of this important part of my roots. It was not until I lived abroad and met Muslims that I began a journey that would lead to a curiosity and then an ardent study of a subject that has led me to Al-Janadriya.

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I do not believe there is any other route to peace than to discover the roots of our common identity with our Muslim brothers and sisters in the South. Fortunately it does not require anything more than an open-mindedness which would allow the mind to look at scholarship and work already done by many but which have remained gathering dust in our National Archives.

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Among those I sought, the nay principal work that I used in making my presentation of the Islamic portion of our national identity is Cesar Majul’s History of Islam in the Philippines. For the history of Islam in general, I referred to the work of the former Catholic nun Karen Armstrong who has become a guru of sorts for moderate Muslims. I also make reference to an article written by Emmanuel Yap who sees problems ahead of us unless we wake up to the realization that our future is with kinship with our Asian neighbors. But I must not tary. I present this paper with all candor, as a starting point rather then as a finished debate. It is a challenge to delve into what has been deliberately left out of our cultural consciousness to our detriment and I daresay at the bottom of our difficulties in Mindanao. I hope that the way of curiosity and knowledge will lead us to peace may be not now but in the future. But the effort must be the same in re-crafting the way we see ourselves as a Filipino nation.

Here it is:

This paper on Islam is part of the cultural identity of the Filipino nation should probably be under the topic on the Islamic Idea on Globalization. If the objective of globalization is to bring about a harmonious new world order which would enable differing peoples and civilizations to work together and with each other, then the recall of the early common history of Filipino Muslims and Filipino Christians, as indigenous people would be an important contribution. It would demonstrate that other factors, not just religious or cultural differences, were at work that pulled indigenous Filipinos apart. This historical perspective should be the starting point of the effort to promote understanding not just between Muslims and Christians in the Philippines but elsewhere.

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Indeed, misunderstanding arises from ignorance of these beginnings. More should know that there was a time when the indigenous people of these islands (not yet known as Filipinos) shared a common apprehension against the onslaught of imperialism masking as religion. A key question in this study is why Filipinos in the south under the influence of Islam were better able to defend their self-determination. This implies differences between Islamic and Christian approaches in their entry into the Philippines.

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One of the unfortunate results of the events of September 11 is to focus on the antagonisms and conflicts between the two religions with the US leading the Christian West on the one hand and terrorists claiming to be Islamic fundamentalists on the other. It seems designed to fulfill Dr. Samuel Huntington’s warnings of a clash of civilizations. This paper maintains that this is a simplistic view of the conflict. It may be that the US is justified in seeking justice for the thousands who were killed in the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. But Osama bin Laden is an aberration, not typical Muslim. Indeed, a study of the history of Islam will show that most of his incendiary statements are un-Islamic. Therefore a lopsided information campaign against Osama bin Laden & Co. and terrorists in general would tend to highlight their interpretation of Islam and would overshadow the true teachings of Islam. This is unfortunate. Such a distorted picture of the reasons for the contemporary conflict between Christianity and Islam would hinder the work of those who are building a political and cultural framework for peaceful globalization that takes into account cultural and religious differences between civilizations.

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Information about this pre-colonial period should be disseminated to encourage responsible media or the academic community and those concerned to be more discriminating and careful in handling news on the ‘conflict’ between Christians and Muslims in Mindanao. A continuous exchange of information and the promotion of activities between Muslim countries and the Philippines would be a deterrent against bias and bigotry.

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This paper is a modest contribution to this festival of Islamic heritage and culture by a Filipino Christian who knew nothing about Islam until recently. But having known a little bit more about Islam than what can be had from international news magazines, its author seeks to encourage more scholarship to be pursued. Some work has been done by academics to demonstrate that Islam is an important part of the identity of the Filipino nation but these have not been enough nor is it getting the wider audience it deserves. Indeed, important is an understatement.

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A careful study of the history of Islam in the Philippines especially the role of Muslim Filipinos in the wars against colonialism may be the key to the cultural and political liberation of the nation. Finally it would reinforce its claim of kinship with the rest of its Asian neighbors from which the Philippines was isolated by Spanish colonialism. It would put Filipinos on the road to developing a more independent attitude in the way they see themselves and the way they relate to other countries around the world.

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The National Festival for Heritage and Culture should be commended for creating a forum in which the possibilities for peaceful coexistence between Islamic and non-Islamic cultures will continue to be explored. The retrieval of the roots of the common historical identity against Christian Filipinos and Muslim Filipinos is one such route. (To be continued)

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My e-mail is [email protected] or [email protected].