Who’s afraid of a nuanced history of the Marcos Era? And why?

 

by Rommel A. Curaming

A nuanced history is, as I noted in my earlier essay, multi-faceted. It goes beyond the viewpoint and experience of certain groups, capturing instead the wide spectrum of people’s experiences from various parts of the country, from different classes, as well as ethnic and ideological backgrounds. It paints a composite picture from multiple standpoints of both the good and the bad and anything in between.

It is also dynamic. A nuanced history captures the processes and shifts in the long twenty years of Marcos in power. The valuable or despicable things that occurred in certain years, but not in previous or subsequent ones, cannot solely define the whole era, just as the slogans Dark Age or Golden Age exemplify. Ignoring dynamism deprives anyone of the right to claim their version is history. History can hardly be reduced to slogans, for by nature it is complex. If it is, it ceases to be history. It becomes myth or, worse, propaganda.

In an ideal world, no one should be afraid of a nuanced history of any period. It is the closest to the real past that we can have. Closer to reality, it has all the potential to allow ‘truth to set us free.’ But we’re not in an ideal world. People in real life have their own interests to promote; their own egos to protect and boost. Here, people uphold truths that will make them feel good about themselves. They create truths that are useful for their own purposes, either ill- or well-intentioned. This applies not just to common people. Often enough politico-economic and intellectual elites, including historians with Ph.D., do this as well, despite their claims to the contrary.

So, who is afraid of a nuanced history of the Marcos era?

The hardcore anti-Marcos collectives constitute the first group. Their legitimacy and continuing relevance rest significantly on the mythological power of the Never Again/Dark Age narratives. Included in this group are the radical leftist groups who got less than 1% of the votes in the recent elections. Devoid of a significant grass root support, their leadership position in the fight against Marcos lends a semblance of legitimacy for them to speak on behalf of the Filipino people. A nuanced history of the Marcos era, one that includes people's fearful memories of the NPAs and which points to a possibly significant people’s support for the Marcos regime till the end and even beyond, could badly undermine their claim to continuing relevance and legitimacy. 

Closely allied with the leftists in this category are liberal and conservative intellectuals and other members of the intelligentsia. They form a sizeable part of 28% who voted for Leni Robredo in the recent elections. Many of them are well-placed in academia, media, NGOs, the Catholic and other churches, and other institutions. Having sincerely believed for decades in the Never Again/Dark Age narratives, and built upon this platform a moral, not just political, crusade, the very idea of a nuanced history goes smack into their moral and intellectual certainties. Convinced of their moral ascendancy, it is ego-bursting to entertain the possibility that there was anything less than evil or total darkness in the Marcos era. Inured to their sense of intellectual superiority, it embarrasses to admit that there may be something wrong, lacking, or inaccurate in the Dark Age version of the history that they believe and propagate for so long. 

The other group consists of the Marcoses and their staunch supporters, often called Marcos loyalists. The Marcoses have a lot to account for, as we, and they, know, and a nuanced history will bear this out. For their avid supporters who are long convinced of the idea of a Golden Age, a nuanced portrayal of the Marcos era that includes large-scale corruption, human rights violations, cronyism, and economic crisis, would not sit well with their comforting memories and fantasies of the period. Just like the anti-Marcos liberals and leftist radicals, they built glasshouses and sandcastles that may easily break or crumble under the weight of a nuanced history of the Marcos era. Also like their counterparts on the opposing side, their sense of moral, political, and academic righteousness won't make it easy for them to admit to propagating a mythical history.

I hazard a guess that taken together the hardcore anti- and pro- Marcos groups form a minority, perhaps a third(?), a quarter (?), or even less, of the voting population. Despite limits in number, they dominate public discourses being well-placed in the mass media and other dominant establishments on both sides of the political divide. They think they are the vanguards that lead the rest of us to a better future; they feel they have the moral authority and obligation to speak on behalf of the Filipino nation. This point is crucial because it highlights the intra-elite character of this clash for historical interpretations. It also raises the question of who has the right to tell and write history. Is it reserved for historians? The dominant elites of competing political groups? Or, the people who lived through it? The last may sound absurd, but no less than the former president of the American Historical Association, Carl Becker, declared in 1931, of course to the consternation of fellow historians, that "(e)veryman is his own historian." 

The silent majority on both sides of the great political divide (not so silent anymore with social media) are outliers in their respective camps. There are those among them who don’t care about history at all, for one reason or another. For those who care,  the idea of a nuanced history could also bring discomfort. Hard to miss is the insinuation that the history we have known all along may be one-sided, incomplete, or inaccurate, and that may not be easy to take. The initial impulse is to doubt and deny. Have we been lied to? How could I have not noticed earlier? Am I stupid to have myself believe for so long? These are questions that strike at the core of our sense of self, precisely why it could be painful to deal with. Seldom it is easy to acknowledge complicity in our own deception. I know this feeling. As cliche goes, I've been there and had done that (as detailed in a 4-part series on my political re-awakening).

Let us not be too hard on ourselves. If historians with a Ph.D. can believe either in the Dark Age or Golden Age narratives, it only means there are things compelling in them, and there are things in our values and aspirations as individuals, as well as in our physical and digital environment, that work in tandem to make them seem believable. 

So, for whom is a nuanced history of the Marcos era? It is not for the fanatic and closed-minded. It is not for those afraid of reality, warts and all. It is not for those who have skeletons in their political and academic closets. It is for anyone who is brave enough to confront inconvenient truths about the nature of history, politics, and ourselves. This calls for a lengthy explanation and thus another blog post cries out to be written.

-o0o-