When Barack Obama won in November of last year, America had a goodwill epedemic. Young people cheered on the streets, old people, mostly African-Americans, cried, and everyone celebrated like the final scene in Return of the Jedi. I remember reading American blogs then that told stories of complete strangers greeting each other on the streets like it was Christmas.
The world watched this happen and envied it, including us Filipinos. Our envy at Obama-mania showed how much we have forgotten in the last 20-plus years.
1986 People Power was Obama x 100. It was not even close.
The EDSA Revolution (not "the original", but "THE ONLY") was a lot like 1960s Rock and Roll and early 90s grunge: it can never, EVER, happen again. It's just impossible. The way life was set-up then - no Twitter, no Facebook, no YouTube, no text messaging - big things had to happen organically. And this was really big. For decades, people from the intelligentsia were being imprisoned and killed, people from the lower classes were getting even poorer, and people of all classes were being robbed. And for one moment all of these people simultaneously decided they had enough and organized the most spontaneous, cathartic, and non-violent revolution in history.
At the center of all this was Cory. For years, she remained the living symbol of this event, which was apt since everything about her was symbolic.
This is not to say that she never did anything significantly substantial. I honestly wouldn't know. There are infinitely more knowledgeable people out there who can debate endlessly on the merits of the Aquino presidency, but one thing they cannot possibly argue about is this: Cory Aquino was immensely symbolic.
The grieving housewife of a would-have-been-president and Marcos' greatest foil was thrust into power by a people who, for decades, were not free. There are literally dozens of layers of symbolism in that sentence alone.
The world envied us then. Our national symbol was filled with drama: its story was one of grief, death, and redemption. When Cory addressed the U.S. Congress in 1987, she was even able to symbolically put our colonial past in full circle, saying:
“Has there been a greater test of national commitment to the ideals you hold dear than that my people have gone through? You have spent many lives and much treasure to bring freedom to many lands that were reluctant to receive it. And here, you have a people who want it by themselves and need only the help to preserve it.”
She was symbolically calling the U.S. a force-feeder of freedom, while boasting of the one we have earned by ourselves. It was ostensibly a watershed moment.
But this was a case of the symbolism being overwhelmingly more poetic than the reality: that our new symbolically-glorious president was asking for not-so-symbolic money and debt relief from the U.S. government. And in reality, the EDSA revolution happened because Ronald Reagan let it happen. So while the truth showed a colony still begging its colonizer, the symbolism was prettier: the president of a free nation standing proud amidst a roaring standing ovation.
I was eight years old in 1986 and all I could see was symbolism. I remember being in awe of the collective joy I was witnessing. My father was louder than ever before and my mother was for some reason always smiling in front of the TV. A Marcos loyalist neighbor of ours gave us a "Marcos-Tolentino" sticker during the elections and my older brother stuck it on the backboard of our makeshift basketball ring so that we can hit their faces everytime we made one of those Francis Arnaiz "boarding" shots.
My consciousness was growing right as our country was at its optimistic peak. I went through puberty and adolescence when this optimism was being systematically betrayed, during Cory's administration, yes, but also during the administrations after her. I have witnessed two forced "revolutions" and a handful of presidential scandals. And the symbols we have now just don't resonate the same way. Some people have designated Jun "Moderate Your Greed" Lozada as some sort of a new symbol of justice and democracy. They're so desperate for drama that they fail to see him for what he truly is: the symbol of our country's ultra-cynicism.
When the yellow ribbon campaign was revived in recent weeks for the ailing Cory Aquino, it was more than a sign of support. It was a sign of our collective nostalgia, not only for the days of EDSA per se, but for those days when we still thought our symbols meant something. In 1986, I and those of my generation weren't the only ones going through childhood, the whole country was. And for the past few weeks it has been desperately trying to relive its lost youth.
Symbols, in and of themselves, have absolutely no meaning. But that's clearly not the case in this internet hyperculture, where the same people who ridiculed Michael Jackson for decades willingly revised the entire history of his life for a new generation. And that clearly wasn't the case in 1986, when our elders reveled in the glory of EDSA. In a world where symbols matter more than they should, our country had the most powerful one 23 years ago.
Today, August 1, 2009, she died. As a symbol of our country's collective faith, she died a little too late.
The world watched this happen and envied it, including us Filipinos. Our envy at Obama-mania showed how much we have forgotten in the last 20-plus years.
1986 People Power was Obama x 100. It was not even close.
The EDSA Revolution (not "the original", but "THE ONLY") was a lot like 1960s Rock and Roll and early 90s grunge: it can never, EVER, happen again. It's just impossible. The way life was set-up then - no Twitter, no Facebook, no YouTube, no text messaging - big things had to happen organically. And this was really big. For decades, people from the intelligentsia were being imprisoned and killed, people from the lower classes were getting even poorer, and people of all classes were being robbed. And for one moment all of these people simultaneously decided they had enough and organized the most spontaneous, cathartic, and non-violent revolution in history.
At the center of all this was Cory. For years, she remained the living symbol of this event, which was apt since everything about her was symbolic.
This is not to say that she never did anything significantly substantial. I honestly wouldn't know. There are infinitely more knowledgeable people out there who can debate endlessly on the merits of the Aquino presidency, but one thing they cannot possibly argue about is this: Cory Aquino was immensely symbolic.
The grieving housewife of a would-have-been-president and Marcos' greatest foil was thrust into power by a people who, for decades, were not free. There are literally dozens of layers of symbolism in that sentence alone.
The world envied us then. Our national symbol was filled with drama: its story was one of grief, death, and redemption. When Cory addressed the U.S. Congress in 1987, she was even able to symbolically put our colonial past in full circle, saying:
“Has there been a greater test of national commitment to the ideals you hold dear than that my people have gone through? You have spent many lives and much treasure to bring freedom to many lands that were reluctant to receive it. And here, you have a people who want it by themselves and need only the help to preserve it.”
She was symbolically calling the U.S. a force-feeder of freedom, while boasting of the one we have earned by ourselves. It was ostensibly a watershed moment.
But this was a case of the symbolism being overwhelmingly more poetic than the reality: that our new symbolically-glorious president was asking for not-so-symbolic money and debt relief from the U.S. government. And in reality, the EDSA revolution happened because Ronald Reagan let it happen. So while the truth showed a colony still begging its colonizer, the symbolism was prettier: the president of a free nation standing proud amidst a roaring standing ovation.
I was eight years old in 1986 and all I could see was symbolism. I remember being in awe of the collective joy I was witnessing. My father was louder than ever before and my mother was for some reason always smiling in front of the TV. A Marcos loyalist neighbor of ours gave us a "Marcos-Tolentino" sticker during the elections and my older brother stuck it on the backboard of our makeshift basketball ring so that we can hit their faces everytime we made one of those Francis Arnaiz "boarding" shots.
My consciousness was growing right as our country was at its optimistic peak. I went through puberty and adolescence when this optimism was being systematically betrayed, during Cory's administration, yes, but also during the administrations after her. I have witnessed two forced "revolutions" and a handful of presidential scandals. And the symbols we have now just don't resonate the same way. Some people have designated Jun "Moderate Your Greed" Lozada as some sort of a new symbol of justice and democracy. They're so desperate for drama that they fail to see him for what he truly is: the symbol of our country's ultra-cynicism.
When the yellow ribbon campaign was revived in recent weeks for the ailing Cory Aquino, it was more than a sign of support. It was a sign of our collective nostalgia, not only for the days of EDSA per se, but for those days when we still thought our symbols meant something. In 1986, I and those of my generation weren't the only ones going through childhood, the whole country was. And for the past few weeks it has been desperately trying to relive its lost youth.
Symbols, in and of themselves, have absolutely no meaning. But that's clearly not the case in this internet hyperculture, where the same people who ridiculed Michael Jackson for decades willingly revised the entire history of his life for a new generation. And that clearly wasn't the case in 1986, when our elders reveled in the glory of EDSA. In a world where symbols matter more than they should, our country had the most powerful one 23 years ago.
Today, August 1, 2009, she died. As a symbol of our country's collective faith, she died a little too late.
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