The Age ofReflection

Sheila Coronel Director, Toni Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism Columbia University,

New York, U.S.A.

Panel talk delivered via video link on Day One (12 November) of the 14th CALD General Assembly held in Iloilo City, Philippines

The Philippines is not unique in terms of having battles over history and memory. And the debate, debating or revising, or reinterpreting history is not necessarily a bad thing. Here in the United States, and in many European countries, monuments are being toppled and museums are returning looted art from former colonies. Long-dominant narratives of racial superiority and imperial glory are being interrogated and overturned. There is a call for an accounting of the sins of the past, and for the silenced and the dispossessed to reclaim their history. At the same time, there is a backlash against that backlash.

In the United States, the no- tion that the southern U.S. States fought the Civil War to defend states’ rights and their way of life—that slavery was benign—is getting a new lease of life in the demands for racial justice. In Ukraine, the war is being fought not just on the battlefields in the south and east of the country, but also over history. Russian President Vladimir Putin justifies his war by saying there is no history of Ukraine separate from Russia. Ukrainian statehood, therefore, is fiction. In Hong Kong, China is rewriting textbooks claiming that Hong Kong was never a British colony, that China never ceded sovereignty, and that Hong Kong culture is the same as Chinese culture. In both these cases, history is being manipulated to make claims of power and legitimacy and to justify domination and suppression.

It’s true that there is an education gap in the Philippines. But it is also true that we see this lack of critical thinking and the allure of these kinds of distorted historical narratives in many other countries on both— on many sides —- of the ideological divide. Rich countries, where educational systems are so much better, are not immune to historical distortions.

In India, which maybe is much closer to us in terms of educational levels, Narendra Modi harks back to a golden age of Hindu glory. He has appointed a committee of scholars to write a ‘Hindu First’ version of history that says Hindus were descended from the land’s first inhabitants. Therefore, they have primacy as citizens. The vision of a secular and pluralistic India, one where Hindus, Muslims, and those of other faiths can live harmoniously, is under siege. Seventy years ago, this vision had united Indians and animated the struggle for independence from British colonial rule.

Now I know that this is an audience of liberals. And I know that you are not concerned when statues of colonialists and white supremacists are being taken down. You’re concerned when populists worldwide weaponize history, when they use narratives—the ‘Golden Age,’ and victimhood by liberal elites—to pursue anti-democratic goals. The question that we all have to grapple with is, why have these narratives gained credence? Why have they convinced many people in many different places with different educational levels and different histories and different democratic institutions? Why do they now have the ring of truth?

It’s true that disinformation, operations, propaganda, troll armies, et cetera are all partly to blame. But shouldn’t we also consider that some of the faults lie in the failure of democratic governance to address poverty and inequality? Should we not also look at how citizens have been disillusioned by widespread corruption in public office, and with open societies and open markets that enriched and empowered the global elite, but left so many others in misery? To many, the story of democracy seemed out of sync with lived reality. It was just a fantasy. In the Philippines, the Marcos myth filled a narrative vacuum. Democracy no longer excited the public, as it had in the years after People Power. Instead, anti-democratic narratives like those propagated by Duterte and the Marcoses resonated among disillusioned and disenfranchised citizens. Like Duterte, like the Marcoses, frustrated citizens now see themselves as victims of the liberal elites.

So how do we fight back against a kind of historical revisionism that allows popularly elected leaders to elude accountability?

Justice Carpio talked about fact-checking, media literacy, and all that. They’re good to do, and they should be done. But I think they have limited efficacy, especially if these efforts are done by liberal media and liberal institutions because they are seen as partisan. Exposing disinformation techniques is great, as is campaigning against social platforms and the way they manipulate public discourse. All those are necessary, but they do not suffice. Insisting on one true version of history also doesn’t suffice because the reality is that history from the beginning of time has always been contested and revised. What we need to do is to examine dominant narratives, and analyze why they are so powerful, why they resonate among so many people. When the Marcoses say they are victims of the liberal establishment, we laugh, right? But that seems real to so many other Filipinos. I am glad that there is now a lot of self-reflection on the part of activists, journalists, politicians, artists, teachers, and scholars who are shaken by Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s election, and realize the big gap in public understanding, public history, and public education.

A new generation has grown up with no memory of dictatorship. The textbooks either normalize the Marcos era—Marcos as just another president—or extol its supposed achievements, such as the roads and bridges built. But they make no mention of corruption, or human rights abuses. The activist or progressive version of the Marcos years, meanwhile, is sometimes no more nuanced. It focuses on repression and resistance.

Educational efforts should not just correct disinformation, but also present a nuanced history. Filipino historian Filomeno Aguilar Jr. says that scholars need to dig deeper into the historical record in order to provide truthful and complex narratives of the dictatorship. It wasn’t all darkness; neither was it all light. There was resistance for sure, a lot of it very fierce and very brave. But there was also complicity—whether by the elite, the middle class, or the poor. The seduction by strongmen cannot be denied and deserves more scrutiny. Moreover, certain sectors of the society benefited from the Martial Law regime; land was redistributed to rice farmers, public funds were poured into infrastructure projects, and the economy grew in the early Marcos years. As one of the late president’s men said, Marcos believed he could have a vision for society and still loot it.

What we need to do is tell and teach nuanced history that accounts for the failures of dictatorship, and also the flaws of democracy, the resistance to authoritarianism, and our continuing efforts to build a just and democratic society. This requires all of us to be involved—not just journalists, teachers, or activists.

All of us should be involved in rethinking, reimagining, publishing, archiving, defending, having conversations and digging into our historical past, and having conversations among ourselves. What does our past teach us about the ways forward? What lessons can we learn from history so that we are not imprisoned in myths of the golden age or forever be in resistance, but so that we can move forward in our search for a democratic society?