In the historical study of education, several historians have noted how the American public school system, so furiously implemented during the first few years of occupation actually serv
Trang 1CHAPTER TWO EXCEPTIONALISM AND ITS FOIL
A curious link exists between quintessential American poet-philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson and Philippine Governor-General William Cameron Forbes Emerson, the founder of American Transcendentalism, wrote copiously about the soul and the self, about slavery and abolition, racism and sexism His works, along with the works of Henry David Thoreau and Walt Whitman, both Emerson’s contemporaries and friends, make up an important part of the American literary canon Emerson, a liberal, was an abolitionist and a proto-anti-imperialist.61 Forbes, a conservative, occupied the most important position in the American imperialist
government in the Philippines from 1908-1913
Emerson is in fact Forbes’ maternal grandfather.62 The genealogical connection,
however, is not merely one of blood but of worldview as well Emerson lived in an age that went through and was coming out of a civil war It was an age concerned with defining America as a distinct nation with a unique culture; concerned with urging Americans to find genius in
themselves rather than in the culture of the civilizations of the ancient Greeks or of the English Emerson’s most anthologized essay, “Self-Reliance,” is a paean to non-conformity and to the celebration of the self Emerson scholar Ann Douglas describes him as the “chief apostle of the emerging cult of self-confidence.”63 In 1837, Emerson wrote:
it is for you to know all; it is for you to dare all…this confidence in the unsearched might of man belongs, by all motives, by all prophecy, by all preparation, to the American Scholar We have listened too long to the courtly muses of Europe The spirit of the American freeman is already suspected to be timid, imitative, tame What is the remedy? They did not yet see, and thousands of young men as hopeful now crowding to the barriers for the career
do not yet see, that if the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him.64
61
Emerson was critical of the Mexican-American War of the 1840s See his poem “Ode,
Inscribed to W.H Channing” and his eulogy for Thoreau
62
Forbes’ mother was Ellen Emerson Forbes
63
Qtd in Joel Porte, “Representing America—the Emerson Legacy,” in The Cambridge
Companion to Ralph Waldo Emerson, Joel Porte and Saundra Morris, ed., (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 3
Trang 2Emerson’s grandson, William Cameron Forbes, inherited the fruits of Emerson’s urgings Half a century later, Forbes and his contemporaries certainly believed that the huge world had come round to them Self-assured and bolstered by the fact that they had arrived as a world and colonial power next to the British, their former colonizers, they believed that they in fact
surpassed all colonial powers in their benevolence and in their mission to spread justice and democracy.65 They believed that American culture, American politics, indeed, American
imperialism, was exceptional
Exceptionalism and the Doublethink
America’s involvement in the Philippines began in April, 1898 with the
Spanish-American War Many historians have investigated the role Spanish-American strategic needs and
economic ambitions played in the decision to annex the Philippines Whatever the motives for annexation, what was remarkable was the development during this period of a kind of, not so much a doublespeak, as a doublethink, where a military occupation which escalated into the brutal Philippine-American War was established in order to institute a “benevolent assimilation.” This doublethink is best epitomized by the now famous (but often misquoted) lines of General William Shafter: “My plan would be to disarm the natives of the Philippine Islands, even if I have
to kill half of them to do it Then I would treat the rest of them with perfect justice.”66
The concept of the doublethink, twin to George Orwell’s more famous “doublespeak,” refers to the mental ability to accept two contradictory beliefs America had eyed the imperial field but entrance into it presented American politicians with a difficult problem The rhetoric of
64
Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The American Scholar” in Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret Fuller: Selected Works, John Carlos Rowe, ed (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2003,
P 73
65
See Michael Adas, Dominance by Design: Technological Imperatives and America’s Civilizing Mission (Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006),
139-144 for a discussion of the American middle class mindset of the last three decades of the 18th century Adas describes this period in which the American colonial officials were raised as a period of new
innovations and technologies (of which, they were constantly reminded, America was making the most impressive strides in), sharpening class divides, increased consumerism, competition, and urbanization, its traditional male order threatened by the feminist (first wave, suffragettes) challenge, and of the lionization
of inventors, scientists, and engineers
66
In the Boston Transcript of January 12, 1900 Qtd in Leon Wolff, Little Brown Brother: How the United States Purchased and Pacified the Philippines, (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1991), 299
Trang 3American democracy, born out of its own experience as a colony barred them from entry The capacity for doublethink allowed American politicians to rationalize massacre, concentration camps, “a howling wilderness.” They were the necessary evils in exchange for public health, public education, public infrastructure Brutality for benevolence
Declarations of superior American military strength were almost always asserted
alongside pronouncements of American pure and altruistic aims In April, 1899, less than a year after occupation and just a few months after the start of the Philippine-American War, the first Philippine Commission (The Schurman Commission), tasked with doing a thorough investigation
of the whole Philippine situation in order to make recommendations on the course of action to the President of the United States issued a proclamation to the Filipino people which was one of the first formal declarations of American intention in the Philippines The proclamation, oozing with statements of good intentions, also reminds the Filipino people about American martial power and their willingness to use it It reads: “For, just as the United States stands ready to furnish armies, and all the infinite resources of a great and powerful nation to maintain and support its rightful supremacy over the Philippine Islands, so it is even more solicitous to spread peace and happiness among the Philippine people…”67 The image and idea of America the Strong and America the Kind is an easily acceptable and digestible one because it suggests the familiar and comfortable understanding of a parent who is both disciplinarian and nurturer or the yin and yan of the
forceful man and the caring woman
Several editorial cartoons, published during the first years of the American occupation, were quick to pick up on the irony of a ferocious/friendly America and reflect this very same idea
One such cartoon, published in Puck in January 31, 1900 shows Uncle Sam at the left foreground
looking at and speaking to a group of natives, half-naked and dressed in grass skirts With arms stretched out, Uncle Sam has to his right a phalanx of American soldiers with bayonets on their shoulders and bullet belts on their waist and to his left to a group of school marms in feathered hats and Victorian dresses carrying school books and slates The caption reads “Uncle Sam—
67
Philippine Commission Report of the Philippine Commission to the President, volume 1
Washington: Government Printing Office, 1900, p.4
Trang 4You have seen what my sons can do in battle; now see what my daughters can do in peace.”
Another Puck cartoon, issued in November 20, 1901 has to the left, Uncle Sam with both hands
open One hand carries a stern-looking soldier, rifle in hand; and the other carries a kind-looking school teacher, schoolbooks in hand A group of Filipinos—a muslim, a soldier of the
revolutionary army, a “tribal” Filipino, a peasant mother and child face Uncle Sam The cartoon, entitled “It is Up to Them,” has a caption that reads “Uncle Sam (to Filipinos)—You can take your choice; I have plenty of both!”69 These cartoons depict the Philippine situation at the turn-of-the-century with a sarcasm that stems from an acknowledgement of the absurdity of this doublethink It most likely stems from the persuasion that the means does not justify the ends.70
On the other hand, the defensiveness with which American officials had to defend the occupation
of the Philippines indicate an opposite position: that the violent occupation was a necessary evil
in order to institute the greater good of extending civilization This is reflected in a statement made by Frank Carpenter in describing the Thomasites: “I should say that the coming of this regiment of teachers was a more remarkable invasion than that of our soldiers.”71
These seemingly opposite positions, however, are actually rooted in the same assumption This assumption is that education is naturally, obviously honorable and righteous as well as modern and democratic The doublethink is only a doublethink within the logic of the American democratic tradition that accepts “justice” and “education” and “civilization” as unproblematic, universal, and basic values that are the antithesis of the idea of occupation, imperialism, and war When education is seen as, not the antithesis but the extension of occupation then this justification
no longer becomes contradictory
68
Abe Ignacio, et.al The Forbidden Book: The Philippine-American War in Political Cartoons,
(San Francisco: T’Boli Publishing and Distribution, 2004), 69
69 Ibid, 67
70
See for example James Blount, an early critic of American occupation of the Philippines In the preface of his book he describes his task as exposing the “wholly erroneous idea that where the end is
benevolent, it justifies the means, regardless of the means necessary to the end.” James H Blount, The American Occupation of the Philippines, 1898-1912, (New York and London: G.P Putnam’s Sons, 1913),
vi
71
Frank G Carpenter, Through the Philippines and Hawaii, (Garden City, New York: Doubleday,
Doran and Company, 1929), 49
Trang 5The inclination to see colonialism as contradictory is evident even today For many contemporary scholars, the jury is still out on the legacy of colonialism as the violence of military occupation is always juxtaposed to the efforts at democratization and modernization Stanley
Karnow, for example, describes the American public education project as an atonement for its
brutality72 and that “America endowed the Filipinos with universal education, a common
language, public hygine, roads, bridges, and above all, republican institutions.”73 [italics mine] The idea that education is the flip side of the violence of military occupation extends the idea of colonialism as a contradictory package—of violent military occupation being the inevitable partner of benevolent social development campaigns—correlates to the concept of the
doublethink
In the historical study of education, several historians have noted how the American public school system, so furiously implemented during the first few years of occupation actually served as an apparatus for pacification.74 Thus, despite claims of the difficulty of evaluating American contributions to the Philippines and despite notion of “education versus violence,” many nationalist thinkers have exposed instead the notion of “the violence of education.”
The doublethink was used not just to defend American military brutality but to
substantiate American economic utilization or, if you will, exploitation as well Daniel Williams, who traveled with the Philippine Commission around the Philippines in 1901 and remained for many years in government service in the Philippines, sees American occupation in the Philippines
as a combination good-works with practicality:
Our occupation of the Philippines was undertaken in altruism, and critics to the contrary, all our work since then has been directed to the regeneration of the islands and their people For those who would measure the value of our new possessions from a purely selfish standpoint, however, it might be said our country could not well have been more fortunate Students of affairs are unanimous that the center
of world interest, political and commercial, has shifted, or is shifting,
72
Stanley Karnow, In Our Image: America’s Empire in the Philippines, (New York: Random
House, 1989) See for example, page 196: “The conquest of the Philippines had been as cruel as any conflict in the annals of imperialism, but hardly had it ended before Americans began to atone for its brutality.”
73
Ibid, 3-4
74
See the discussion of “The Miseducation of the Filipino” in chapter one
Trang 6to the Pacific and to the countries which rib its shores.
Williams, who assailed critics of the American colonial government for the provincialism of their inability to accept “our obligations or opportunities,”76 unproblematically merges the idea of utilitarianism that prioritizes results and functionality with an ethics that prioritizes the benefit of others; two normally contradictory ideas These “obligations” which Williams saw as their mission to “minister to the material, mental, and moral uplift of a people”77 were discussed always with fervor and with a steadfast and sincere belief in the honesty and integrity of their mission.78
The civilizing mission is of course a customary feature of all colonial projects American colonial discourse is no different in this respect American democratic rhetoric, however,
compelled American politicians to envision this civilizing mission as a mission unlike any of its fellow colonizers; it had to be scripted as exceptional The narrative of American exceptionalism included a number of characteristic features79 including the rejection of the terms “imperial” and
“colonial,” a denial that American occupation was tyrannical and exploitative, an attitude critical
of not just the Spanish colonial methods in the Philippines but of the British and Dutch
approaches in Southeast Asia, and the confidence in the uniqueness and radicalism of their plan to engineer a brave, new society by the establishment of modern institutions including, among other things, free, secular, mass, public education
In several of the speeches that William McKinley gave throughout the United States in
1899 he mentions the war in the Philippines and uses the symbol of the flag to stir his audience and convey the message of their unselfish objectives in the Philippines “Wherever we have
75
Daniel R Williams, The Odyssey of the Philippine Commission, (Chicago: McClurg, 1913),
331
76
Ibid, 332
77
Ibid
78
Williams, for example says: “We acquired the Philippines through conquest and purchase They were ours to do with as we pleased, and every historical precedent would have sanctioned their exploitation
as a national asset Instead, we voluntarily pledged the Filipino people that our administration of the country would be for their benefit and their protection, and not for our own financial aggrandizement.” (Ibid.)
79
See Julian Go’s “Global Perspectives on the U.S Colonial State” in The American Colonial State in the Philippines: Global Perspectives and Michael Adas’ “Improving on the Civilizing Mission? Assumptions of United States Exceptionalism in the Colonization of the Philippines” in Itenerario 24.4
(1998)
Trang 7raised our flag,” McKinley proclaimed, “we have raised it, not for conquest, not for territorial aggrandizement, not for national gain, but for civilization and humanity.”80 David Barrows, one
of the first Directors of Education in the American colonial government described “the American colonist, at the end of the century” as being “far separated in spirit and institution from the Old World” and as being of a “society more democratic and more independent than Europe had ever known.”81 The American discourse conceived of the occupation of the Philippine as a project in the education of a whole population not just for the attainment of literacy but in the complete acceptance of democratic ideals Taft, who had been a member of the Philippine Commission and was soon to be the President of the United States referred to this project in 1907 as an unique experiment: “We are engaged in working out a great experiment No other nation has attempted it.”82 In 1917, Charles Burke Elliot reprised this sentiment: “America was, by all her political traditions and theories, committed to the task of educating, not a few leaders, but the entire mass
of common people Such a thing had never been attempted in the Orient.”83 McKinley, Barrows, Taft, Elliott and scores of other American colonial officials, soldiers, teachers, travelers, and even ordinary citizens who had never set foot in the Philippines, were all disciples of the church of American exceptionalism whose first foundations were laid many years before by Emerson
The paradigm of exceptionalism is a good way through which to understand the
unflinching and single-minded language policy of the American colonial government: the sincere faith in the unselfish philanthropy of the colonial project allowed for a language policy that was equally confident, strong, and self-assured This policy, which was staunchly non-negotiable, was for the implementation of English as the medium of instruction and as official language The policy remained virtually unchanged throughout the short but influential forty-eight year
American occupation
80William McKinley, “Speech at Cedar Falls, Iowa, October 16, 1899” in Speeches and Addresses
of William McKinely: From March 1, 1897 to May 30, 1900, (New York: Doubleday and McClure Co.,
1900), 305
81
David Pescott Barrows, A History of the Philippines, (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1907),
287
82
Quoted in Williams, The Odyssey of the Philippine Commission, 346
83
Charles Burke Elliott, The Philippines to the End of the Commission Government: A Study in Tropical Democracy, (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merril, 1917), 224
Trang 8So convinced were these officials of the radicalism of this project to civilize, modernize, and democratize the Filipinos through the English language that they rationalized the policy with horrifying uniformity and pursued and defended it with the conviction and fervor of a missionary Contemporary scholars still argue for the difficulty of evaluating the “shining” achievements of American educational efforts (as well as efforts to implement other modern innovations) against the violence of the Philippine-American War.84 Yet even without looking at the commercial and economic agendas that motivated the occupation of the Philippines, the debate is nullified when the paradigm of education as an automatic and de facto achievement is problematized
American’s obsessive efforts at mass, public education through English can be seen as part of an attempt to implement a new religion As in most religions where faith trumps logic, so
it was/is with the religion of American democracy whose followers believed/s in the neutrality of its principles and in the impartiality of the language used to deliver its message The zeal with which these principles were pursued and the inconsistent logic used to pursue them (ironically with the veneer of scientific detachment and rigorous investigation) suggest a similarity, rather than an exception, to the rule of colonialism throughout the world
The Myth of Exceptionalism
The British language policy for education in Malaya and Burma was viewed quite
differently from the way the Americans viewed their language policy for the Philippines The Americans proudly heralded its willingness to share English, en masse, with the colonized; the British policy, on the other hand, emphasized vernacular education American colonial officials
84
See the example of Karnow in footnote 72 A more recent example that applies poststructuralist ideas to American colonial pedagogical efforts in the Philippines is Jane A Margold’s “U.S Pedagogy in
the Colonial Philippines” in the Journal of Historical Sociology, v.8, n 4 (December, 1995): 375-394 By
using newer theories of social practice like those of de Certeau and Appadurai, she argues that the
American teachers actually defeated “the earnest, indigenous attempt by colonial administrators to
dismantle the indigenous structure of privilege in the new possessions, via an educational policy that would open the schools to the lower classes.” (376) Margold unproblematically accepts colonial official’s declarations of their earnest intentions and thus accepts the ideology inscribed within it She thus reaffirms the idea of colonialism as a conflicted phenomenon that is both destructive and nurturing Her source for this essay is David Barrows’ numerous declarations against caciquism, itself an invented American concept which she takes as an unproblematized fact James LeRoy defines “caciquism” as “the prime feature of the village life of the Filipinos” and “the chief obstacle to social and political progress in the Philippines.” He further describes it as “rural bossism .with the color of ‘the South before the war.’” James LeRoy,
Philippine Life in Town and Country, (New York: Putnam, 1905), 172-173
Trang 9were so convinced of this difference and often underscored the difference and emphasized America’s remarkable educational project Bernard Moses, a member of the Philippine
Commission described, in 1902, the American education policy this way: “The effort of
Americans to give the Filipinos a knowledge of English is in marked contrast to the policy carried out by some of the European nations in their oriental possessions.”85 Charles Burke Elliott contrasts what is to him the superior American policy of mass public education in English to the British policy which reserves education for a few: “In dealing with dependent and backward people the liberal monarchial states in which representative governments exist assume that the primary object of public education is to train the men who are to govern the masses This idea has dominated the educational work of England in India, Egypt and in the Crown colonies.”86 W Cameron Forbes, likewise convinced of the exceptionalism of the education policy claimed:
“American achievement in the extension of primary education has been notably greater than that
of the British, Dutch, and other colonial administrations.”87 However, a glance at the British language and education policies might reveal more parallels and similarities rather than
differences
The history of the implementation of mass, public education for the whole of the
Philippines is relatively easy to trace as it began with a single act—Act 74 of 1901 It is much more difficult to trace the history of British educational policy in Burma and Malaya as the occupation of both areas occurred in stages and various occupied territories held different
statuses The Straits Settlements, for example, functioned more like colonies while the Federated Malay States functioned as British protectorates but maintained their monarchs who run domestic affairs In Malaya, the policies would vary depending on the initiative/receptiveness of the Sultan and would vary also for the different ethnic groups In Burma, there were principally three kinds
of schools—the monastic schools (formerly Buddhist schools that the British government built upon), lay schools (also schools that functioned prior to occupation and also built upon by the
85
Qtd in W Cameron Forbes, The Philippine Islands, Volume 1 (Boston and New York:
Houghton Mifflin Company, 1928), 440
86
Elliott, The Philippines, 220
87
Ibid, 486
Trang 10British after occupation) and Anglo-vernacular schools (most which were set up by missionaries also before occupation) Policies also varied depending on the kind of school, the region, and also for the various ethnicities 88
This is not to suggest that the Americans “had their act together” or were far more committed to universal public education than the British were The Americans came late at the colonial scene and by the turn of the century the British too had, mastered the art of centralizing educational policy and administration In Malaya, a Federal inspector for schools was appointed
in 1897 and by 1906 the Departments of Education of the Straits Settlements and the Federated Malay States were put under one Director of Education In Burma, the directive for systematic intervention in Burmese education began in the 1860s with the proposal of Sir Arthur Phayre to create public schools by extending the curriculum of the already existing monastic schools It would, however, take several years before policy would actually be put into effect Although the imperative for public education was felt and policies had been formulated, the political will to implement these policies were initially wanting In the Straits Settlements, for example, the Educational Dispatch of 1854 mandated the governments to focus on providing mass elementary education in the vernacular The mandate “seemed rhetorical rather than financial”89 and it took almost ten years before the work toward fulfilling the mandate could start Phayre’s plan for Burma “languished” and five years after the plan was formulated, only forty-six monastic schools throughout Burma had adopted it.90
The Americans are often quick to note the similar lack of political will to promote education in the Spanish colonizers who had come before them The report of the Philippine Commission of 1903 describes the system of public education under the Spanish by compiling a list of administrative problems that were never properly addressed:
88 The best source for a comprehensive and detailed history of the history of education in Burma
see U Kaung, “A Survey of the Education in Burma Before the British Conquest and After,” Journal of the Burma Research Society 46 (1963): 9-125
89
Peter Wicks, “Education, British Colonialism, and a Plural Society in West Malaysia: The
Development of Education in the British Settlements along the Straits of Malacca, 1786-1874,” History of Education Quarterly 20 (1980): 179
90
J.S, Furnivall, Colonial Policy and Practice: A Comparative Study of Burma Netherlands India,
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1948), 125