The struggle goes on....
I imagine that what the late President Marcos of the Philippines would like to be remembered for is being the saviour of the nation perhaps. A strong and effective ruler who brought peace and prosperity to his nation in difficult and troubled times.
In fact what he's remembered for is the brutality of the martial law he imposed on the Philippines from 1972-81.
Notorious for that, and for his entry in the Guinness Book of Records for stealing $10 billion from the Central Bank of the Philippines.
That was more than any other ruler had stolen from their country back in the day. I’m sure the records been broken many times since…
There’s a museum in the campus of the University of the Philippines that's devoted to displaying the thefts of one of his henchmen.
The Vargas museum is very well appointed, very well air-conditioned, with two of its four floors displaying the artworks collected by this man, Jorge B. Vargas, lawyer, diplomat, and politician.
The museum website neglects to mention that this man was a prominent member of the puppet government established by the Japanese after their occupation of the Philippines.
He was also a leader of the Boy Scout movement, and the museum has a portrait of him in his scouting uniform next to the artworks he collected.
The kind of paintings he liked were European style soft porn - paintings of Filipino women gathering fruit or harvesting rice in idealised landscapes by painters like Fernando Amorsolo that, I must admit, left me feeling a bit nauseous.
And then on the top floor was a display of artwork looted by the Marcos family.
Not the best ones of course; not the Michelangelo, the Botticelli, or the Monets.
They were all stashed abroad and sold in Sotheby’s.
Not them. The ones here are works of obscure and not very gifted Italian painters of the Renaissance next to a really bizarre room of utterly appalling so-called ‘primitive’ painters of the old Yugoslavia.
As for Vargas, for most of his life, he kept his collection to himself. It was just towards the end of his life that he made a request to the nation so that the museum could be built and bear his name and whitewash his reputation.
Elsewhere, in a much more obscure corner of the city, is the museum devoted to preserving the memory of those who resisted martial law.
The Bantayog ng mga Bayani is quite hard to find, and it's a place that's clearly seen better days.
It’s a work of utter devotion by people who were determined that those who resisted stayed on the record and were not forgotten.
Around the walls are the names of those who resisted. Ordinary people. Students, workers, farmers, professionals, people struggling to mount resistance and yet live their own lives.
People, I'm sure, arguing amongst each other about the best tactics to use, attending meetings and printing underground magazines and leaflets.
People turning up to demonstrations, often at risk of their lives. Frightened people. People fearful for their own safety and the safety of these they loved.
But doing what they had to anyway…
And then outside in the ground is a wall of names: the names of those who gave their lives.
One of the exhibits commemorates Lean Alejandro, an activist assassinated by the military at the age of 27. He said:
“The place of honour is in the front line.”
One museum I never visited is the one in Quezon City that displays Imelda Marcos’ three thousand pairs of shoes.
She and her husband committed atrocious acts of thievery from their own people, most of whom were living in desperate poverty.
But I can’t help thinking that her robberies pale in comparison with the mass robberies committed by the colonial powers.
That her three thousand pairs of shoes isn’t really that much in comparison with all the expensive and unnecessary gear stashed in living rooms and bedrooms and holiday homes in rich countries all over the world.
Not to mention the massive environmental damage we have inflicted on poorer countries like the Philippines in the course of our grand larcenies.
And I reflect on all this now I’m back home contemplating the hurt being inflicted on trans women like me first by the US and now by the UK governments,
How we’re being used both as scapegoats and useful distractions from their multiple failures.
Because it turns out to be quite hard to create a just peace in Gaza, Sudan, or the Ukraine.
Quite hard to create a functioning health service, or bring child poverty to an end.
Quite hard to create a justice system that actually helps and protects women suffering domestic abuse or rape.
Quite hard to prevent vested interests destroying the environment.
Much simpler, really, to get everyone distracted and enraged and fiercely engaged in futile arguments about the definition of a woman.
Much simpler to get everyone convinced that the main threat to women’s safety is the presence of trans women in ladies toilets…
But we really are not the problem.
And I think of the words of Xiye Bastida:
“We need to have a whole cultural shift, where it becomes our culture to take care of the Earth, and in order to make this shift we need story-telling about how the Earth takes care of us and how we can take care of her”.
(“Calling In” in “All We Can Save”, edited Johnson and Wilkinson. One World 2020)
That makes the task confronting us pretty clear.
I feel pretty helpless confronted by the enormity of it.
Just as I know that all those struggling against the Marcos’ martial law in the Philippines felt small and helpless and divided and unequal to the task.
But they all did what they could.
And we must do what we can.
And so I pack my suitcase ready to go to Liverpool tomorrow for a meet the author kind of event in St. Brides.
And then a performance of Jesus Queen of Heaven at the same venue on Saturday night.
And then a fortnight after that I'll be going down to London to perform Queen Jesus in Rosslyn Hill Chapel in Hampstead.
And I'm thinking of the lines at the end of Light in the Village.
Sita returns to the patch of ground she have suffered so much to make their own and she resolves in spite of everything that she will go on cultivating it:
“FOUR
She walked out to the field.
Where her husband was staring at the wasted land.
The tiny barren patch of ground.
The dew was wet in the grass. Mist was rising from the river.
It was the hour of dawn.
SITA
Muntu. Don’t tell me what I should have done.
Don’t tell me that I should forgive.
Look at the earth Muntu. The wasted earth.
The garden that we dreamed of
Has turned into a barren patch of weeds.
Muntu we’ll dig the ground. We’ll clear it and we’ll plant our seeds.
They’ll tell us it’s a waste of time.
That others will come to take away our land.
Or else they’ll come to imprison me.
Some seeds will fall on stony ground.
Others will be eaten by the birds.
And some will be choked and smothered by the weeds
But I won’t believe they’ll all be lost
Or that our labour will be wasted.
This moment is the only thing we’ve got.
There’s nothing else.
We’ll dig. We’ll dig! We’ll dig!”
And in spite of all the discouragement and difficulties, we all need to do the same.
“The Gospel According to Jesus Queen Of Heaven” is at St Bride’s Liverpool on 25th April at 7.30 (an informal encounter with me) with the full performance on Saturday 26th. Tickets and info here
The performance in Rosslyn Hill Chapel, Hampstead, London is at 7pm on Saturday 10th May. Tickets and info here
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