Muslim Belonging and Politics of Belonging in the Philippines
Time & LocationSession 4
Wed 15:30–17:00 Room 1.102
- Rosa Cordillera A. Castillo Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
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- Decolonizing the Bangsamoro Narratives: Of Settlers and the Filipino Narratives of the Bangsamoro Rogelio Braga Birkbeck, University of London
The Moro-Filipino relation is premised on the colonial domination of one hegemonic power over the other. The Bangsamoro nationalist ‘narration’ of the bangsa is framed on the following historical events significant to the Bangsamoro struggle for independence and for the right to self-determination: that Mindanao was illegally annexed to the Philippines, that the Moro is not Filipino, and the current relationship that binds the two nations is that of a ‘master’ and ‘slave’ and the continuous plunder of the latter’s resources. The conflict is on representation and narration: The Filipino nationalist narration of the nation deploys images of ‘Mindanao’, ‘Moro’, and the ‘struggle’ in a language that inherently legitimizes the grand narration of a homogenous and monolithic Filipino Philippines. Utilizing Bhabha’s ‘third space’ as platform for interrogation, the paper conducts textual and intertextual analysis of the following canonical texts: Salah Jubair’s ‘Bangsamoro: A Nation Under Endless Tyranny’ (1984), ‘The Living and the Dead’ (1994) and ‘The Green Sanctuary’ (2003) by Antonio Enriquez, and ‘The Moro Armed Struggle in the Philippines: The Nonviolent Alternative’ (1995) by Macapado A. Muslim to demonstrate the power structure and the narrative strategies that frame the representation and narration Bangsamoro in mainstream discourses in the Philippines of Mindanao, its representation, the conflict, identities, and nationhood. The paper concludes that there are two dominant narratives in constant struggle for domination, resistance, and negotiation that ‘narrate’ the fragmented Nation, the hegemonic Filipino Narratives of the Bangsamoro and the Bangsamoro Narratives: narratives that are in constant negotiation whenever power is symmetrically distributed between the two.
- Gender Dynamics and the Politics of Belonging in Localized Peace Platforms in Mindanao, Southern Philippines Rufa Cagoco-Guiam Mindanao State University
For almost 20 years, the Government of the Philippines (GPH) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) engaged in a tedious peace process that spanned the terms of three Philippine presidents (six years each). Alongside this mainstream peace process, several localized peace initiatives evolved in communities affected by armed conflicts. These initiatives highlighted the important role of building from below the incremental blocks of creating a peace constituency, not only to support the main or national peace process but also, and more importantly, to create local platforms for peace that are inclusive and representative of all sectors and groups in grassroots communities. The initiative to include the formerly excluded sectors in local peace governance is not new to the Philippine political arena, with the passage of the Local Government Code in 1991. However, creating platforms in local communities where formerly excluded sectors can now feel they belong and how they can benefit from belonging in these platforms is part of a novel approach in widening ownership of forging and sustaining peace at the community level. Another feature in this new initiative is the recognition of gender dynamics and how it can influence the success or failure of localized peace processes or platforms. This paper culls out lessons learned from the creation of volunteer based community peace platforms in Maguindanao Province (part of the new Bangsamoro Autonomous Region) and how these compare with those from a local-government driven peace mechanism called Sulong Kapayapaan in Sarangani Province (outside the autonomous region but with a substantial Bangsamoro population).
- The Politics of Marawi’s Post-War Rehabilitation Rosa Cordillera A. Castillo Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
The five-month war in 2017 between government forces and a composite group of ISIS-inspired militants resulted in the displacement of almost 350,000 residents of Marawi City in Lanao del Sur, Philippines. Two years since the siege, many of the city’s internally displaced residents have yet to return to their homes and rebuild their lives. Furthermore, no independent investigation has been done on the war including determining the number of casualties and the missing, the city’s central business district remains totally destroyed, and affected residents are largely left out of the planning process for rehabilitating the city. These have sparked protest actions from displaced residents and their supporters. This paper thus explores some of the issues and challenges in the post-war rehabilitation of Marawi City and offers observations on how these are illustrative of the politics of Muslim belonging in the Philippines.
This panel looks into the lives and experiences of Muslim Filipinos through the lens of belonging and politics of belonging. It will tackle the various ways in which Muslims perform and construct their belongingness, which Nira Yuval-Davis (2006) defines as “emotional attachment, about feeling ‘at home,’” that exists at three analytical levels: “[the first is] social locations; the second relates to individuals’ identifications and emotional attachments to various collectivities and groupings; the third relates to ethical and political value systems with which people judge their own and others’ belonging/s.” Belonging becomes political, Yuval-Davis asserts, when contestations over the latter ensue and when social locations—including political and historical positionalities, and narratives of identities, are used, particularly by hegemonic powers, to draw, enact, maintain, and reproduce boundaries between “us” and “them.” Thus, the panel will also look at how these boundaries are drawn and what their consequences are for particular Muslims, while, at the same time, interrogating how these boundaries are contested and challenged.
Cited work: Yuval-Davis, Nira, “Belonging and the Politics of Belonging,” Patterns of Prejudice, 40:3 (2006), 197-214, at 197.