Submitted by: Submitted by buenaventura
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Words: 336
Pages: 2
Category: World History
Date Submitted: 02/02/2014 07:56 PM
Ln chapter three, Quibuyen takes up Benedict Anderson's critique of Leon
Ma. Guerrero's translation of Rizal's novels, and the pattern Anderson finds
in Guerrero's mistranslations. Acknowledging the validity of Anderson's cri-
tique of Guerrero, Quibuyen, however, rightly takes issue with the former's
patently false claim that "Filipino" in the novels refers only to creoles, and
"people" to the inhabitants of Calamba or Manila. Anderson is, as I see it, one
more interpreter of Rizal who seems to have read only his public writings and
not his letters. Quibuyen has shown clearly that even the novels reject such
an understanding.
(Indeed, I have found pure-blooded "Indios" referred to by
Spaniards in particular cases as "Filipinos" even in sixteenth- and seven-
teenth-century documents). However, contrary to Quibuyen, it was not only
in the struggle among the ilustrados in the 1880s that the general shift in
meaning occurred (88). Burgos had habitually spoken of all born in the Phil-
ippines as Filipinos (Schumacher 1999, 91, 103, 105, 133, 162, etc.).
More importantly, Quibuyen critiques Anderson's explanation for
Guerrero's dystranslations. For Anderson, Rizal was a patriot; Guerrero a
nationalist. But for Anderson, "nationalism in our time dreams of purities and
finds it hard to linger carifiosarnente over the oxymoron, 'pure mix'." In other
words, modern nationalism has a predominantly ethnic character, for which
there is much sad evidence.
It is not hard for Quibuyen to show that such was
not the case for Rizal, who did not make distinctions based on the varying
ethnic parentage of his fellow-Filipinos, and rather than erasing the past,
embraced all who loved the country of their birth. All through the book
Quibuyen rejects the excluding sense of nationalism as belonging to Rizal.
Again, we may observe that Quibuyen has studied the letters; Anderson, the
novels alone, out of the context of the private Rizal. As Quibuyen well...