As it turns out, it seems the Philippines had unwittingly served as a test tube for what is turning into a template process with which a period of exuberant national political correctness meets its demise. This insight can be gleaned in the events that led to the crushing of “dreams” of an autonomous Bangsamoro “nation” in Mindanao following appalling human tragedy.
Esteemed ABS CBN News journalist RG Cruz in a report on the tragic fate of the once-applauded Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) initiative related the lament of one of its key proponents, Deputy House Speaker Pangalian Balindong (LP) who announced that he had “close[d] the book” on the project. Balindong, in a privilege speech recognised the contribution to its demise of the January 2015 Mamasapano Massacre in which 44 elite Special Action Force (SAF) officers of the Philippine National Police (PNP) were brutally gunned down by elements of the terrorist Moro Islamic Liberation Front, supposedly a key stakeholder in the BBL initiative.
If not for the Mamasapano tragedy which, among other things exposed a disturbing lack of stability in the collective character of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the naive hubris of the “peace advocates” who led the initative, and the astounding ineptness of the command-and-control framework applied by the Philippine government over its armed forces and police, many would have continued to agree with Balindong who argues that the BBL could have been a groundbreaking milestone in a “peace process” that could have ended decades of conflict in Muslim Mindanao.
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More importantly, the crisis that led to the sinking of the BBL initiative attracted more critical scrutiny into the fundamental thinking behind it. Accord to to Balindong…
The BBL offers the Muslim minority in this country the recognition of our distinct identity, protection of what remains of the Bangsamoro homeland, and the opportunity to exercise self-determination though a parliamentary form of government that will be run in accordance with the Moro culture, faith and way of life. The BBL will guarantee that, as a minority, we stand in parity of esteem with our Filipino brothers and sisters…
…all of which simply raises the following confronting questions:
(1) What prevents Filipino Muslims from exercising “self determination” under the current system of government they are subject to?
(2) What makes Filipino Muslims more special than other minorities that supposedly gives their demand for autonomy more weight?
The implications of the real answers to the above questions on the whole notion of an “autonomous” Muslim Mindanao is explored in greater detail in my earlier article, A Bangsamoro state is only possible in a fully-federalised Philippine republic.
The interesting thing to note out of all this is how Mamasapano has turned out to be a portent for things to come in the global stage. Stepping back to regard the bigger world out there, it is quite evident that the pendulum of global sentiment has concluded its swing on the side of political correctness and is now in the midst of a swing back to the other side — with a vengeance. The same sort of backlash against the political correctness that lent support to the Philippines’ own ill-conceived BBL adventure can now be seen rippling across Europe and North America. It could be argued that Europe had its own Mamasapano incident.
The parallels between what is happening in Europe today with what happened in Mamasapano 12 months ago are fascinating.
The outpouring of public goodwill following German Chancellor Angela Merkel throwing her country’s doors wide open to refugees coming in droves from war-torn Syria late last year was short-lived. On New Year’s Eve, more than 1,000 drunken men of Arabic and North African background descended upon a train station in the city of Cologne and started attacking young women who were out partying. In all, 516 criminal cases were reportedly filed in that horrific night, 40% of which were related to sexual assault offenses.
Most disturbing of all, many of the victims reported that police officers who happened to be in the area or who later responded to the emergency calls seemed disinclined to interfere. Indeed, it was found later on that Cologne police actively mounted a cover-up of the involvement of migrants in this incident. The chief of the Cologne police, Wolfang Albers, has since been suspended over those allegations. It also emerged that “police in nearby Dusiburg had offered to send reinforcements to help get the situation under control on New Year’s Eve but the Cologne police turned the offer down.”
It was as if Cologne police had orders to stand down from any confrontation with these marauding bands of male migrants. Indeed, “Internal police reports leaked to the German press suggest officers were aware many of those involved were asylum-seekers.”
In Sweden, allegations of similar cover-ups involving assaults at a music festival in Stockholm have enraged the public and launched investigations as well…
In a case echoing recent attacks in Cologne, a group of men reportedly groped girls at the We Are Sthlm event.
Police ejected 200 people from the site in August but did not mention assaults in their reports to the press.
Sweden was the first country to offer permanent residence to Syrian refugees.
Even more astounding, incidents of sexual assault involving migrants in Sweden may go as far back as 2014 with the cover-ups evidently politically-motivated (or, shall we say, motivated by political-correctness)…
According to Peter Agren, who led the police operation at the festival this summer, the controversy over welcoming refugees and migrants to the country may have contributed to a reluctance to publicise the issue.
“Sometimes we do not really say how things are because we believe it may play into the hands of the Sweden Democrats,” Mr Agren told Dagens Nyheter, referring to Sweden’s right-wing anti-immigration party.
The biggest winner in all this is Donald Trump who is leading the Republican Party race for candidacy for the presidential elections in the United States. Trump has played into long simmering frustration over what has come to be perceived as a huge national conspiracy to afford special treatment, concessions, and even affirmative action to “disadvantaged” migrants in the US. Trump has become unstoppable. Starting out as a mere curiosity, he is now powerful enough to warrant serious consideration by the American establishment. No amount of media demonisation and indignation expressed by trendy hipsters in the US’s coastal cities could dent Trump’s growing popularity.
A CNN report paints a revealing cross-section of Trump’s followers’ sentiments.
The voters pledging their allegiance to the Republican front-runner hail from all corners of the country. They work on farms, in nursing homes and run small businesses; they’ve voted for Mitt Romney and Barack Obama and participated in the tea party movement; they are high school students who will vote for the first time this November and retirees and veterans who came of age during World War II.
In Trump, these people see the next president of the United States.
His attitude, one voter said, is that he “seems to just not give a f—.” Trump’s nativist rhetoric and hardline immigration stance is a relief for those who see a segment of the population “getting away” with breaking the law. Post-San Bernardino, the candidate’s promise to “bomb the sh– out of ISIS” exudes an uncomplicated confidence rare in other politicians. His accomplishments in the business world offer reassurance that he’ll “put the economy back where it belongs.”
Perhaps most important is Trump’s imperviousness to the typical boundaries around race. He has made provocative remarks on the subject since the earliest days of his campaign — and his supporters are listening.
And this…
People say they have never seen a presidential candidate like Trump: He’s unfiltered; he’s anti-establishment; he exudes confidence and strength; he’s not a politician.
Most notable of all is the case of a Filipino-American named Norma Sweet…
Sweet was there with her husband, Terry Sweet, who is more than 30 years her senior. They said Norma came to the country 13 years ago from the Philippines and that she has been a citizen for 8 years. Speaking with a CNN reporter, Terry proudly pointed to his wife as an example of immigration done “correctly.”
“It’s not fair to her to let the illegals stay here. She does everything right. She works, she pays taxes, she votes,” he said.
The couple said they both planned to vote for Trump.
Perhaps the old adage is at work here. Too much of anything is bad. Political correctness may have been an overcompensation following a long hard slog to bring human nature out of its reptilian comfort zone and into being a more “inclusive” species after spending much of its evolutionary history attempting to exterminate one another across cultural and ethnic lines.
It was, indeed, an honourable achievement on the part of Western Europe and its derivative societies in North America and Australia to provide environments for outsiders to embrace their societies and peacefully assimilate as equals at such unprecedented scales and depths. But then there is something to be said about attempts to dismiss the reality that the foundation of such social equinamity was, in fact, built primarily on the back of European philosophy and go as far as suggesting that these and the greater foundation of Europeans’ ways of life need to yield to “the others” in the name of now-perverse notions of inclusiveness and “diversity”.
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
“It was, indeed, an honourable achievement on the part of Western Europe and its derivative societies in North America and Australia to provide environments for outsiders to embrace their societies and peacefully assimilate as equals at such unprecedented scales and depths. But then there is something to be said about attempts to dismiss the reality that the foundation of such social equinamity was, in fact, built primarily on the back of European philosophy and go as far as suggesting that these and the greater foundation of Europeans’ ways of life need to yield to “the others” in the name of now-perverse notions of inclusiveness and “diversity”.”
Amen to that!
You give too much credit to President Aquino who, early in his term, hied over to Tokyo, for a quick ‘tete-a-tete’ with Murad.. a clandestine ‘one-on-one’ which gave life to the hideous BBL. If credit be due to anyone at all, it could best be given to ‘Murad et al’ who had ‘conned’ a sitting President and lured him to initiate a feckless experiment. It seems a stretch, as well, to even imagine that President Aquino and his BBL sparked a response to the Syrian refugee crisis by Sweden, Germany, the USA.. and now Canada.. who’s settling some 25,000 new Muslims from that war-torn land. Further.. the political correctness that obviously influenced the German and Swedish authorities to hide the bestial and depraved behavior of these refugees couldn’t be traced to the Philippines where political correctness is virtually unknown.
Well, I am German and my wife is Filipina. So I spend significant time in either country and now the situation better than someone who may have lived in Philippines ijn ntheb past but is now in Australia. And Cologne is my home hown though I spent New Year’s Eve in Cagayan De Oro.
So what happened now in Cologne? There are criminal syndicated operating from Algeria and Morocco. They send young men, often just 16 or 17 years old to Turkey. In Istanbul they hide themselves amonmg the refugees from UIraq and Syria and continue to move to Central Europe. The traffickers hand them over to the local syndicate members. In cologne they usually commit theft. While one or two try to make the victim to focus his/her attention on them while another one steals cell phone and purse from the victim’s bag or pocket. And sexual assault is the best way to gain a woman’s attention.
However, Cologne police has made several arresrs in this case. These guys will face jail terms now and are supposed to be deported back to Algeria and Morocco afterwards. However, deportation to any country is only possible if the authorities of the destination countries cooperate. The Algerian and Moroccon authorities might be influenced by the syndicate. They don’t cooperate so that it is often impossible to deport syndicate members.
And I will bring up another aspect. Germany took more than one million refugees from Syria and Iraq. Among them are 300,000 men ageed 16 – 30. Believe me, take 300,000 byoung men of any ethnic group, any religion, any country. There will always be several hundred potential rapist among that. An overdose of testosterone is not an issue or culture, religion, race or nationality.
That sounds like a more reasonable explanation. Actually, I had wondered if the sexual assaults were just false flags to create reasons for the right-wingers to take more power. But for sure, even if not, the right-wingers like Trump will ride on it to gain popularity.
Some points: (Stefan vielen Dank)
1) North African gangs seem to have been increasing in the area around Cologne for the past few years. And Muslim culture IS of course patriarchal. What makes things worse among young disoriented Muslims who grew up without fathers is that they have no compass anymore, but still have a certain attitude to women. Somehow it is strongest among North Africans I observe. Disoriented+criminal+macho can make rapists.
2) The police situation
2a) seems they were stretched thin on New Year’s Eve, not enough cops on duty.
2b) might have been denial on the part of the dispatchers. Maybe they could not imagine things were that bad.
2c) confused situations like Cologne or Mamasapano are know as fog of war. Stuff is still under investigation as of now. In fact if I look at Facebook, there was a lot more screeching about Mamasapano among my Filipino FB friends than there is about Cologne among my German FB friends. Sure there are trolls and tabloids and politics but it seems Trump can be heard louder than all across the entire Atlantic.
3) Political denial
3a) the gang situation has grown worse in the past years. This is just what I have heard from people who know the street.
3b) that cops are understaffed could also be something that some decision-makers are in denial about. Heard some radio reports..
3c) There are trolls and right-wingers, but also a lot of realists. Stuff is being looked at to find solutions not to gripe.
One solution that will come very soon – and German lawmaking is definitely faster than the Philippine Congress – is stricter laws to enable faster deportation of refugees that commit crimes. The three major political parties have a consensus on this. The new draft law is ALREADY THERE since yesterday. Also Germany is paying Turkey a lot to keep millions more there, Germany and Austria are pressuring Greece to step up its border checks and more. In this kind of stuff Germany is way ahead of the Philippines where the 7 dwarfs discuss first and start blaming each other instead of finding solutions. Sure the responsibility will be checked out and the truth will be fully investigated, but in order to punish those who made mistakes and in order to apply the lessons learned. Not one of the democratic mainstream parties from right to left has done blame games. The right-wing outsiders do.. and the left-wing politically correct people hardly exist anymore. Merkel is center-right BTW. Even an ex-Federal cop who used to do the Cologne station beat interviewed on radio was calm and measured in his criticisms.. and made suggestions for improvements – let’s see how this goes I am confident.
@Irineo, your post has a bit to much generalizations.
1) There is no “Muslim” culture. There are several Islamic societies. Arab dominated societies are usually macho societies. Many of the non arab muslim societies are not. Islam is often portrayed as a somewhat homogenous culture in German and Philippine media but in fact it is very diverse.
2) The government of North Rhine-Westphalia has offered to deploy more police to Cologne but the Cologne police boss has rejected this offer.
3a) “People who know the street” may know their own neighborhood. This is another issue of generalization.
I really find it difficult to understand that there are people there who needs this to be spelled out for them. Ofcourse, there will be bad/evil people among them. The problem is always how to sort them out which is practically impossible.
That is why you do not let them in. All of them.
The reality was a flood of refugees – 25 drowned just now off Greece, you had thousands per day passing the Turkish-Bulgarian border according to a Bulgarian I know who say he kows border guards – and that Germany among all the EU states was the best equipped to handle them.
So until one week before the Oktoberfest, loads of them arrived at Munich train station. I saw it myself, the entire northern wing was sealed off, the logistics of everything amazing. As soon as the border fence between Hungary and Serbia was completed, Germany decided to stop admitting everybody.
Now you have the Greeks being told – and helped – in securing their border to Turkey, which is hard because the islands of Greece are just off Turkish shores and are really many. And you have the Turks haggling with Germany about how much they will get to keep millions of Syrian refugees in their country.
So this isn’t a bleeding heart thing, it is dealing with reality. Southern Europe would have exploded if they had stayed there. Hungary was overwhelmed and Eastern European societies have an even harder time dealing with foreigners.
Besides most Syrian refugees are the more educated classes, like the Iranians who left after the Ayatollah. Most Iranians here in Germany are top level professionals who left 30+ years ago, their kids go to the best schools. The attackers in Cologne were not Syrian refugees but other groups like we know at this point. And the enlightened people who go back later can be a force for change back home – there are some Iranians who are going back that left a long time ago, and now that the country is not a pariah anymore we shall see…
Damascus to Berlin is a much shorter distance than New York to LA, this is the reality most of those who don’t know Europe don’t see. It is just next door, and just giving these countries and their people up will mean total chaos at some point, even worse terrorism, and possibly even Israel disappearing. So certain burdens must be managed.
They never tried to make refugee camps or processing centers to separate the wheat from the chaff. It takes some time and resources, but that could have been the step taken. This was raised to members of the E.U., but too bad this wasn’t taken seriously.
It is not the aspirations of the minority, that these Islamic Radicals are calling for , in their desire of autonomous government. It is having a territory of their own; and impose their brand of Sharia Law. The Sharia Law came from their Islamic Koran, a 7th century book, allegedly came from St. Gabriel the Archangel, given to their Prophet Muhammad. Infidels, or non believers of Islam, will become second class citizens. Slavery of infidel women; public execution; confiscation of non believers’ properties; torture and genocide on non believers, etc…will take place. Like what is happening now in the ISIS Caliphate in Iraq and Syria.
Sweden is deporting 80,000 refugees. These people cannot behave in normal western society. Their mindsets is of the 7th century Arabic people.
Donald Trump is surging in Polls, because of the frustrations of the American people to traditional American politics. And , because of the failures and stupidity of Obama.
I prefer to look up some of Germany’s own sources because it’s getting it from the horse’s mouth. Here’s something interesting spotted from the pages of Spiegel about Islamic culture in German society, mainly on the topic of women.
A good source. The article shows that it is not that simple. You have different values and also modernity versus tradition.
Germany has an estimated 5% Muslims, so the ratio is more or less like in the Philippines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Germany – one big issue also is Muslims who don’t like Jews… not easy.
Merkel cabinet tackles swifter deportation for criminal foreigners
In a radicalized Islamic society; women are looked upon as properties. This is the reason , they wear “hijab” or “burqas”. They cannot go out in public, without the company of a male relative. Women are sold to men, before marriages. You have to give “dowries”, to the woman’s family. You can marry, as many wives, as you can afford them… If you have no money; “Maria Palad” forever…malas ka lang…
It is a clash of religion/culture, versus modern version of “Freedom of an individual”…this is the reason I call it: “a 7th century mindset”…the century that Muhammad founded Islam.
In a more Radicalized Islamic society. Women are circumcised; that is , the “clitoris” in the female private parts, is removed. This is the belief that female passions must be controlled…
This is not an “Islamic” practice. It is a local tradition in parts of Northeastern and Central Africa. It is usually performed on women of any religion who was born in this area. Many Islamic scholars have condemned it.
According to shariah law the dowry has to be given to the bride herself, not to her family.
It’s a bad business taking in refugees because they have different and deeply ingrained beliefs and ways of living. What Terry Sweet said is fair. Before anybody can be allowed to migrate, it must be clear that they want or are willing to adopt the ways of the foreign country that will host them and by want, not adopting it because they have no choice but because they are there to join the opportunities to employ their potential and skills and not to divide the society by imposing that their practiced be simply accepted and adapted by their host country. Like Asian immigrants adjusting to the American culture, like the OFWs behaving in KSA and Dubai following the strict Arab/Muslim rules. Won’t it be better if strong countries just assist them on making their country livable for them and the refugees themselves work on making it livable instead of escaping it? I understand taking in refugees is an urgent action due to desperate situation. But still, the priority should be the safety of your own people and the order in your country.
NAILED IT!
In countries, where the Muslims are minority: they demand , human rights and self determination.
In countries, where they are a majority. The minorities have no human rights, and self determination. They are forced to live under the Sharia Laws. Look at the OFWs in the Muslim countries in the Middle East. Ask them, how they are treated.
Have you ever been to Indonesia?
What you cannot enforce, do not command!