BANNER OF FREEDOM
Howard, Harry Paxton
Banner Of Freedom By HARRY PAXTON HOWARD FILIPINOS welcomed the American forces which invaded Leyte a month and a half ago. This was not merely war propaganda. It, was true. Their years under...
...But the proposed reorganization has not been for the purpose of establishing representative, constitutional government in China...
...If we aim at a political as well as military war, and a genuine and enduring peace, we must make it clear to the peoples of Asia (as to Filipinos) that we are their friends—if we are...
...But they did not have to do with American "exploitation" (a word which has no relation whatever to economic realities in the Philippines, unless in reverse...
...The "democratic" slogan is as false now, for such a set-up, as it was a year ago when it was applied to the Kuomintang regime...
...I have it from authoritative sources that the determining influence is financial—the Dutch financial influences which are associated with American (and British), and which seem to have more influence in the State Department than American military considerations...
...It was Thamrin, the outsanding Indonesian leader, who made the offer...
...No permanent peace can be based upon the subjection of Asia...
...There is—the same one that democratic elements, in China as in Europe, have been advocating all along: The establishment of a real, functioning democracy, with the people exercising effective control over their own lives and destinies through representative machinery and civil liberty...
...Their years under Japanese ascendancy—ralmost three long ; years—had not converted many of them to any faith, in the Japanese as "liberators...
...In the main, economically speaking, the United States had given...
...The American Government could have assisted such reorganization long ago, and did not do it...
...When the situation there was hopeless, we declared it an open city instead of "scorching" the homes ofthe people...
...And we gradually fulfilled most of the conditions...
...This was not mere war propaganda...
...During the 1930s, the Filipinos moved towards self-government...
...They welcomed the Japanese as "liberators...
...But the Filipinos have'been the best-off people in Asia...
...But when Aguinaldo surrendered, he made specific conditions—among them being the development of Filipino self-government...
...Year after year, mendacious publicity set it forth that he was a great democrat, and his one-party dictatorship was a "great Chinese democracy...
...Stil-well's pungent phrase, "We took a hell of a licking...
...And the start must be made by introducing democratic political institutions, not by promoting a new dictatorship because it is temporarily "better" than the old one...
...They fought courageously and well...
...We might have aided the democratic forces in China, but we did not do so...
...We made a start in the Philippines...
...No Mystery About It It was that Burmese "people's war" on Japan's side which contributed so greatly to the sudden and complete collapse of the Allied defense in Burma...
...Sly Japanese Propaganda Gen...
...There was no famine in the Philippines...
...Such a partition of Asia among Imperial Powers cannot last...
...How many American lives it will eost we do not know...
...Instances were recalled across the years in which a Filipino had been denied access to the Army and Navy Club in Manila...
...And we can honestly acknowledge such errors as we have made...
...With regard to living standards, the only possible comparison is with the Japanese...
...Propaganda feeds on bitterness and disillusion...
...And, in President Roosevelt's words, we are going to "help" the Dutch get back to the East Indies...
...For the Japanese were economically unable—even if they had wished—to play Santa Claus to the Filipinos...
...Even after Bataan, many thousands of Filipinos carried on guerrilla warfare in the hills, fighting the Japanese...
...But our Government was not interested...
...But they will be just as surely wasted—from the viewpoint either of democracy or of a lasting peace—as those lost in our war to re-establish the Romanoff dynasty in Russia 25 years ago, over 150,000,000 Russians who did not want it...
...This year, we have brought pressure on Chungking for some reorganization of its dictatorial rule...
...The one-Party dictatorship which governed them under ultimate American ascendancy was a light one...
...The Philippines are a most important argument for a democratic political and economic offensive throughout Asia, seeking to make friends and influence people by means other than military conquest and colonial subjection...
...The ordinary Filipino farmer raises but one crop yearly, and takes it easy the rest of the time...
...It was not complete independence...
...It contains within itself the seeds of new wars —wars of rebellion and wars for empire...
...Why should we be on the side of the Dutch against the Indonesians...
...The Filipinos live simply, for the most part...
...But there is no evidence of such a desire...
...Our record in the Philippines has for a generation and more been the best of any White Power in an Asiatic colony...
...It was far from perfect, but it possessed essential liberties which made further advance possible...
...Here, in the captive Philippines, was a psychological situation ripe for the hands of the Japanese propagandists...
...We can honestly point to the condition of the Philippine people under the Commonwealth as a beacon of light for all other Asiatic peoples...
...In Gen...
...The true nature of the Kuomintang regime has now been widely publicized...
...Some Americans whose concept of "progress" is an automobile for every member of the family have written curious stories about the "wretchedness" of Filipino life...
...We had the cooperation of Filipino revolutionary forces against the Spanish rulers in 1898, but after gaining "title" to the islands, we turned on the Filipinos and hunted them down in a bitter war lasting for many years...
...Indonesians felt they had received their reply—both from the Dutch and from us...
...He was recognized leader of the Gapi, the group of native Indonesian parties...
...Moscow jeered contemptuously at us, but we were right...
...Half a century under British imperial rule had not converted many Burmese to any affection for British rule...
...This alone would not prevent a democratic political offensive directed to the Indonesian people—if our Government had any positive desire for such a policy...
...The Situation In China In China, we have had a freer hand...
...Surely the white superiority doctrine is being abandoned by sane men...
...The American Government retained ultimate control over financial matters and over foreign and military affairs...
...Over and over the propagandists from Tokyo stressed the fact that the Filipinos were also Orientals and as such had been snubbed by white men...
...Jack Belden and other American correspondents have vividly described the "people's war" which resulted in ttie cutting of communications, fires, destruction, sabotage, and guerrilla warfare against the British, American, and Chinese troops fighting for the preservation of the British Empire in Burma...
...A few Americans did likewise, but the Filipinos are far better inured to the climatic and other conditions of such an existence...
...Surely the inherent shortening of one-party monopoly of power—whether in the Philippines, in the "Old South," or anywhere else—is apparent to us today...
...They welcomed us back with joy and thanksgiving...
...It was an imperfect start...
...On that last night when we fled from falling Bataan I saw Filipino soldiers and American soldiers staggering together along the road to defeat, and the bitter words spoken by white men and brown that night I am trying to forget, for the pride of America and my own...
...And behind him were the older generation...
...But, on the other hand, this same Filipino had perhaps fought at Bataan...
...His children go to school-, The ordinary farmer does not have an automobile...
...But the Japanese, with his heavy taxes and land-rent, must cultivate two crops yearly where possible, and engage in various secondary occupations as well...
...Is there no other alternative...
...Popular leaders of other Asiatic countries have more than once looked to the Philippine Commonwealth with hope and longing...
...Also, it gave some juicy contracts to American airways— and some other privileges to special individuals or groups...
...Playing With Imperialism "These were the men of the fields and the factories...
...Three years ago, when the Japanese launched their bloody "reply" to the American ultimatum of November 26, 1941, tens of thousands of Filipinos fought side by side with American soldiers in the Philippines, against the Japanese invaders...
...They were men who had been born poor and who remembered, or who had heard their father speak of, the days when a serf of the Philippines slaved his life away without a hope of ever owning his own land, or his own hut, or a carabao to plow his rice fields...
...Alone among colonial Powers in the Far East, we suppressed the opium traffic...
...But this dependent regime has been able to veto any suggestion of a "liberative" propaganda directed by us to the Indonesian people...
...Queen Wilhelmina's government-in-exile has been dependent upon foreign support—principally American...
...the rubbing of salt into half-healed wounds...
...In the Dutch East Indies, to the southwest of the Philippines, native Indonesian leaders secretly communicated with the American Government in 1940, assuring us of their full support if we would take over the island's by peaceful pressure on the Dutch, afid establish an Indonesian Commonwealth on the general model of the Philippines...
...And somehow the Dutch Government learned of the offer...
...It was not genuine democracy—propaganda to the contrary notwithstanding...
...But we developed into comparatively civilized and decent rulers...
...There is no great mystery about the Filipino welcome to us...
...Romulo, our Resident Commissioner of the Philippines, expressed it well in a recent article in the New York Times describing the situation in the Philippines after Bataan: "Trapped, because America had failed to protect him, the Filipino was disillusioned and bitter...
...If the only alternatives for the Chinese people were Kuomintang or Communist dictatorship, the outlook would indeed be a dark one...
...And he must also supply cannon-fodder for Imperial ambitions...
...And the Burmese people in rebellion contributed notably to it...
...We patronized it as the defender of American treaty privileges in China...
...As true and meaningful today as when they were first spoken, at the time of our own war against colonial subjection, are the words of Washington: "Let us raise a standard to which the wise and the honest can repair...
...We did not subject Manila to the horrors which some cities have been faced with from their own authorities...
...So the "interests" decide...
...It is based on racial distrust...
...But before and after Bataan, Brown Man and White Man carried on together, fighting the Japanese enemy...
...And it is not up to us to make secret deals with Western Powers assuring the British of renewed ascendancy over the Burmese and Malayans and the Singapore and Hong Kong Chinese, assuring the French of re-established domination over Indo-China, assuring Queen Wilhelmina of re-established rule over the Indonesian peoples, or giving Marshal Stalin partnership with us in the domination of China —a "partnership" which cannot possibly be permanent...
...It is these common people of the Filipinos who are warmest in their welcome of us...
...Such political matters," say the Dutch, "are our business...
...But these Filipino commoners lived as well as they had ever lived—and in some ways better...
...We started off badly it is true...
...It was true too...
...Why are we so determined to reestablish over these people the white dynasty represented by Queen Wilhelmina...
...The Japanese propaganda is the slyest ever devised...
...The event is in the hand of God...
...We were fighting the Japanese invaders, not the Filipino people...
...It is moving now under Moscow's pressure, to turn the one-party dictatorship into a two-party dictatorship in which the Communists can wield increased power and ultimately gain ascendancy...
...The Nationalist Party headed by Quezon and Osmena held all 98 seats in the Philippine Congress...
...that we come as liberators—if we do...
...Our support was to the allegedly "strong man" and his dictatorship...
...A Democratic Offensive We are now taking the military and naval and aerial initiative in the Far East...
...But the common people of the Filipinos enjoyed more comfort and more freedom, under the Philippines Commonwealth, than the people of any other Asiatic country—and incomparably more than the starving peasants of China...
...We have been the main patron of the Kuomintang Government of China for the past 16 years...
...Thamrin was arrested, and "died" in prison...
...There were, indeed, some things that rankled...
...The British, Dutch, French, and Japanese continued to do good business in the drug—as did also the Chinese whom we patronized...
...Burmese welcomed the Japanese forces which invaded Burma almost three years ago...
...We did not create a Utopia in the Philippines...
...It cannot be done overnight, but a start can be made...
...In the Philippines these wounds were small individual hurts that had all but passed unnoticed at the time by both wounder and wounded...
...And Quezon's magnificent palace, contrasted strikingly with the simple homes of Filipino peasants and workers...
...The Japanese took more than they gave...
...Nor was he alone in his bfiterness...
...but with our concepts of white superiority...
Vol. 8 • December 1944 • No. 50
