Cultural gathering held in the Netherlands to commemorate Philippine revolution

The four-part gathering, which included multi-national cultural performances, a film-showing, and a forum/discussion and fellowship dinner, was held in celebration of Andres Bonifacio’s 150th birth anniversary and the 45th founding anniversary of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) on December 26.

By D.L. MONDELO
Bulatlat.com

Opening with the lively rendition of the song “Do you hear the people sing” from the classical hit Les Miserables, the celebration dubbed as an “informative and cultural gathering on the Philippine revolution” was successfully held Dec. 22, 2013, at the BAK (Basis voor Actuele Kunst) in Utrecht, The Netherlands.

The gathering was also an occasion to launch the series of five books under the general title of “Continuing the Philippine Revolution” of CPP founder and NDFP chief political consultant Prof. Jose Maria Sison.

“Maligayang pagdating, mga kaibigan”, (Welcome, dear friends) conveyed Prof. Jonas Staal, a Dutch artist and founder of the New World Academy, an artistic and political platform, which invites progressive political organizations to collaborate with artists and students to develop collaborative projects together, as he welcomed Professor Sison, Sison’s wife Julie de Lima, and more than 90 guests and friends from Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, UK, Turkey, Iraq, Chile, Indonesia and the Philippines.

“It is an honor to welcome you here at the New World Academy in BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, for the occasion of the launch of Professor Jose Maria Sison’s book “Foundation for Resuming the Philippine Revolution,” the first of a series of collected political works from the period 1968 to 1990, and to celebrate the revolutionary heritage of the Filipino people,” said Professor Staal.

Professor Staal said there is still much to learn from the history of Filipino resistance for national liberation and the development of social realism as its main cultural practice, from Professor Sison himself and from other great thinkers.

In a brief presentation to launch his books and celebrate the anniversaries of Bonifacio and the CPP, Professor Sison said: “I am elated by the coincidence with and relevance of the book launch to two major events. First, the Filipino people continue to celebrate the 150th birth anniversary of Andres Bonifacio, who founded the Katipunan and launched the initial battles of the Philippine revolution of 1896. Second, the Communist Party of the Philippines is now celebrating the 45th anniversary of its reestablishment under the theoretical guidance of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought or Maoism in 1968.”

Sison said the program of the CPP is “to complete the struggle for national independence and empower the workers and peasants in a people’s democratic state system, carry out land reform and national industrialization, achieve social justice, promote a national, scientific and mass culture, uphold proletarian internationalism and develop relations of international solidarity among the peoples and their institutions.”

From the book, he said, you can gain insights into why and how the revolutionary movement has been able to win the support of millions of Filipinos, withstand the brutal campaigns of suppression designed by US strategic planners and unleashed by the Marcos fascist dictatorship and the post-Marcos pseudo-democratic regimes and to grow in strength and advance from one stage to another.

“After 45 years of revolutionary struggle, the CPP has increased from only 80 members to around 150,000 and has become national in scale and is deeply rooted among the workers and peasants. It leads the New People’s Army, which has thousands of Red fighters in more than 110 guerrilla fronts in large parts of 71 provinces. It also leads the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, which includes 17 revolutionary organizations of various social classes, professions and causes. It has established the people’s democratic government in the form of local organs of democratic political power in order to supplant the reactionary state,” Professor Sison stressed.

Commenting on the collapse of revisionist regimes, Sison said, the CPP and the Filipino people have demonstrated that they can make revolutionary advances despite the dismal turn of events on the world stage in the years of 1989 to 1991 when the socialist cause was put on a strategic retreat as a result of the full blast restoration of capitalism in what were then revisionist-ruled countries.

He assailed the “political and ideological agents of US imperialism and the local reactionary classes” for boasting that the CPP, NPA, NDF and the revolutionary mass movement would wither away for lack of external support because of the integration of China and Russia into the world capitalist system.

Conveniently, they obscured the fact, Sison emphasized, that the CPP arose from the revolutionary tradition of the Filipino people (starting fully from the anti-colonial and democratic revolution of the Katipunan and Andres Bonifacio) and adopted a program of people’s democratic revolution based on the needs and demands of the Filipino people against the semicolonial and semifeudal ruling system. The basic documents and successful revolutionary practice of the CPP prove this point, he added.

“The broad masses of the Filipino people cherish their revolutionary tradition. Thus, they are joyously celebrating the 150th birth anniversary of Andres Bonifacio. They understand their own needs and they want to liberate themselves from foreign and feudal domination. Thus, they celebrate the 45th anniversary of the reestablishment of the Communist Party and they resolutely and militantly participate in the ongoing democratic revolution for national liberation and democracy. They draw confidence from the resurgence of the antiímperialist and socialist movements as a result of the protracted and ever worsening crisis of global capitalism.” Professor Sison concluded.

Philippine revolutionary movement: a source of hope and valuable lessons

Reacting to the input of Professor Sison, Staal said replicating the revolutionary struggle of the Filipino people is highly unlikely in the Netherlands, which, he said, has a long-standing history of colonialism. He said democracy and equality remain cliches in the Netherlands as he called for the need to break “pseudo-humanitarian concepts” such as the idea that “change comes from dialogue”

Genuine dialogue, he stressed, only comes when fundamental social change and the equitable distribution of power and wealth have already been achieved.

Professor Staal also said, as a Dutch artist, that art is not only a form of protest but as a form of struggle for social change. Art becomes political only if we begin to imagine a world that is truly free and democratic, Staal emphasized.

For his part, second reactor, Dr. Wim de Ceukelaire from INTAL-Belgium, a solidarity formation, said the Philippine revolutionary movement has been able to win the support of millions and achieve victories because of its “sharp class analysis”.

“A revolution is the people building their own future. That’s why, from the very start, the Philippine revolutionary movement called on intellectuals to put their skills and knowledge at the service of the workers and peasants. It is this challenge that I was confronted with while I was in the Philippines, “ said Ceukelaire, who spent several years as a volunteer doctor in rural communities in the Philippines.

He addded: “Every single day I was impressed by doctors, lawyers, teachers, researchers and other intellectuals who were not afraid to get their boots dirty. They went to live and work among the farmers, workers, and urban poor and helped them in their efforts to organize in order to challenge prevailing power relations. Every single day I was challenged to do the same.”

Citing the recent typhoon Haiyan that devastated most of central Philippines to demonstrate the current strength of the revolutionary movement, he stated that days before the first specialized international emergency team arrived, long before the US was able to showcase its sophisticated war machinery, local (peoples’) committees had already organized themselves to provide relief.

After one week, he said, national people’s organizations were able to dispatch medical and relief missions from Manila, Cebu and Davao.

“Even the international media’s obsession with spectacular interventions from abroad, couldn’t hide that local people and organizations were the true heroes. In fact, the killer typhoon is a mere punch in the air and left the movement intact. We were proud that our partner organizations were much more relevant for local relief and rehabilitation efforts than many international agencies that disposed of much larger budgets,” he stressed.

Commenting on the situation in Europe, Ceukelaire said: “Here in Europe whole countries have been thrown back to the level of developing countries with soaring unemployment and poverty, and almost no sovereignty left. This year, we have awoken to the fact that almost anything we say, do or read on-line is being monitored by a foreign

State’s secret services. All over Europe, civil liberties are eroding fast and the whole concept of public social services is undermined. Inequalities are growing by the day as the exploitation of the people is intensifying to the benefit of a small elite.”

This situation, he explained, should be an opportunity to mobilize the people of Europe, but, he said, there is still a need to find the right way or method to mobilize the people in the struggle.

“That is why I think it is relevant for us to study the history of the Philippine revolutionary movement. It is not just a source of hope but also of valuable lessons,” he concluded.

After the forum/discussion, people in the audience bought copies of the books and had them signed by Professor Sison. More than 40 copies of the books were sold.

The outstanding and applauded two-part cultural performances were a mixture of forms – songs, poetry, pantomime, flag dance, mask movement, rap, choral recitation and ended with the community singing of “Internationale”. The selections ranged from “Do you hear the people sing”, “The People United” (rap), “Bella Ciao”, to “Playa Giron” (a Cuban revolutionary song). Most performers are members of Linangan, an art and culture network, while others came from Filipino, Kurdish, Dutch and Turkish organizations.

The fellowship dinner after the performances was followed by a special preview of a film on the life of Professor Sison and the history of the founding of the CPP.

The informative and cultural gathering was initiated by the International Network for Philippine Studies and the Linangan Art and Culture Network.