Thread by @indiohistorian

#TodayinHistory in 1890, José #Rizal's essay, "Sobre la indolencia de los filipinos" (On the laziness of Filipinos) comes out in La Solidaridad as a scathing rebuttal to Spanish racist accusation of the alleged inherent idleness among Filipinos. (THREAD) tmblr.co/ZtGCUxpi0SLp

Context: Some of the privileged Filipinos who were able to study in Europe in late 19th century, called the "Ilustrados," used their voices to campaign for Filipino representation in the Spanish cortes (legislature), and amplify the voice of #PH, then Spain's farthest colony.

They have organized themselves as an editorial body to publish the newspaper, La Solidaridad (The Solidarity), to accomplish their goal, and have the plights of Filipinos be known among the Spanish reading populace. This was supported in Spanish Liberal circles.

In a series of articles divided into 5 installments in Soli, Rizal expounds, that while laziness could be evident among Filipinos, it was bec of the oppressive environment by the bugged-down & corrupt Spanish administration that halts the spirit of creativity & innovation.

Rizal: "The evil is that the laziness in PH is a magnified laziness, a laziness of the snowball type... an evil that increases in direct proportion to the periods of time, and effect of misgovernment and of backwardness, as we have said, and not a cause thereof."

"From his birth until he sinks into his grave, the training of the native is brutalizing, depressive & antihuman.. it is evil for the natives to know Castilian, that the native should not be separated from his carabao, that he should not have any further aspirations, and so on."

"...these 5 to 10 years have to offset the daily preaching of the whole life, that preaching w/c lowers the dignity of man, w/c by degrees brutally deprives him of ...self-esteem, that eternal, stubborn, constant labor to bow the native’s neck, to make him accept the yoke..."

"Thus, while they attempt to make of the native a kind of animal, yet in exchange they demand of him divine actions. And we say divine actions, because he must be a god who does not become lazy in that climate, surrounded by the circumstances mentioned."

"Deprive a man his dignity, & you not only deprive him of his moral strength but make him useless even for those who wish to make use of him. Every creature has its stimulus: man’s is his self-esteem. Take it away & he is a corpse, & he who seeks life in a corpse will see worms."

Rizal's criticism of government would earn him censure, exile, and later on, death sentence. But as proven by his letters in 1892, he was ready.

Photos:

- La Solidaridad frontpage/folio, from @AskNLP
- Photo of the Ilustrados, 1890, from Culture Ed, @NCCAOfficial
- Jose Rizal, Marcelo H. del Pilar, and Graciano Lopez Jaena, from Gutenberg.Org
- Water carriers in Iloilo, 1899, from Alden March