06.24.09

My Comments on Noli Me Tangere

Posted in Book Reviews, Church Issues and Bible Interpretations, Uncategorized at 11:40 pm by Administrator

It took me a while, but I finally finished reading Noli Me Tangere by Jose Rizal.  This book was originally written in Spanish and published in 1887.  The English version I read was republished in 2006.  The reason why I wanted to read this book was because it is part of Philippine history.  During my trips to the Philippines my interest in Philippine history was kindled, and I learned a lot about my own native history that I never knew.

Jose Rizal is considered one of the Philippines’ revolutionaries.  He believed in non-violent reform, yet his martyrdom is believed to have been the catalyst of the Philippine Revolution.  Rizal was the founder of the Philippine League (La Liga Filipina), which was part of the propaganda movement in Manila.  The more radical members were secessionists and wanted to break ties with Spain.  This group was called the Katipunan and was known as “KKK” (Kataas-taasang, Kagalang-galangang Katipunan ng̃ mg̃á Anak ng̃ Bayan).  The word “Katipunan” comes from the root word “tipon”, an indigenous Tagalog word, meaning: to “collect” or “gather together”.Spain had been occupying the Philippines since the 1500s, and the Philippines was considered a Spanish colony for 300 years.  Rizal’s books, Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo inspired dissent amongst the revolutionaries.  These books were social commentaries on the Philippines, and as a result, he was arrested and imprisoned in Fort Santiago, and later executed on December 30, 1896 at the age of 35.

As a social commentary, Noli Me Tangere focused on the interaction of the local people with the Catholic priests and the government officials.  The Filipino people were looked down upon by the Spaniards, especially the priests who pretty much had control over the government.  To illustrate this, Rizal weaves the stories of various Filipino characters of varying social classes and how they are affected and destroyed by the authority of the Catholic priests who were representatives of Spain.  Rizal does a good job of illustrating how it made no difference to the Spanish what social class one was in if he was Filipino, or as the Spanish referred to the local Filipinos, Indios.  At their whim, the priests and the civil guards could ruin lives from the rich to the poor, the educated or the non-educated.

One thing that stood out to me in this book was how it’s common for some oppressed people to want to emulate their oppressors.  This reminds me of a Bible passage, James 2:6, where James says, “But ye have despised the poor. Do not rich men oppress you, and draw you before the judgment seats?”  Interestingly, this is an admonition 2000 years ago, which we still deal with today.  In the book Noli Me Tangere there were characters like Dona Consolacion, the Alferez’s wife, and Dona Victorina de de Espandana, the fake doctor Tiburcio Espadana’s wife.  They were so bent on “social status,” that they had no shame for their behavior.  Dona Consolacion went so far as to whip a mentally deranged woman just because her status allowed her the power to do so, and Dona Victorina went to extremes to “pretend” she was upper class and even employed fake accents while speaking.  Noli was written about 100 years ago, yet, I know we still have people today who want to emulate the rich, while at the same time despising the poor.  People go to church and pray to God for “blessings,” which boils down to wanting monetary increases to live luxuriously.  But the Bible tells us that the root of all sorts of evil is money.  Why do we continue to strive for wealth and riches?  I know this behavior is not limited to Filipinos as I’ve seen and read about it with other nationalities, too, such as Mexicans who like to claim that they have Spanish blood in them (Filipinos do the same thing), and from my readings on Africa, there are also Africans who try to emulate their oppressors by also wanting to become rich and rise to the “lord” status.  Some explaining that they would rather be the “hunter” than the “hunted.”   The U.S’s current economic woes are largely due to loans and credit advances, which again boils down to money and the aspiration of wealth.  It’s the American dream.  It’s the driving force of free market captialism.  It’s particularly disturbing to see that despite the Biblical warning against aspiring for wealth, many mega churches have done just that–preach for money.  And millions of people regularly participate in the lottery.  Why?  Because they want to strike it rich. . . It’s a common theme.  Many of us crave the very thing that causes oppression.

For anyone interested in Filipino history, I do recommend this book.  It started out a little slow for me because I didn’t like all the “social politics” involved and especially all the religious rituals that was entrenched in the Philippine culture.  I find it mentally and emotionally draining to have to try to figure out what it means to behave a certain way or what a certain expression meant.  It’s much easier when people are more straight forward with one another than having to play games with how something is said to try to facilitate a desired response.  This was one of the games the men played during one of their town meetings, where one man was sorely disliked by one group, so knowing this he said the opposite of what he wanted to say knowing that they would reject his idea.   Well, I guess that’s just the way it is in many cultures even in the U.S.   So, I guess that’s not so unusual, but it did make for slower reading for me in the beginning.  The latter half of the book flowed faster for me because more action started to take place.  But when I got to the end, my first reaction was, “What kind of a story was that?”  Then I thought it over and realized that that was the point, nothing was resolved; and if no change was made in the government and the priests, then things would continue to be the same and nothing would be resolved.  In that light I could see that the book did make sense.  And the sad endings for the main characters involved made it easy to stir up thoughts that change was sorely needed.  I can see why Noli Me Tangere was a powerful propaganda tool.

Marlakins

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