Rizal vs Bonifacio, MLK vs Malcolm X: Whose heroes are they?

Rizal vs Bonifacio, MLK vs Malcolm X: Whose heroes are they?

Dr. Jose Rizal and Andres Bonifacio

Why do Filipinos celebrate Rizal? Why do black Americans celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr.? While these exemplary men deserve our veneration, were they placed in the pedestal because they appeased to Western ideals? In the light of anti-colonial sentiment, and amidst the backdrop of the return of racial issues, it may be time to re-evaluate our history.

By Jose Victor ‘Jayvee’ Salameña

Ever since famed Filipino historian Renato Constantino gave his Rizal Day lecture in 1969 “Veneration without Understanding”, countless Filipinos have endlessly debated whether Rizal was worthy of our veneration and the pedestal given to him as the “National Hero of the Philippines”. Central to the argument that we should at the very least reconsider Rizal’s pre-eminence in the pantheon of Filipino heroes is that Rizal is an “American-Sponsored Hero”. While they considered “Aguinaldo too militant, Bonifacio too radical, Mabini unregenerate”, Americans were all too happy to impose Rizal to pre-eminence in the pantheon. As per Constantino, quoting American Governor W. Cameron Forbes: “Rizal never advocated independence, nor did he advocate armed resistance to the government”.  Moreover, Rizal was deceased when the Americans turned their guns to our other heroes: Aguinaldo, the Bonifacio and Luna brothers, and Gregorio del Pilar. Not to mention, too, that Rizal seemed to favor Western things over his own Filipino heritage: Western clothing, Western ideas, and of course, Western women.

Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X

Many Filipinos, like Constantino, instead offer Andres Bonifacio as the alternative. He was the Supremo leader of the Katipunan that instigated the Revolution. He was the fearless visionary who dared to take on the villainous Spanish and the opportunistic Americans.

Rizal vs Bonifacio. Even more than one hundred years after their lives, even after Filipinos have achieved the nationhood that they advocated and fought for, their lives, their ideas, and their legacies still spar.

How is Rizal and Bonifacio connected to MLK vs Malcolm X? And why is it even important in today’s day and age?

Because while our struggle as Filipinos has moved on to the struggles of self-independence, the struggles of Black peoples in America continues, with no solution in sight, in the midst of the civil rights movement that has again re-awakened in the Black Lives Matter movement.

But why has the promise of the 1960’s Civil Rights Movement not produce better results? Who can forget the election of a black man, Barack Obama, into the White House? Isn’t this the Promised Land that MLK talked about?

Is it maybe because, like Jose Rizal, Martin Luther King Jr. was a hero that white Americans can put on a pedestal that black Americans can emulate? And like Rizal, while MLK was very much a revolutionary, American history books toned down his rhetoric and moderated his stances. Because ultimately MLK preached cooperation and unity, not separation.

Why, then, are blacks still being shot in the street? Why, then, are blacks living in fear? Black Americans are still being treated like second-class, second-rate citizens in their own country! Is it because MLK was wrong?

Maybe it’s time that the African American community look not only to the ideas of MLK, but also look at the ideas of his more-controversial contemporary and counterpart: Malcolm X.

Like Bonifacio, when most people didn’t advocate separation and independence, Malcolm X did. As Malcolm X said in 1963, “Once we become separated from the jurisdiction of this white nation, we can then enter into trade and commerce for ourselves with other independent nations. This is the only solution.” And in his travels, Malcolm X witnesses the anti-colonial revolutions that were happening in the 1950’s and 1960’s in Africa and across the world.

Rizal vs Bonifacio. While Rizal still holds the placard as “The National Hero of the Philippines,” history will regard the controversial and violent Bonifacio as the one with the foresight of independence

Will history be repeated with MLK vs Malcolm X? Like everything in 2020, nothing is certain. But like everything else in this extraordinary time in history, maybe it’s time we re-evaluate our “treasured truths”. While Rizal and MLK acknowledged it, Bonifacio and Malcolm X believed it and embodied this simple truth: extraordinary and revolutionary times call for extraordinary and revolutionary ideas.