The Malaysian anthropologist Syed Hussein Alatas is best known for the concept “the captive mind.” The captive mind refers to the lost sense of identity of locals due to the influence of their colonial masters. The way of thinking of a conquered people have become “captive”, which means that many of us, intellectuals included, are simply parroting the ideas of the West. This in particular is apparent in our school system and the broader spectrum of society in which thinking is defined on the basis of a Eurocentric model or an Americanized culture.
Colonialism has not disappeared from the face of the earth. The Eurocentric standard of intellectualism permeates the mind of Filipino scholars. This norm has resulted to a way of doing things in which people are being judged on the basis of the consciousness of the White Man. In this way, the communal way of life of Indigenous Peoples, for example, is demeaned. Natives are judged as “way grado” or uneducated. This attitude is a form of oppression. Iris Marion Young calls it “cultural imperialism.” When one culture thinks of itself as superior to another, there’s a violence committed against the dignity of a people.
The positive sciences have contributed to this way of thinking. The Renaissance taught man that reason is at the center of everything. All the perfection that man possesses comes from logos. Logos is reason. Western philosophy and culture are rooted in modernity. As an example, Manila scholars insist on understanding Mindanao based on their liberal reformist agenda and the Western approach to democracy. Some academics, meanwhile, even have the arrogance to judge the work of others as a form of misappropriation.
Alatas believes that Southeast Asians, including Muslims, should pursue science according to the way they see the world. Alatas did not agree with the observation of Jose Rizal that Filipinos are indolent. For Alatas, Rizal could not have travelled the whole country to make such a judgment. In fact, Alatas writes that “the really indolent group, the Spanish ruling class in the Philippines, was never subject to the same type of scrutiny. It was the Filipinos who toiled, sweated and died for the Spaniards.”
In a retracted article “The Argument for Colonization,” an American author suggested that colonization in some cases has resulted to benefits to the local tribes. Such an assessment is clearly mistaken at first glance. The problem with such a claim is that it is as if native people or indigenous communities need their colonial masters for them to be civilized. It wrongly asserts that without the intervention of Western colonizers, indigenous communities cannot develop the tools and systems for social or economic progress.
Prior to the arrival of Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, the Chinese have already been doing trade with the natives in the Archipelago. In the outskirts of Mount Apo, the local Tagabawa and Ata-Manobo Tribes have maintained their unique way of life even in the midst of the onslaught of Westernization, says Karl Gaspar. While commercialization and the influx of tools in agriculture have become a threat to their indigenous practices, they have adapted and continued to live their everyday life despite this assault on their group identity. Bishop Desmond Tutu’s admonition has remained instructive: “When the missionaries came to Africa, they had the Bible and we had the land. They said ‘Let us pray.’ We closed our eyes. When we opened them, we had the Bible and they had the land.”
Alatas explains that “the important conditions to obtain protection from feudal rulers and chiefs were unflinching loyalty and subservience towards the master.” This subservience can also be found in our educational system. We see students as products and education as a process that must produce useful citizens. When top schools arrogate themselves as belonging to the elite class because of their higher ranking, it is as if they are saying that their graduates should also be at the top of the social hierarchy. The purpose of education is not to show that some of us are better than others. It is for us to realize that we are equal in dignity and moral worth.
