Hidalgo and Luna: Vexed Modernity (page 8 of 8) 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | Class Today, the word ilustrado is thought to refer to a "class." That is to say, Philippine mainstream nationalist writing retroactively gave the elite and the entire emergent middle class of the late 19th century Philippines the prestigious label, ilustrado; the label that a handful of expatriates from las islas filipinas borrowed from early 19th century European advocates of Enlightenment ideas—and which ideas they proceeded to, in fact, garble. FIlipino schoolchildren are taught that it was this illustrious class that imagined the Philippines as nation. In his book on Hidalgo, Roces evoked the beginnings of an august genealogy (and a poetics on genetics) to repeat the claim that: "A national consciousness was the mestizo contribution. They were the first to articulate the nation's aspirations and problems. The mestizos voiced the plight of the indio."46 Roces wrote:   "The idea of being Filipino came from the ilustrado. It was the ilustrado who articulated the concept of nationhood and fanned the embers of patriotism. It was the lIustrado who imagined the Filipino Nation and the Filipino identity; who designed the flag, and composed and wrote a national anthem. They gave us our national dress; they gave us the kundiman. They brought the Filipino people into a higher threshold, seeking their rightful place in the world. Now matter how specialized their professions, they were well-rounded in their education and interests, writing poetry, composing music, painting, dancing. They are the dramatic personae who shaped nineteenth century Philippines." 47

Where social hierarchy was never as rigid as, say, the caste system of the Indian subcontinent, the word ilustrado has come to serve as shorthand for elite, pedigree, and privilege and nationalism. This ilustrado-ness, then, has precious little to do with the anti-elite, anti-church, anti-pedigree, and anti-privilege passions—and indeed nothing to do with the strong sentiments against refulgent nationalism—that formed the ideology of the ilustrados of early 19th century Europe. The supposedly liberal politics of the Filipino 19th and 20th century ilustrado "class" glosses over the complexities of European history, such as:

"Liberals always spoke of democracy as a disreputable force, springing from all the worst passions of mankind. In French middle-class homes in the early nineteenth century the words democracy and republic were not considered suitable for use before the children. Democrats, on the other hand, presented liberalism as a selfish creed, shrouded in a lot of talk about freedom for everybody, but in actual fact designed to put power and privilege into the hands of the middle classes. This was a powerful argument because it could be supported by fact."48

With the pertinent history glossed over, it is no wonder that radical chic can be articutated to ludicrous lengths in Philippine letters—without discussion, let alone debate. Then again, the perverse ilustrado-ness abroad in the Philippines, that not only signifies but consolidates elite and bourgeois power (not the teast, the power to erase all memory of the

"We misread history if we decry flaunting as mere ostentation. Actually, those tokens of wealth, prestige and progress were flaunted to defy an enemy common to Indio, mestizo and Creole: the Peninsular Spaniard; and painting, too, had a common goal: political liberation. Whether Indio, mestizo or Creole, the Filipino had smarted for ages in his underpriveleged status, but now fumed dangerously to see the Peninsular enjoying prior and ampler opportunity for higher office—and for no other reason than they were not born in the Philippines! These interlopers who would look down on the native-born Filipino had to be upstaged—and 'the latest fashion in raiment or jewelry' was actually the red flag of revolution brandished by a social class enabled by new wealth to snub the snob!"49

Which argument occludes such developments in European history—"Social reform on the Continent became almost exclusively the property of the democrats, and socialism and democracy allied against liberalism increasingly as the century proceded. Consequently liberalism was regarded by many people as a conservative creed, even as an outworn creed..."—that were immediately replicated in the Philippines:

"As soon as free institutions had been established, and sometimes when they had merely been promised, the liberals began forming National Guards and taking other security measures, lest the populace should begin to make demands which had not been included in the original programme."50

Consider just one fragment of one document, this one written by Apolinario Mabini,

"We have just been witnesses of unjust spoliation of lands in the south of Luzon, and our short term in the Government of Malolos and the travels we were forced to make through the north not only corroborated our sad experience, but likewise made us understand the evil is very great, and quite general. When we were in the Government of Malolos, some ilustrados told us with great fear that the cry of liberty had made socialist or communist ideas spring up in the minds of the masses, who were dissatisfied with certain properties of doubtful origin. These ilustrados failed to understand that the discontented belong precisely to the category of the poor who have been despoiled of their land..."51

and in this connection, consider the delight and necessity, on the part of anyone assuming power in the Philippines, of fashioning links, however tenuous (or spurious), with illustrious pedigree:

"Last September 11, President Ferdinand Marcos and the First Lady and Metro Manila Governor Imelda Marcos cut the ceremonial ribbon to inaugurate the restored house. The First Couple have reasons to be sentimental about the historical landmark. She is the great-granddaugher of Aniciana Luna y Trinidad, daughter of Dr. Jose Luna, younger brother of the hero. The President, while a Congressman, introduced in 1957 a bill creating the Juan Luna Centennial Commission (JLNCC). This agency, with the President as member, aimed to rebuilt (sic) the Luna birthplace...the First Lady acted to realize the long-time dream. With the help of the Department of Public Highways and the National Historical Institute...the Luna House was reconstructed in less than 2 months."52

Thus, history is refashioned again and again in the Philippines to naturalize class as a social idea, for instance, in the way Luna's pedigree was reproduced in an earnest but ersatz museological way:

"With the house rebuilt to the satisfaction of all concerned, the Department of Public Highways Ladies Circle, an organization of wives of DPH engineers headed by Pepita Imperial Aquino, wife of Secretary Aquino, hunted high and low for 19th century pieces to furnish the house and for memorabilia to fill the museum on the ground floor. A hat-and-cane rack and a washstand came from far-off Liliw, Laguna, while a carriage of wicker and wood was found slowly falling to pieces in a dark storeroom in Vigan. The people of Badoc chipped in with curious items, mostly ethnic household articles used by their great-grandparents: head coverings made of gourds, spinning implements, baskets, chests, a berso (native cannon) and many other antediluvian pieces."53

while the rich and erudite enjoy a flâneur-ism made delectable by the aura of a nationalism that is safe from interrogation:

"[The Luna-Hidalgo exhibit] permits an unexpected intellectual game. By physically bringing together works ascribed to the same artist, the Museum enables amateur critics to match wits with proud collector-owners and professional art historians and critics."54

In sum, it is vital to wholly agree with the Filipino leaders and intellectuals (Roces and Joaquin among the most refined) who insist that the ilustrados created the nation. There is no reason to think otherwise. But, in the same breath, it must be asked, repeatedly, with passion and with a deep sense of outrage, whether this particular ilustrado-ness, a truncated, indeed mangled version of an egalitarian ideology—a version re-designed for Filipino elite use to lay claim to moral and cultural capital—can in truth be an instrument for creating a nation of equals.

Leaving Kassel and its Documenta. Hidalgo and Luna are on my mind because of the essay that has to be written on trains and airplanes outbound from Kassel. They are also on my mind because I went through Documenta keen to spot the "locations" when artists slipped from critiquing the global (de facto Euro-American) art establishment, to being exotic decorations in this establishment. Reading about Luna's supposed last masterpiece, "Peuple et Rois," was helpful: the painting marked a convincingly Realist turn, albeit belated, in Luna's trajectory; yet, in its disdain for "the mob,"55 the painting also twisted against Realism's clear-eyed and sympathetic regard for the European proletariat. Reading about Hidalgo's major effort, "El Asesinato del Gobernador Bustamante y su Hijo" was similarly helpful: the painting marked a convincingly Realist turn as well; yet, its allegorical structure reverted it back-though not to the universe of Neoclassical pictorial conventions—definitely to the universe of Neoclassical imagination. At Documenta 11, I did not see slippage at this scale. But I did note with considerable alarm how the wonderful architecture of the main hall, the Fridericianum, and the supplemental exhibition space in the vast Orangerie of the Karlsaue, Neoclassicized, so to speak, all that postmodern anguish and bravura, expressed by the most politically astute artists of the world. Hypothetically, then, it may very well have been the case that even if Hidalgo and Luna achieved a greater synthesis between their ideological positions and their art-making—the political import of their work would still have been drained away, simply by force of circumstances. By the omnipotent structure of the (de facto Euro-American) art world. Nonetheless, while it is bad enough to have to meet with insuperable odds in the arenas of engagement with imperial power, then and now, it is always the more fearsome matter for egalitarian imperatives in art and politics to be deployed for conservative, aristocratic ends.