Islamic Identity in the New Republic

It remains to inquire about the further development, in the early postcolonial period, of the transcendent Philippine Muslim identity fostered under American colonial rule. As argued in the preceding chapter, American colonial policies had the effect of ethnicizing Muslim identity in the Philippines. By "ethnicizing" Islam I mean to say that American colonial rulers encouraged the development of a self-conscious Philippine Muslim identity among a generation of educated Muslim elites who were otherwise divided by significant linguistic, geographic, and, to some extent, cultural barriers. It was an identity founded upon the Spanish ascription "Moro" (or Philippine Muslim), but, as the term "Moro" remained a pejorative among Philippine Christians, the most common alternative denomination became "Muslim Filipino," connoting a Muslim citizen of the new (or soon-to-be) Philippine nation (see, e.g., Glang 1969 and below).^[23] As with so many other ethnic identities in the colonial and postcolonial world, Muslim

Filipino identity was as much negatively as positively defined; Muslim Filipinos were non hispanicized Filipinos who shared the profession of Islam. The Islamic content of that identity was, as we have seen, rationalized—even sanitized—to conform with Western assessments of Islam's "favorable" aspects.

How was the new ethnic identity engendered among Muslim elites in the late colonial period employed and expanded in the new Philippine nation? The standard account of the postcolonial history of Muslim identity in the Philippines (in simplified form) is that, beginning circa 1950, an Islamic resurgence began to manifest itself throughout the Muslim areas of the Philippines (see, e.g., Bauzon 1991; Majul 1985; Hunt [1957] 1974; Gowing 1979), and that this Islamic consciousness intensified and eventually culminated in an Islamic insurgency against the Philippine state (Madale 1986; Gowing 1979; George 1980; Majul 1979). A critical review of the available evidence suggests to the contrary that, rather than witnessing the widespread development of a heightened Islamic consciousness, the early postcolonial period saw a strengthening of ethnoreligious identity on the part of prominent Muslims. What is evidenced, in other words, is not an expansion of Islamic observance among Philippine Muslims as a whole but rather an amplification among political elites of an ethnic identity as Muslim Filipinos. That ethnic assertion represented not a reversal of the tendencies of the colonial period but their logical extension.

More than one chronicler of the postwar Muslim Philippines has commented that American war-damage payments and back-pay awards at the end of the Japanese War stimulated, among other things, a surge in mosque-building, the establishment of madrasahs (Islamic schools; the Arabic plural, madari , is also sometimes used by Philippine Muslims) and pilgrimages to Mecca (see, e.g., Thomas 1971; Ravenholt 1956; Gowing 1979; Madale 1986). That link between the final American expenditures of the colonial period and an increase in Islamic-related investments by certain Muslims suggests something about the nature of the postwar Islamic resurgence in the Philippines. The major share of American reparation payments was monopolized by established Muslim elites, especially those (such as Salipada Pendatun or Udtug Matalam) most closely aligned with the Americans before and during the war. The financial boon allowed many more of these individuals than ever before to make the pilgrimage to Mecca and to enjoy the prestige that attached to hadji status.^[24] The most prominent among them invested in more elaborate status enhancements, building mosques

and opening madrasahs. Muslim congressmen especially endeavored to become patrons of Islamic schools (Mastura 1984; Ravenholt 1956). The competitive character of such sponsorships is revealed in a passage from Ravenholt relating the short history of a madrasah established in 1951 by a Maranao congressman: "For a time some 600 Moro students were enrolled in Mindalano's 'college' . . . The school, however, was located too far from the main centers of Moro population on the Lanao Plateau, and when several competing Muslim 'colleges' were started in and around Dansalan by his political enemies Mindalano's enterprise foundered" (1956, 8).

The stated purpose of this and other enterprises in religious education was to promote a specifically Muslim contribution to the new Philippine nation. Ravenholt reports that "it is the conviction of Mindalano and the group working with him that if they are to bring constructive order to their people and make them full-fledged participating citizens in the [Philippine] Republic, this can only be accomplished by making them better Muslims" (1956, 11).

Similar sentiments may be found in the writing of postwar Muslim intellectuals such as Alunan Glang. In a representative piece entitled "Modernizing the Muslims" (1969), Glang, a Magindanaon datu, first restates the sine qua non of Philippine Muslim identity previously pronounced by Saleeby—the moral authority of datus: "The system of datuship has long kept the Muslims united and spiritually bound together. So deeply ingrained into the fabric of Muslim life is this institution that the faith and loyalty of the Muslims have withstood the severe vicissitudes of time and change. Down to this day, many of them still hold the datus in characteristic religious awe and adulation" (1969, 33). Glang then proposes a prescription for "modernization" remarkably resonant with that proposed by Saleeby more than fifty years earlier: "One of the biggest single factors that may bring about the orchestration of the Muslim Filipino into the fabric of Filipino national life appears to be the Muslim leaders themselves whose pervasive influence had for centuries dominated and dictated much of the Muslim Filipino thinking and psychology" (1969, 33). Taken together, the statements reported for Mindalano and written by Glang indicate an effort to undergird datu leadership in the Muslim regions of the new Philippine nation by reemphasizing its Islamic nexus.

While it is difficult to assess with any accuracy the socioreligious effects of the heightened Islamic activity among Muslim elites in the postindependence period prior to 1968, that activity does not seem to

have resulted in an Islamic resurgence as the term is normally understood (see, e.g., Denny 1987; Hunter 1988). There is, for example, no evidence for any significant increase in attendance at communal prayers or of an enhanced political role for clerics.^[25] The newly established madrasahs had minimal results in heightening the Islamic consciousness or religiosity of ordinary Muslims (Hassoubah 1983). Of the Islamic organizations created in the early postcolonial period—organizations often cited as tangible evidence for Islamic resurgence (see Gowing 1979; Mastura 1984; Majul 1979)—most seem to have been little more than paper entities with no genuine existence apart from an organizational name and set of bylaws.^[26]

An important exception was the Muslim Association of the Philippines, the oldest, largest, and most vigorous of the new Muslim organizations. The composition and activities of the Muslim Association of the Philippines (MAP) tell us much about the nature of the postcolonial Islamic resurgence. The association was headquartered in Manila, the national capital, and had as its forerunner the Society of Indian Muslims, an organization established in 1926 to look after the needs of immigrant Muslims. By the mid-1930s, the society had reached out to include Philippine Muslims living in Manila, mostly politicians and students (among them Salipada Pendatun), and changed its name accordingly. The association fell dormant with the Japanese occupation but was revived in late 1949 by Congressman Ombra Amilbangsa of Sulu.

By the time MAP sponsored its first National Muslim Filipino Conference, held in Cotabato City in 1955, its membership was primarily indigenous Muslims who were nearly always also Western-educated politicians, professionals, or university students. A featured speaker at the first conference was Edward Kuder, now an official with the United States Veterans Affairs Office in Manila and occasional consultant for the Philippine government on matters pertaining to Philippine Muslims. Kuder's chosen subject was "Education—A means of Improving Conditions in Muslim Communities." In his speech he noted with understandable satisfaction (given his key role as superintendent of public schools in the Muslim South) that "it is mostly due to increased literacy among Muslims, and to the rise of a highly educated articulately literate class among them, all because of the Philippine Public School system, that such nation-wide conferences of Muslims [as this] are now not merely a possibility, but a reality. I thank God I have lived to see it" (Muslim Association of the Philippines 1956, 42). Kuder also

reviewed once again the benefits for the Philippine nation of an appropriate Islamic education for Philippine Muslims, remarking that "the Muslim parents and children who are acquainted with the precepts of their religion are more peaceful and better citizens" (1956, 43).

It is hardly overstatement to describe the annual Muslim Filipino conferences sponsored by MAP in the 1950s (the national conferences were its primary formal undertaking) as the postcolonial product of Edward Kuder's tutelage.^[27] The conferences brought together members of the "articulately literate class" of Muslims from throughout the Philippines to acclaim their newfound ethnic identity as Muslim Filipinos, advocate Muslim self-improvement, and deliberate the place of Muslims in the fledgling Philippine nation.

The emblems of Islamic resurgence in the two decades following independence were primarily signs rather than practices. Rather than spawning a religious revival in the Muslim Philippines they signaled a deepening ethnic self-recognition (found primarily among elites) as Muslim Filipinos. The ethnic affirmations initiated by Muslim political elites were the logical extension of the process of Muslim Filipino identity formation begun in the late colonial period. Western-educated Muslim elites such as Pendatun and Mindalano underscored their shared hyphenated identity as Muslim-Filipinos rather than their separate ethnolinguistic designations as Magindanaon or Maranao. The Islamic content of that shared identity was affirmed largely by rationalizing it through the establishment of various Islamic "colleges" and organizations. The expressed intention of molding individuals into "better Muslims" referred fundamentally to creating self-consciously ethnic Muslims. Such efforts and intentions were expressive of the Muslim elite's contradictory position (established during the American colonial period) as modernizing traditional leaders. While intent on retaining and reinforcing their customary positions as Islamic authority figures, they nevertheless remained the most Westernized (and Filipinized) of Philippine Muslims. Unsurprisingly, none of the public Islamic assertions of Muslim elites during this period directly challenged the legitimacy of the new Philippine state to rule Muslims.

While the Islamic affirmations of Muslim elites in the postindependence period are largely understandable as the natural progression of forces set in motion during the colonial period, they should also be examined in light of the disjunctions brought about by the establishment of the Philippine republic. As we have seen, the most consequential of those was large-scale Christian migration to the Muslim South. As il-

lustrated by the postwar careers of Congressman Pendatun and Datu Udtug, the responses of Muslim political leaders to the influx of Christians tended to be quite pragmatic. While the demographic balance remained favorable to them they readily formed coalitions with Christian politicians and appealed to Christian voters. Implicit in those appeals was their claim to be able to "control" Muslims, which presumably included the assurance of Muslim acquiescence to continued Christian immigration.

When the demographic tide shifted against them, Pendatun and Udtug did not hesitate to cede large portions of their political territory in order to retain a secure hold on power. That consolidation of Muslim territory in response to rising Christian political power in Cotabato suggests an additional motivation for the activation by Muslim elites of rationalized emblems of a single Muslim ethnic identity. Such signs of Muslim solidarity may also be seen as a defensive response to Christian ascendancy in Mindanao. To Christian politicians and agents of the central state, they projected the image of a unified and energized (though manageable) Muslim populace—a populace that would tolerate large numbers of new arrivals but would countenance neither official disregard nor displacement from its core territories.^[28]

In the watershed decade that began in 1968, mutual tolerance gave way to sectarian violence between Muslims and Christians and governmental inattention was replaced by state aggression toward Muslims. Most datu politicians in Cotabato lost a great many of the capabilities they had possessed to manage the Muslim populace, as they were confronted with new and severe political challenges, both internally from a new Muslim counterelite and externally from the particular Christian forces that controlled the state.