An American Expat in Southeast Asia: Philippines

Showing posts with label Philippines. Show all posts

Dec 27, 2011

Malaise Then - Apocalypse Now

There is a certain irony I suppose that I would be writing this from the steamy rainswept jungles of the Philippines not too far from where Francis Ford Coppola filmed the 1979 movie Apocalypse Now.

From the start, Apocalypse Now, the film based on Joseph Conrad's novella, the Heart of Darkness was besieged with problems. In the steamy Philippine jungle, the staff and crew were struck down with dysentery almost immediately, that together with a typhoon, delays and budget over runs, the film now, perhaps one of the greatest movies ever made was almost never completed. Grossly over budget and delayed countless times, the movie was finally released on 15 August 1979.

Looking back, Colonel Kurtz' final words seem today to be more prophetic than apocalyptic.

"Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision -- he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath: " 'The horror! The horror!' "

America's Summer of Madness

It was the summer of 1979, a hot summer plagued by long gas lines and a sense of hopelessness, never-ending that seemed to permeate everything. That summer our nation would be subjected to Jimmy Carter's infamous "malaise" speech. The opening lines of which failed to reassure and instead conveyed a man's impotence. It was as if everything was ending and the cultural decay had hastened. Chaotic and mad, a film released late that summer entitled "Apocalypse Now" seemed just fitting for the zeitgeist.

So where are we today thirty-two years later? Has the erosion of our confidence in the future finally destroyed the social and the political fabric of America? As 2012 approaches how many Americans are confident of what the future holds?

It has been over thirty-two years since and little remains of the film sets at Baler and Caliraya here in the Philippines. The jungle it seems has a way of forgetting the past.

Jun 24, 2011

May You Live In Interesting Times

In his book Kingdom of Fear, Hunter Thompson recalls the ancient Chinese curse being told to him by an elderly dope fiend one rainy night in Hong Kong towards the end of the Vietnam war. Looking back it's quite possible that the historians of the future will see that the end of the Vietnam war as the the end of Pax America, what Thompson saw as the final days of the American century.

It's difficult to talk about America's decline without sounding like a defeatist - As prescient as Thompson might have been, my perspective here is different. I can't see what the late Hunter Thompson saw or for that matter what much of America sees. What I see as an American in Southeast Asia is what many here see and that is - the storm clouds gathering on the horizon and the harsh realization that what so many Americans fought and gave their lives for will soon be gone forever.

The optimism of the past looks strangely outdated today, there is a sense of malaise that is slowly giving way to the realization that America can no longer be depended on here in Southeast Asia to fight and defend those very things that our forefathers gave their lives for. No where is this more evident than in the Philippines today.

Just eighty nautical miles off the coast of Palawan in the Philippines, China is laying claim to an area called Reed Bank, part of a vast area off the coast of Palawan that's oil reserves and wells now supply 15% of all the petroleum consumed in the Philippines.

While Chinese warships threaten and fire on Philippine ships off the coast of Palawan, the United States has found themselves in a precarious situation - warned by China to stay out of the conflict, the United States is unable to do anything other than offer meaningless platitudes of support and coercing the victims of Chinese aggression to engage in a collaborative diplomatic process with their aggressor not unlike the collaborative diplomatic process that the late Czechoslovakian Prime Minister Milan Hodža was once urged to engage in with his aggressor. But this isn't 1937 it is 2011 and their will be no Roosevelt-like calls for a quarantine or anything that might possibly offend the Chinese even when an allies' sovereignty is at stake.

As reassuring as it might be, deep in his heart the Philippines President Benigno Aquino must surely know that the mutual defense treaty he holds in his hand is nothing more than a relic of the past, nothing more than a piece of paper.

May 7, 2011

Obama The Terrorist - The Silent Moderates

Osama is mujahid - Obama is a terrorist

While the initial reaction to Osama Bin Laden's death throughout Southeast Asia was surprisingly muted with many expressing disbelief on his demise, the general mood is disturbingly changing. Yesterday afternoon the mosques were packed full from Indonesia and Malaysia to the Philippines with thousands of Al Qaeda supporters and sympathizers taking to the streets afterwards protesting and marching on the respective United States embassies.

The show of sympathy for Al Qaeda's leader was stunning with many shocked at the large number of supporters who came out. To those in America and Europe who still think that Al Qaeda's virulent strain of Islam had but a few supporters, yesterday was an eye-opener. Manila's Golden Mosque which normally attracts only around 500 worshipers for Friday prayers was filled to the brim with over 5000 worshipers yesterday afternoon. In Malaysia, Al Qaeda's sympathizers took to the streets and in Indonesia posters were put up denouncing Obama as a terrorist and Osama as a mujahid.

In provocative displays of religious chauvinism Islam's fieriest orators took this unique opportunity to stoke the flames of recrudescent radicalism from a vast new contingent of self-radicalized moderates, by denouncing the West and praising Osama Bin Laden. It is this new contingent, the "silent moderates" who will seek no rapprochement and offer no quarter with the West. Emboldened by the West's appeasement, deference and lack of resolve, they number in the millions and range from bomb-makers to home-makers but each one shares a common goal and that is absolute victory.

While our adversaries overseas are plotting to one day soon deliver the nuclear coup de grâce - our TSA agents are back home are either busy groping preteens in the nation's airports or attending Muslim sensitivity classes. Time is not on our side and neither will be victory if we don't pull our heads out of the sand.

To paraphrase Churchill, the West has been offered a choice between war and shame. She has chosen shame and will get war.

May 4, 2011

Across Southeast Asia Bin Laden Still Lives

Throughout Southeast Asia, the alleged killing of Osama Bin Laden coupled with the delay by the United States government in releasing any photographic evidence to the fact is giving birth to a flood of conspiracy theories, with many refusing to believe that Al Qaeda's leader is actually dead.

The conspiracy theories are varied - some saying this is simply a ploy by Barack Hussein Obama to help his popularity and others saying that this is a lie meant to draw Osama Bin Laden out - there is however one common denominator that all these conspiracy theories have, and that is that all this is nothing more than a ginned-up story from the United States and that Osama Bid Laden still lives.

"Where is the proof?" is the common response here in Southeast Asia whenever Osama Bin Laden's demise is mentioned.

At this point the damage is done, the photographic evidence and/or proof of Osama Bin Laden's death should have been released immediately without this charade of conflicting stories and an agonizing delay that has and continues to give birth to a plethora of conspiracy theories overseas - many of them that fuel anti-american sentiment overseas particularly the theory that the photos need to be altered or brushed up before they are released to the public. This is something that could have been avoided.

For a president who should have learned a thing or two about transparency in the past few months this reflects poorly. Obama's indecisiveness and over-concern of Muslim sensitivities displays a weakness in character that invites aggression and fuels radicalization rather than suppressing it. What could have been a win is now becoming a loss. It is not Osama Bin Laden's death that is going to fuel anti-american sentiment overseas but rather the secretive circumstances surrounding it.

So what if a photo is gory, as long as the photo is recognizable of Osama Bin Laden, the message it sends to any young jihadi wannabe is that "this is what happens to your face when you listen to Al Qaeda". The message it sends it is a powerful message that serves as a deterrent in the same way that the gory before and after photos of meth addicts acts a deterrent to those thinking about trying methamphetamines.

The brutal death of Osama Bin Laden at the hands of American commandos could have been both a propaganda win and a strategic win in the war on terrorism if it was played out correctly instead it will serve as perhaps one of the biggest mistakes made in the war on terrorism.