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Rizal

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Reflections on Rizal - Three Thoughts
Tiny Dancer Hero

There is this idea that heroes inevitably reflect their country. When you think about it historical heroes exist as receptacles of a nation’s hopes and dreams. They are the guiding lights, the individuals who helped shape the nature of a people. Heroes are, in other words, can be considered the soul and conscience of a country. Their philosophies, ideals, and examples acting as the benchmarks for right collective action. That, as well, is why each generation must recast their nation’s heroes in new forms and view them in new perspectives. Heroes and their actions, much like all of history, are consistently up for reinterpretation. Without that process they will never be relevant. A disturbing question to ask is if our heroes are really relevant today.

As a result, studying how our heroes are approached and constructed in the public sphere gives a country an understanding of who they are as a people. Heroes are a reflection of the values of a people. And if that is the case, as I strongly suspect it is, then the way we currently construct Jose Rizal (the way we approach him and his legacy) does not speak too well of us.

There is something faintly disturbing about the fact that more is written, and known, in popular society (and pop history) about how many languages Rizal spoke (and how many women he supposedly bedded) than the importance of his annotated Morga. Or even that there is this pervasive sense of Rizal the Reformer, without understanding that his reforms were designed to lead to a successful revolution. Oh yes, with Jose Rizal we have turned one of our greatest heroes, one of the great men in history, into a small man; composed of tiny insignificant details that does little to deepen, challenge, or broaden our understanding of Rizal in his (and our) milieu.

If our heroes our a reflection of

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