Beyond negotiating panels (1)

Sitti Djalia
Turabin-Hataman

“We cannot leave peace work only to those in the negotiating tables, the peace panels or the legislators.”

FOR thousands of years we were all just like every Austronesian-speaking people, in villages or out in the sea, until 1380 when a group of people in what is now Sulu accepted Islam and became the first from these islands to assume the identity of a world religion. It was in 1450 when the Sulu Sultanate was established, primarily to exercise a central authority in the practice of Islam. Islam found its way to the rest of the country now known the Philippines, but established a stronghold and remained the faith for the last 637 years among the 13 ethnolinguistic groups who later identified themselves as Bangsamoro.

What we know now as the Bangsamoro struggle is a struggle for Right to Self-Determination. For decades, the RSD aspiration took on different meanings – independence, autonomy, federalism. Our revolutionary fronts, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) have given up the quest for independence, the MNLF settling for the Final Peace Agreement with the Armm as the political gain, while the MILF signing the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro with the BBL still awaiting fulfillment.

But while we are known mostly for conflict, there is much to us than this. As a child growing up in Basilan, yes, I have stories of classes disrupted because of gunfights, of families and friends lost in the conflict, of kin knocking at our doors with barely anything and staying with us for weeks as their communities and homes become war zones. But they make up just a fraction of my memory. When I think of life in my island, what I remember are my elders and their never-ending stories, the colors and patterns that insist on being beautiful while defying rules, the call to prayer from our mosques, the pangalay, a dance they say, but for us, is meditation in movement. It has no choreography or structure, one moves from a rhythm within, a continuing flow of harmony between the heart, mind and body. One must be at peace to create this flow. A sense of peace that can only come from knowing you are safe, you are home. I guess that is why whenever I perform it, wherever I am, I am transported back to my people, safely back home.

You see, this is the irony. Yes, our homeland seems to be eternally in conflict. But we feel most secured there. I was once asked, when can I say peace is finally achieved. And the most honest answer that came out was, when we can finally go home. When we can go back, without fear or apprehension for ourselves and our children, knowing that we and most especially our children will be OK. And by ok we mean not just safe from violence, but getting competitive education, being assured of opportunities equal to the children here and anywhere else, having access to the best health care, to live just as secured and as comfortable as everyone, right in our own little corner, in this beautiful country.

Realizing this as my own definition of peace, led me to another realization, or at least a guess – that perhaps what we really longed for is to live like the rest, despite our peculiarities. I remember during one BBL committee deliberation last Congress when a fellow legislator asked, why do you insist on being Moros? Why can’t you just be Filipinos? It was a very valid question. Yes, indeed, why not? But is it just about the Moro people refusing to be Filipinos? Or is it also about the Filipino people accepting us as Filipinos, too? And perhaps the more elaborate question will be, must we give up who we are to be accepted as one of you?

This question became even more obvious when just last year, while I was at the Hong Kong airport, I caught a woman looking at me, half-smiling with a friendly curiosity. I sensed she wanted to open a conversation so I smiled and said, “hello po” and she brightened up, “sabi ko na nga, Filipina ka! Kaya lang hindi ako sigurado kasi nakabalot ka.”

Perhaps it is not about becoming Filipino, we were all not Filipinos until the late 1800s. But perhaps it is about imposing a single identity for the Filipino. Whenever we create an image of a Filipino, will a veiled woman come to mind? Creating a more inclusive image of the Filipino, with the Moro and the Indigenous people in the picture, can be a beginning to peace, as it will lead to the recognition of our identities; to equality instead of discrimination; to respect of rights – particularly the right to freely determine our own political status, and pursue our own cultural and socio-economic development; to the appreciation of our contribution to this nation; to finding that common ground of unity, against all that threatens our shared values and our core aspirations.

And yes that common ground for peace exists. And we all need to find it and call everyone to stand by it. If there is one thing I learned in my 25 years of working for peace in different capacities – as a student leader, community organizer, to human rights advocacy, women’s work, being appointed to government office, and being elected to Congress, then stepping down to be jobless – it is that Peace is everybody’s business.

We cannot leave peace work only to those in the negotiating tables, the peace panels or the legislators, theirs is only the form, but the essence is within all of us. Peace must be in the fishing boats, in farms, in public markets, in classrooms, in cinemas and theatres and museum, in TV ads, in corporate boardrooms, in banks, in the streets. Peace processes may break down, it is the peace in each of us that will matter.

Sometimes I wish people don’t speak of peace like a concept, or a paradigm, or a project, or a bill that needs to become a law. Because it is not. The BBL issue last Congress, was the heaviest toll for me. I was literally sick the whole time, I had a nervous breakdown that required a six-month treatment, I felt like there was a lump right in my gut that refused to leave. People advised me to take things easy, to not take them personally. How could I? For me, it was not just another bill, not just another piece of paper that needs to be discussed, or just an opportunity to publicly show my brilliance. It was about lives, my own, the lives of my people, my children. When we went around for consultations, I dreaded the look of hope from the eyes of old men and women. I looked away from the questioning eyes of our youth, asking for assurance. How do you give just enough hope to delay despair? How do you give assurance when you have your own doubts?

If you ask, is this why I resigned? Yes, among others.

Many found it hard to believe, thinking there were other reasons beyond the explanation I gave. That perhaps I was sick, or it was a political move, or I just wanted to be a full-time housewife and mother. My children are most important to me but we managed well even when I was working, before and after becoming Amin’s representative. (to be continued)

(Excerpts from a speech delivered by Sitti Djalia Turabin at the 47th Membership Meeting of the Philippine Business for Social Progress on Jan. 23, 2018.) The author represented Anak Mindanao party-list group in Congress from June 30, 2013 until she resigned in early October 2017 to focus on community work, especially among the youth in conflict areas in Mindanao. Permission to publish granted. -Mindanews)