What If?
The idea intrigues us. Especially in January when we walk around alone and, like Janus, look both forward and back to assess the past and plot the future, the questions keep cropping up: What if things had been different from what they actually were? What if this took place instead of that?
As a child, I often wondered why God had chosen to make me a Filipino, living in the Philippines of all places. What if I had been born an American citizen (like my brother, so it wasn’t as crazy a thought as you might think), and what if I had grown up in the U.S.? I’d have gone to Disneyland all the time and watched NEW episodes of “Combat” and “Star Trek” and “I Dream of Jeannie” and, of course (KAPOW!), “Batman”, experiencing the zeitgeist as it happened rather than on a much-delayed basis. I’d have eaten gigantic hamburgers with milkshakes every day and drunk fresh milk delivered in a thick bottle by a uniformed man every morning. Oh, yes, what if . . . but, no, I was a Filipino in Los Baños, Laguna, and we had the perya at the highway crossing, “Sta. Zita and Mary Rose” on TV, fried biya from Laguna de Bay, and inevitably, lactose intolerance.
This “What if” inquiry might strike you as a total waste of time, a futile exercise in wistful, wishful thinking, but does it have to be? It’s not so much the thoughts of what-might-have-been, but the tantalizing prospects of what-still-could-be. The trick, I’m guessing, is not to squander our brainpower on circumstances over which we have no control, but to contemplate situations where we made choices which we might encounter again. For example, rather than ask what if I had been born an American citizen, we ask what if I had taken up a career that led to living in the U.S. There’s nothing I can do about where I was born, and that location will never change. On the other hand, where I make my home is a choice, and it’s a choice we can review and revise.
Thus, what if I had chosen to be a medical doctor and what if I had decided to emigrate? Me and my children would have authentic American twangs, not accents acquired from “Spongebob” and “The Simpsons”. I could have lived in a condo on one or both of the coasts or on a ranch in Montana or a mansion in the Midwest. And following the law of unintended consequences, I would probably have voted for Trump. Some of these outcomes are still possible. Maybe not the doctor thing, but the twang and Trump easily.
What if I had realized earlier on that I was not destined to be a general of the army and had joined the leftist teach-ins on campus instead of ROTC? I would never have been trained to think that I was impervious to rain, that I could march in between the raindrops. In lieu of that, perhaps I could have learned about radically redistributing wealth through a system of central planning. Now maybe I could be running for office like so many of the activists of yore. (Like so many former generals, as well. Hmm. Maybe this what-if stuff isn’t so interesting after all.)
The big question of the season, however, is what if we were never colonized. To phrase it, not as a gift from God, but as the result of human action: What if the inhabitants of this archipelago had successfully fought off foreign conquerors over the centuries? What would this country be like?
Side note: the reference model, of course, would be the Kingdom of Siam whose rulers and their subjects famously resisted all the efforts of the western powers with the exception of those of Anna Leonowens, governess to the children of King Mongkut. As played by Deborah Kerr and Yul Brynner, they could have danced all night and yet maintained Siamese traditions.
Back on track, for Filipinos or Luzvimindans (or whatever we might have called ourselves) to have fiercely guarded our independence, we would have had to have a predisposition for war, rather than welcome feasts and blood compacts. Our kris-and-bolo men would have had to massacre the American troops rather than the other way around. It would be reasonable to think that we would have built a violent, bloodthirsty, power-obsessed society. Capital punishment personally enforced by the head of state. Deadly human cockfighting. Kidnapping for ransom. OK, I get it.
I would have hoped, however, that we had remained uncolonized because the people of these islands strongly believed in freedom, of individuals and of the nation, because we valued every human life and revered our land in ways that Europeans and Americans did not; and as a consequence, we were willing to stand up for independence and demand respect for our sovereignty. To fight for what we believed was right. At the same time, we could have dealt with neighboring tribes and nations on the basis of principled diplomacy and cooperation. I imagine we would have become a vibrant, progressive democracy that celebrated the uniqueness of its people in music and, yes, all night dancing.
It's not too late.
What if, instead of celebrating the Year of the Snake, we commemorate the Jubilee Year of Hope?
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