Social Cancer

José Rizal

Description

Filipino national hero Jose Rizal wrote The Social Cancer in Berlin in 1887. Upon his return to his country, he was summoned to the palace by the Governor General because of the subversive ideas his book had inspired in the nation. Rizal wrote of his consequent persecution by the church: "My book made a lot of noise; everywhere, I am asked about it. They wanted to anathematize me ['to excommunicate me'] because of it ... I am considered a German spy, an agent of Bismarck, they say I am a Protestant, a freemason, a sorcerer, a damned soul and evil. It is whispered that I want to draw plans, that I have a foreign passport and that I wander through the streets by night ..."

Informations

• Publié par: The Floating Press
• Date de parution: 01 juin 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781775415626
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE SOCIAL CANCER
NOLI ME TANGERE
* * *
JOSE RIZAL
Translated by
CHARLES DERBYSHIRE
 
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The Social Cancer Noli Me Tangere From a 1912 edition.
ISBN 978-1-775415-62-6
© 2009 THE FLOATING PRESS.
While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike.
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Contents
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Translator's Introduction Author's Dedication Chapter I - A Social Gathering Chapter II - Crisostomo Ibarra Chapter III - The Dinner Chapter IV - Heretic and Filibuster Chapter V - A Star in a Dark Night Chapter VI - Capitan Tiago Chapter VII - An Idyl on an Azotea Chapter VIII - Recollections Chapter IX - Local Affairs Chapter X - The Town Chapter XI - The Rulers Chapter XII - All Saints Chapter XIII - Signs of Storm Chapter XIV - Tasio: Lunatic or Sage Chapter XV - The Sacristans Chapter XVI - Sisa Chapter XVII - Basilio Chapter XVIII - Souls in Torment Chapter XIX - A Schoolmaster's Difficulties Chapter XX - The Meeting in the Town Hall Chapter XXI - The Story of a Mother Chapter XXII - Lights and Shadows Chapter XXIII - Fishing Chapter XXIV - In the Wood Chapter XXV - In the House of the Sage Chapter XXVI - The Eve of the Fiesta Chapter XXVII - In the Twilight Chapter XXVIII - Correspondence Chapter XXIX - The Morning Chapter XXX - In the Church Chapter XXXI - The Sermon Chapter XXXII - The Derrick Chapter XXXIII - Free Thought Chapter XXXIV - The Dinner Chapter XXXV - Comments Chapter XXXVI - The First Cloud Chapter XXXVII - His Excellency Chapter XXXVIII - The Procession Chapter XXXIX - Doña Consolacion Chapter XL - Right and Might Chapter XLI - Two Visits Chapter XLII - The EspadañAs Chapter XLIII - Plans Chapter XLIV - An Examination of Conscience Chapter XLV - The Hunted Chapter XLVI - The Cockpit Chapter XLVII - The Two SeñOras Chapter XLVIII - The Enigma Chapter XLIX - The Voice of the Hunted Chapter L - Elias's Story Chapter LI - Exchanges Chapter LII - The Cards of the Dead and the Shadows Chapter LIII - Il Buon Dí Si Conosce Da Mattina Chapter LIV - Revelations Chapter LV - The Catastrophe Chapter LVI - Rumors and Beliefs Chapter LVII - Vae Victis! Chapter LVIII - The Accursed Chapter LIX - Patriotism and Private Interests Chapter LX - Maria Clara Weds Chapter LXI - The Chase on the Lake Chapter LXII - Padre Damaso Explains Chapter LXIII - Christmas Eve Epilogue Glossary Endnotes
Translator's Introduction
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"We travel rapidly in these historical sketches. The reader flies inhis express train in a few minutes through a couple of centuries. Thecenturies pass more slowly to those to whom the years are doled outday by day. Institutions grow and beneficently develop themselves,making their way into the hearts of generations which are shorter-livedthan they, attracting love and respect, and winning loyal obedience;and then as gradually forfeiting by their shortcomings the allegiancewhich had been honorably gained in worthier periods. We see wealth andgreatness; we see corruption and vice; and one seems to follow so closeupon the other, that we fancy they must have always co-existed. Welook more steadily, and we perceive long periods of time, in whichthere is first a growth and then a decay, like what we perceive ina tree of the forest."
FROUDE, Annals of an English Abbey.
Monasticism's record in the Philippines presents no new general factto the eye of history. The attempt to eliminate the eternal femininefrom her natural and normal sphere in the scheme of things there metwith the same certain and signal disaster that awaits every perversionof human activity. Beginning with a band of zealous, earnest men,sincere in their convictions, to whom the cause was all and theirpersonalities nothing, it there, as elsewhere, passed through itsusual cycle of usefulness, stagnation, corruption, and degeneration.
To the unselfish and heroic efforts of the early friars Spainin large measure owed her dominion over the Philippine Islandsand the Filipinos a marked advance on the road to civilization andnationality. In fact, after the dreams of sudden wealth from gold andspices had faded, the islands were retained chiefly as a missionaryconquest and a stepping-stone to the broader fields of Asia, withManila as a depot for the Oriental trade. The records of those earlyyears are filled with tales of courage and heroism worthy of Spain'sproudest years, as the missionary fathers labored with unflaggingzeal in disinterested endeavor for the spread of the Faith and thebetterment of the condition of the Malays among whom they foundthemselves. They won the confidence of the native peoples, gatheredthem into settlements and villages, led them into the ways of peace,and became their protectors, guides, and counselors.
In those times the cross and the sword went hand in hand, but in thePhilippines the latter was rarely needed or used. The lightness andvivacity of the Spanish character, with its strain of Orientalism,its fertility of resource in meeting new conditions, its adaptabilityin dealing with the dwellers in warmer lands, all played their part inthis as in the other conquests. Only on occasions when some stubbornresistance was met with, as in Manila and the surrounding country,where the most advanced of the native peoples dwelt and where some ofthe forms and beliefs of Islam had been established, was it necessaryto resort to violence to destroy the native leaders and replace themwith the missionary fathers. A few sallies by young Salcedo, the Cortezof the Philippine conquest, with a company of the splendid infantry,which was at that time the admiration and despair of martial Europe,soon effectively exorcised any idea of resistance that even the boldestand most intransigent of the native leaders might have entertained.
For the most part, no great persuasion was needed to turn a simple,imaginative, fatalistic people from a few vague animistic deitiesto the systematic iconology and the elaborate ritual of the SpanishChurch. An obscure Bathala or a dim Malyari was easily supersededby or transformed into a clearly defined Diós, and in the case ofany especially tenacious "demon," he could without much difficultybe merged into a Christian saint or devil. There was no organizedpriesthood to be overcome, the primitive religious observancesconsisting almost entirely of occasional orgies presided over byan old woman, who filled the priestly offices of interpreter forthe unseen powers and chief eater at the sacrificial feast. Withtheir unflagging zeal, their organization, their elaborate formsand ceremonies, the missionaries were enabled to win the confidenceof the natives, especially as the greater part of them learned thelocal language and identified their lives with the communities undertheir care. Accordingly, the people took kindly to their new teachersand rulers, so that in less than a generation Spanish authority wasgenerally recognized in the settled portions of the Philippines,and in the succeeding years the missionaries gradually extended thisarea by forming settlements from among the wilder peoples, whom theypersuaded to abandon the more objectionable features of their oldroving, often predatory, life and to group themselves into towns andvillages "under the bell."
The tactics employed in the conquest and the subsequent behavior ofthe conquerors were true to the old Spanish nature, so succinctlycharacterized by a plain-spoken Englishman of Mary's reign, when thewar-cry of Castile encircled the globe and even hovered ominouslynear the "sceptered isle," when in the intoxication of power characterstands out so sharply defined: "They be verye wyse and politicke, andcan, thorowe ther wysdome, reform and brydell theyr owne natures fora tyme, and applye ther conditions to the manners of those men withwhom they meddell gladlye by friendshippe; whose mischievous manersa man shall never know untyll he come under ther subjection; but thenshall he parfectlye parceve and fele them: for in dissimulations untyllthey have ther purposes, and afterwards in oppression and tyrannye,when they can obtain them, they do exceed all other nations uponthe earthe." [1]
In the working out of this spirit, with all the indomitable courageand fanatical ardor derived from the long contests with the Moors,they reduced the native peoples to submission, but still not to thegalling yoke which they fastened upon the aborigines of America, tomake one Las Casas shine amid the horde of Pizarros. There was somecompulsory labor in timber-cutting and ship-building, with enforcedmilitary service as rowers and soldiers for expeditions to the Moluccasand the coasts of Asia, but nowhere the unspeakable atrocities whichin Mexico, Hispaniola, and South America drove mothers to strangletheir babes at birth and whole tribes to prefer self-immolation to theliving death in the mines and slave-pens. Quite differently from thecase in America, where entire islands and districts were depopulated,to bring on later the curse of negro slavery, in the Philippinesthe fact appears that the native population really increased andthe standard of living was raised under the stern, yet beneficent,tutelage of the missionary fathers. The great distance and thehardships of the journey precluded the coming of many irresponsibleadventurers from Spain and, fortunately for the native population,no great mineral wealth was ever discovered in the Philippine Islands.
The system of government was, in its essential features, a simpleone. The missionary priests drew the inhabitants of the townsand villages about themselves or formed new settlements, and wi