Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post

Emanuel · 7th January 2007, 09:01 PM

About the Philippines...the discussions on this forum have been my introduction to this country and its people. I am impressed and feel that Filipinos justly have plenty to be proud of. As I understand so far, they lost in their struggle against the Spanish and later against the Americans. That battles were masscres is undeniable I think and a moot point - wars are ugly. In the need to conquer fast and show success to the upper hierarchy, rough measures are carried out. The Americans massacre as every other colonial power did, and their motives are irrelevant. Whether it was because they couldn't tell women apart from men, or that they specifically wanted to kill the women is again irrelevant - they did it. I'm certain that the people of the Philippines did the same in their own wars prior to colonialization. So it goes and so it has always been. Filipino manuals will write the Filipino part while American manuals will write the American part. The researcher (of weapons or other things) will sift through all this and find out the simple cold truth of action and events. He can determine the credibility of each source in providing each piece of data and work with it accordingly.
Numbers become irrelevant in conflicts I think- whether 100 were killed or thousands were butchered, the fact remains that a lot of people were killed at one specific moment in time as the result of deliberate action. Questions of resistance, insurgents, bandits or terrorist are moot in this point I think. The invading powers are ultimately responsible for this, since death is a result of their presence.

I think that invading powers will always try to present their actions as good and heroic against unruly, mean savages in order to preserve moral justification even when there isn't any. The indians were beastly savages for attacking poor settlers who only wanted to cultivate the land given to them by the government. The Filipinos and Moros were savages for not accepting benevolent Spanish/American rule. On the other side, the savages were heros bravely defending their homeland against the barbaric invaders who wanted to steal their God-given land. In most cases I think the invaded has the moral justification to resist an invader...not everyone agrees with this though.

Emanuel

7th January 2007, 09:01 PM	#13
Emanuel Member Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Toronto, Canada Posts: 1,242	About the Philippines...the discussions on this forum have been my introduction to this country and its people. I am impressed and feel that Filipinos justly have plenty to be proud of. As I understand so far, they lost in their struggle against the Spanish and later against the Americans. That battles were masscres is undeniable I think and a moot point - wars are ugly. In the need to conquer fast and show success to the upper hierarchy, rough measures are carried out. The Americans massacre as every other colonial power did, and their motives are irrelevant. Whether it was because they couldn't tell women apart from men, or that they specifically wanted to kill the women is again irrelevant - they did it. I'm certain that the people of the Philippines did the same in their own wars prior to colonialization. So it goes and so it has always been. Filipino manuals will write the Filipino part while American manuals will write the American part. The researcher (of weapons or other things) will sift through all this and find out the simple cold truth of action and events. He can determine the credibility of each source in providing each piece of data and work with it accordingly. Numbers become irrelevant in conflicts I think- whether 100 were killed or thousands were butchered, the fact remains that a lot of people were killed at one specific moment in time as the result of deliberate action. Questions of resistance, insurgents, bandits or terrorist are moot in this point I think. The invading powers are ultimately responsible for this, since death is a result of their presence. I think that invading powers will always try to present their actions as good and heroic against unruly, mean savages in order to preserve moral justification even when there isn't any. The indians were beastly savages for attacking poor settlers who only wanted to cultivate the land given to them by the government. The Filipinos and Moros were savages for not accepting benevolent Spanish/American rule. On the other side, the savages were heros bravely defending their homeland against the barbaric invaders who wanted to steal their God-given land. In most cases I think the invaded has the moral justification to resist an invader...not everyone agrees with this though. Emanuel Last edited by Manolo; 7th January 2007 at 09:17 PM.