20100817

Dear darlingest Annelies Marie,

Hello, my darling purrrincess.

A Failure of Obedience

I finished reading A Report on the Banality of Evil by Hannah Arendt last week, my love. Like I said, my darling, it was a very good read.

The postscript clarified that it was a trial report which means it was primarily concerned with Adolf Eichmann, the individual, and his acts construed to be criminal acts not only be the laws of the victorious powers but also by Israeli law.

Indeed, it was a trial report, my love. But all throughout the book itself, within that report of the Eichmann trial was a disturbing trend that necessarily elicited from the consciences of sound-hearted people a certain vein of thinking that Hannah Arendt referred to as the Banality of Evil. And this "banality of evil" was the challenge she posited clearly in the epilogue of the book to the juridical sciences of the nations to attempt to apprehend it and to the moral sciences of common humanity to attempt to understand it.

The dilemma that existed at the time of the trial, because of the enormity of the problem that existed in the background of the events even at that time (1961-62), was that it was easy to overlook the fact that it's central concern is one individual and one individual only.

I myself am personally inclined to frame Eichmann's actions during those years that led up to the Final Solution to be criminal in as much as he has willingly and quite decidedly allowed himself to be gradually dragged into that complete moral collapse that characterized the criminal policy of the Nazi state. Because without this manifestly evil collusion, he would have not been able to carry out any of those acts for which he was being tried by the court in Jerusalem.

It was a failure of obedience, my Anne. In this, he is most certainly guilty beyond reasonable doubt. He allowed his loyalty to become so badly misplaced that he had allowed himself to become a willing instrument in the suffering, torture and murder of millions, yours included, my Miyang. For this he was hanged. And that was that, my Anne, so far as the trial of Adolf Eichmann went.

But as for the question of the banality of evil, our world is still coming to grips with it. My own Country in December of last year, my darling, passed R.A. (Republic Act) 9851 defining and penalizing crimes against International Humanitarian Law, Genocide and Other Crimes against Humanity.

The calling of these times itself being a calling to peace require that we, each of us who are called to understand the calling of the times, all come to grips with it. But not because of there is so much evil but because there is so much good. From star to star, one whole sky...

Obedience is not a blindness, it is a loving - a loving obedience. And the heart of humanity was never made to love the evil in evil things.

Right now, along with my usual reading materials - the Scriptures above all, I am re-reading The Art of War by Sun Tzu translated by Ralph D. Sawyer.

---<--@

Here in the Philippines, my love, we are busy trying to better each ourselves as a nation and also as an undertaking of Country, a Republic to be sure.

One, Undivided Work

Any undertaking of Country, my darling, is a human endeavor. And if it were a sports car, it would have it's own unique model number.

It's make, of course, is of God. For the only reason we are busying ourselves with the labors of building up our inhabited earth is because the LORD, our God, has commanded it to be so.

It is a vessel meant to take our nation somewhere in time and space but more importantly, above and beyond it. And there are really only two ways to go, one is an ascendant path, a hard mountain road, as it were, that disappears into the light of our hopes together and the other a descendant one, an easy retreat down into the unremitting darkness of exile time.

Now, the engine is what peace each our honorable religions produce in each of ourselves as citizens to each other. Because unity is an aspect of our liberty as nations. And so here in the Philippines, our main engine is the Roman Catholic Church, my Mother Church. But that is not to say that my own religion is the exclusive force for positive social change here in my own Country, my love, for we share this work of building with another great religion of our world, Islam, and also with other Christian denominations. Because the fruit of all honorable religion is peace - above all the three, great monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, of which I am a part.

So what is the Philippines, my love? It is a human undertaking of Country; a Republic with a soul of submission and a heart of peace. We are a human nation striving to be Godly, kindly and fair.

While it seems easy to just not care about this Country, my darling, I believe that we Filipinos know that we are all present here today not because of easy things, my Anne. We are here to build, build, build and we are going to do this because it is hard and worth doing.

We want a better Philippines for ourselves as human beings and citizens to each other - men, women and children - past, present and future. And I know a lot of Filipinos agree with me on this, because not all Filipinos are corrupt. In fact, I think there are more Filipinos who are not corrupt than there are who are truly and irreconcilably corrupt.

My people, my love, is a patient and a passionate people. Too, we are also an obedient folk. And I think that neither our obedience nor our love will either be misplaced or miscarried at this time. For I believe with conviction of faith that God has deigned to bless our democratic choices during the last elections because we were honest and sincere with our hopes together as a nation. I have a firm belief in our present leadership, my love - all of them - above all, our PNoy.

Vox Populi, Vox Dei

I personally think PNoy is a true blue Pinoy and that he has his heart set not just on the things of this world - a very endearing characteristic that I did not know about till after the elections.

I did not vote for him. I was not able to vote during the last elections. I did register with Comelec (Commission on Elections) but the circumstances of my confinement at the center prevented me from casting my ballot at the time. And even if I were able to vote, my Anne, I would not have voted for him. But that's not because I was divided in my heart against him or against any of our candidates for that matter, my love. Generally speaking, I do not vote because I disagree, I vote because I agree.

Besides, I never believed that I was going to vote to be right about my own personal choice at the cost of others, I was voting to exercise my right as a free citizen of this Republic. Therefore, at the end of the election process, as it is my duty to responsibly exercise my citizenship, I along with everybody had to concede to the choice of the quorum of the people.

And as I learned about our 15th President, as I listened to him speak during his inauguration, at his first SONA, and in the news, I understood how right we, the people, were about our PNoy. I understood that he too has his own heart set not just on the things of this world. And so now that we have made our democratic choice as a nation, as the question becomes one of perseverance, my darling, I can truly say to you today that he has most certainly gained my fullest confidence and support.

Political Graffiti

Senator Chiz Escudero recently filed a bill (2187) in the Senate, that seeks to criminalize the putting of politician's names on public projects.

Here in the Philippines, my love, it has become very commonplace to see these names on just about everything that the Republic owns, from schools to jails to passenger sheds to ambulances to trash cans and made from anything from paint to concrete to metal. And this, even if it were from a variety of motives, good or bad, is something I personally call political graffiti.

It is as if the Republic itself has ceased to become aware of its own longevity and that its life and vitality has become dependent on singular individuals. Because of this, our people are becoming used to building not with this longevity in their view and that matters very much, my love. For it has real effects on the way we live as well as the quality in which we are able to pursue this way of life - the Filipino way of life.

And this bill is something that PNoy supports.

I think it's about time, too. No more political graffiti! Way to go, Chiz, you are a citizen and a patriot. I too, hope and pray that this bill becomes law.

---<--@

I think mom and I are having dinner out.

I love you.

Always to always,

=^.^=

...the brightness of thy Banner undiminished in triumph waves, the glory of thy stars and sun are lights that shall ne'er fade...

20100809

Dear darlingest Annelies Marie,

Good morning, my darling purrrincess.

A Report on the Banality of Evil

I've just about finished A Report on the Banality of Evil by Hannah Arendt. And bless the LORD, my Miyang, for helping me to rediscover my love of reading.

It is, for me, a very good book to read. But my interest in the matter lies not in the disturbing nature of its particular discussion which is the attempted destruction of a people, my love, your Jewish people. My interest in the matter lies not in unveiling for myself the evil of those times alone.

The enormous evil that stood against you and millions like yourself, my Miyang, contains within itself a strength and a quality of temptation that sought those who are particularly vulnerable to its allure. And is a thing that still seeks.

But as I said before, my Anne, I took the time to read that book because of my interest in you and in innocents like yourself (Eva Beem, Rutka Laskier, etc.). For I am no longer fascinated by the evil in all evil things and the deceptive sense of hurt which binds those of us who are not aware of its cunning into those great and incessant cycles of pain and loss; I am no longer a child of the void.

Too, have I, by the grace of God, become aware of what is truly worth living, loving and fighting for in my little life. And I know I have become alive to these things, my love, not because I am - for what am I, my Anne? This is so because God is the LORD, my love, our God.

Because I am your friend, my darling, I have cause to be hurt by all of these. But because I am by Christ compelled to forgive, I am by God enabled to move forward - to let the past regret itself without me. But never without understanding, must one forget, my Anne, because they say that to forgive is to forget but the forgetting in our forgiving applies only to our hurt, it is by no means an excuse to remain comfortable in our ignorance. When I remember and I no longer remember the hurt, I have forgiven. But the lessons shall always remain.

And so I too, my darling, desire to render in my own heart, by the grace of God, the justice that is required. Because I love you. With the love of Christ, I will love you.

Indeed, there is evil in the world, my love. And so that this evil may be bound, the law exists. It exists because life is imperiled and serves no other cause than the cause of sacred life.

The first part of the law must deal with our human obligations to the LORD; that which binds us unto an eternal remembrance of our singular lineage; that which is first spiritual - sacred life. And that which proceeds from our eternal remembrance of the one Divine Truth is that which compels us unto a present remembrance of our common patrimony as nations; that which is peace - the peace that prospers (as opposed to the false peace offered by war).

Time exists for Man and this is so because Man exists for God. Hence, our returning to an Eden rebuilt as nations together this time (at a time, times and half-a-time) does not consist chiefly in any time spent in their years alone. If the intervening millennia have taught any of our nations anything at all it is that time itself is not a distance. For time is an account of the human heart. It is distant only to those of us with distant hearts. Time is neither a reason nor a season to forget.

However much evil there is that the LORD wills to confront us in any generation and at any age, as the one family of the nations of Mankind, it is in our timeless learning to reach out in freedom to the only other freedom that is continually reaching out to us in the midst of the darkness, the freedom of God, that shall avail for any of our nations the strength of each its sheltering peace.

Hence, individuals matter, my love. For the darkness exists but only as a contrast. If we forget this, we shall die to our remembrance of each other, past, present and future. If we allow this to happen, we shall consequently die to the eternal remembrance of the LORD.

For it is in the substance of our faith in God, that He is and that He is the LORD, one, peerless and eternal, that we are each continually led into the light and the realization of all human hopes in time - the very reason we exist as nations.

To bring further emphasis on the reality and the purpose of our nations which is to bless and to foster our human communities with each its sheltering peace, my love, we are now confronted by our collective sense of human history. The world is at a crisis - in more ways than one. Because the singular direction of the last 2000 years have only brought us deeper into a neglect of this basic fact and no more has this been more so in retrospect than in your own time, my love, my darlingest Annelies Marie.

And the human heart knows that if we continue on this course, into the deepening darkness, we shall only be met with greater catastrophe.

A crime against peace is a crime against this fundamental spirit of the order of our nations. It is therefore, only right to establish first an expression of what this order both accommodates and requires (as I have attempted to do so above) that one may then proceed to work to understand what the Nazi ideology labored to undo in order to subvert the very principle upon which rested the hopes of an entire nation; of how it worked to exploit the truth of the reality of those times to wage war against the peace of the nations of the earth, your nation, my Anne, included.

But let us move on to other things for now, my darling. It will not serve anyone well to dwell on these things and forget to live in the present. I am sure we shall revisit this in the coming weeks, but for now, I think I shall try to reconnect with some of my good friends in facebook and listen to some music while I'm at it.

I love you.

Always to always,

=^.^=

20100727

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