A Practicum on Racism (Apologies for Expletives)

Within a 15-hour period I have had experienced two quite different racist affronts. Last night and this morning. In the streets of Europe. Neither subtle nor hidden. Both received doubly just responses from me. The hatred of these three pale, smelly, filthy, drunkard, aggressive skinhead hooligans backfired on them -- receiving sharp blows they deserve from a force of justice. Educated activists like me always carry with us the swords of justice, ready to avenge whatever insults and offset injustice in all its forms.

Last night at around half past seven in Viru Keskus (perhaps the most popular mall in Tallinn). I met with MQ, a new Filipino resident in Estonia with years of international experience in the shipping industry. On our way out of the mall to have some drink in the Old Town, I sensed somebody passing through my back and uttering some Chinese sounding prattles 'ching-chong-chang'. Nagpantig ang tainga ko (I didn't like what I heard)! It irritated me and instantly reminded me of the racist insult Shaquille O'Neal made in a press conference towards Yao Ming over a couple of years ago. I said 'Kupal 'to ah!' (Such a smegma!); and then I looked back and saw this six-foot-something youngster looking drunk, face gone red, wearing a bonnet on his way up already on the stairs. Our eyes met, I gave him a tiger look and I said to his face 'Hoy, kupal!' and threw a dirty finger at him. He did not react.

This morning at around half past eight. I was with MQ again. We didn't have any plans to go wherever -- just to have a walk. But we happened to pass through this very controversial, highly sensitive monument which has long been a source of serious conflict between the two social groups in Estonia -- the local Estonians and the Russian-speaking community. The monument, often referred to as 'Bronze Soldier', depicts a bronze figure of a lone Soviet soldier with the hammer and sickle emblem behind its head. It was erected in 1947 and said to be in memory of the soldiers who died fighting for the USSR against the Nazis. For some though, this 'soldier-liberator' recognition of the monument defies the real history of Estonian independence because it actually is a tricky relict perpetuating Russia's historical denial. It becomes even more contested because it stands right at the very heart of the city of Tallinn. The issue holds resemblance to the revival of Japan's denial to admit the excesses of its military occupation during World War II with the recent controversy provoked by the categorical pronouncement of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of the absence of proof to warrant Japan's guilt on sex slavery. Interestingly, if not contemptuously, I remember reading in the news that people from both the opposing camps even sent their respective appeals to US President George W. Bush to intervene either for the removal or retention, depending on whose interest, of the monument during his state visit in Estonia on November 2006 (To my mind, what a brazen sell-out of sovereignty!). Such implies the intensity and complexity of this convoluted issue that involves questions of history, ethnicity, legality, politics, and even psychology.

Going back to the story....When we reached the monument premises, MQ took pictures of the monument with some colourful flowers on the ground. There were two other people in the area who we later learned to be mediapeople from the Latvian national television, taking videos of the monument. While we were chatting with the media reporter I noticed three girls who drew closer to the monument but then left the place immediately. After a few minutes, MQ and I decided to go on with our walk around the Old Town. Just about a few meters away from the monument there were two guys walking opposite our lane. And suddenly one guy did a side step towards our path and then spat in front of us! I then reacted and said 'gago 'to ah'! (Such a hooligan!) At first I thought it was not intentional and then I looked back at the two with a frown on my face and with angry eyes. I made eye contact with the spitting guy and he said 'fuck off'! I fired back at him with a louder shout than he did, 'fuck off'! I then threw a dirty finger at him. Both of them proceeded their way and didn't react on my cursing hand gesture. MQ and I continued our walk to the intersection and while we were waiting for our turn at the traffic light we looked back at the two racist nutheads and we saw one of them splattering liquids from the plastic bags they were carrying onto the monument and the flowers (We suspect it was urine). The spitting guy confronted the woman reporter from Latvia with whom MQ and I had a nice chat. While the spitting guy was barking at the Latvian reporter his left hand was trying to block the video camera, which the reporter's cameraman switched on to capture this berserk spitting guy, who I also saw, to have splashed some liquid on the camera. A very sad scene indeed, not only of racism but, based on my conception, of an excessive nationalist sentiment.

While we were walking through the Old Town and turned our backs on the ugly sight of fascist bullying going on a few meters from us, I told MQ how disgusted I am. A father that he is with a military training as well, MQ had been sober all throughout our bad experience from lost souls. MQ said to me that he understands them. I, too, understand them.

The first incident last night with the 'ching-chong-chang' youngster I could easily bear. But the hooligans who spat on our path warrant the painful consequence of their uncivilised acts! I feel I do not deserve such treatment -- and nobody has the right and the arrogance to demean any human being in this world. In my half a year residence in Estonia I have paid my dues to this society. I have had contributed in my own little ways to the development of its education system and to policy advice for its economic development. I pay taxes to the government, give donations to the church, and I even enrolled my bank account to this system in which a certain amount of my purchase goes to charity every time I use my ATM. How I wish I am doing these endeavours to my country, where my home is and my heart truly belongs; and to the millions of my fellow citizens, whose blood and sweat gave me the privilege of a wonderful education from the premier university. Some may think I had stooped down to the levels of these hooligans so young to waste their lives finding meaning in the meaningless pursuit of racism and fascism. But I feel I have given justice to myself, and been able to assert justice over unjust bullying. When we let bullies do their way, they will always contrive to do their way. Justice is there to offset any injustice.

In my first few weeks here in Estonia I have felt how difficult it is for activists like me to live in this young republic. Almost all of the issues of concern of activists and NGO workers are alive here: a neo-liberal economy, a government very supportive of the US coalition of the killing, xenophobia, homophobia, ecological degradation, racism, trafficking of women, increasing HIV-AIDS incidence, petty crimes, etc. True that these issues can be found in almost all societies in this world. But for such a small country, for such a developing economy, for such a young republic like Estonia the intensity and scope of these social (i.e., political, economic, cultural, ecological, gender) issues and ills are extremely alarming for its developmental trajectory as a polity, as an economy, and as a society. For a few years now, before I venture into any challenges I am about to face in life, I say to myself: 'Don't go there if your heart is not strong'.

Do not get me wrong that I do not like this country. I consider the incidents I encountered as isolated cases. A traveller always has to satisfy two thirsts which one cannot long neglect without drying up: admiring and loving. At the end of the day, despite this mad experience of an intolerable reality, I could still feel that happiness, love, and justice are still intact in myself, rediscovering the memory of the beauty of Estonia and its people that has never left me.

The more I experience human-relations-among-different-races-turning-out-badly the more I get to know myself that my mind and my heart could really not tolerate injustice. The advocacies I believe in are not only for a living, they are part of me. Three incidents abroad in the past come to mind. First, in Malaysia I almost hit a drunk man in his face when he cursed my friend in a Chinese language, a really foul cuss word I understood which my friend did not. Thanks and no thanks to my classmates in Malaysia who taught me the cuss words in Chinese and Bahasa Melayu. But much thanks to my classmate who timely pulled my arm to prevent the Manny Pacquiao super punch to hit him and brought me back to sober senses. Second, in Singapore I reacted when this vendor at Lucky Plaza said to me and to my friend: 'You Filipinos you just ask and ask, but you don't buy....' I did not let him got away with it and I answered back, 'Don't be a racist and say Filipinos are this and that'! Third, in Kuala Lumpur's red light district of Bukit Bintang with my international classmates, a pimp was offering us 'young girl, young girl'. I first confronted him and said to him: 'That's disgusting'! He kept on repeating: 'What? What? What?' I also kept on saying: 'That's disgusting'! And then, I said to him, 'We work for a human rights organisation'! He eventually backed off and left the place. Saying 'That's disgusting' has always been my line every time I've been confronted by pimps. I have also done this in Bangkok and in Tallinn.

I am quite versed in the issues related to racism. But racism is stranger in personal experience than in texts. The 'personal is political' dictum of the feminists also applies to the issue of racism. That is to say, one can only fully understand the politics of racism through personal experience. Most of the time racism does not know the victim's class background, academic knowledge, economic status, and professional experience; it only knows colour and physical attributes. Poverty exacerbates it. The history of colonialism, manifested in both material and extra-material aspects, deepens and perpetuates it, letting this monster celebrate its orgies in haunting generations by generations into a world replete with people doomed to die as if they have not lived. I wish that rather than setting up hatred against racist acts done to anyone, the sensibility for meaningful coexistence can strike any human being in the face! Education is key to stopping this vicious assault to humanity, especially in the wisdom offered by the fields of history, anthropology, psychology, geography, sociology, philosophy, politics, arts and humanities.

I cannot say that my acts have instantaneously succeeded in offseting injustice with justice. After all, the spitting hooligans proceeded to harass the Latvian mediapeople even after I showed them I could not be swayed by their bullying pretence. I could only hope that my not being silent at those morally intolerable moments of exchanges with the 'ching-chong-chang' youngster and the spitting hooligans have made them felt the jolt utterly necessary to awaken their souls and realise the indomitable humanity long been slumbering in the nightmare of the dead generations. To paraphrase Marx, the history of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare in the brains, hearts, and souls of the living and the generations yet to come. I could only hope that one day the nightmare of the dead generations of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and all the other tyrants, with their shared worldview of unequal humanity that led to our history of people striving for superiority rather than equality, comes to an end as soon as possible. We all have to work together so as the entire humanity be soon reconciled to what we have always been -- peaceful, loving, and beautiful human beings.

I let these lines from the philosopher Albert Camus in his essay 'Return to Tipasa' (1950) speak for me as a way of concluding this reflective post, lines which are even more apt as a reminder to our time not only in the context of Europe:

'For there is merely bad luck in not being loved; there is misfortune in not loving. All of us, today, are dying of this misfortune. For violence and hatred dry up the heart itself; the long fight for justice exhausts the love that nevertheless gave birth to it. In the clamour in which we live, love is impossible and justice does not suffice. This is why Europe hates daylight and is only able to set injustice up against injustice. But in order to keep justice from shrivelling up like a beautiful orange fruit containing nothing but a bitter, dry pulp, I discovered once more...that one must keep intact in oneself a freshness, a cool well-spring of joy, love the day that escapes injustice, and return to combat having won that light....In the middle of winter, I at last discovered that there was in me an invincible summer'.

To be for justice. To be for hope. To be for love.