A speech by Dr. Allan Terrett A.M., K.O.R.
I have been asked to give a small talk about Dr Jose Rizal, the national hero of the Philippines.
Today is exactly 126 years since the execution of Dr Rizal, – he was executed in Manila at 3 minutes past 7 in the morning, of December 30, 1896, – and taking day-light-saving into account was at 3 minutes past 10 eastern Australian time (about an hour ago).
Shortly after his execution the end of Spanish rule in the Philippines occurred, – this was the first successful overthrow of a colonising European power in Asia, and led to the foundation of the first Philippine Republic. Dr Jose Rizal, the national hero of the Philippines was central to the independence of the Philippines.
I first became aware of the extraordinary life of Dr Rizal in 1970, when I studied his life in a compulsory subject in College when I went to school in the Philippines, and 52 years later his life and his achievements still fascinate and amaze me. I went to school in Dipolog City, Zamboanga del Norte in the southern Philippines, just a short drive from the city of Dapitan where Rizal lived as an exile for about 4 years. On Sundays I used to often take the short drive to Rizal Park in Dapitan with friends and family for a picnic lunch and a pleasant afternoon (near the beach where Dr Rizal lived). I know people in Dipolog and Dapitan who are descended from the young students who attended Dr Rizal’s school in Dapitan.
All around the world today, in England, Spain, France, Germany, the USA, the Czech Republic, – in Sydney and in Perth, – and lots of other places, – not just in the Philippines, – people are holding ceremonies to remember the life and achievements of Dr Rizal.
In London, Eve and I visited the home of the Beckett family where Dr Rizal lived in 1888, where a historical marker was installed by the English people to honour him. When I was lecturing in Barcelona, Spain, Eve and I lived very close to Dr Rizal Street (named by the Spanish to honour him), we visited the building in Barcelona where he lived, and we saw the historical marker on the site where the Filipino newspaper ‘La Solidaridad’ was published.
Most amazingly, in the small remote village of Litomerice in the Czech Republic, when we entered the Town Hall, there is a bust of Dr Rizal in the entrance (placed there by Czech people to honour him).
Every town and city in the Philippines has a Rizal Street, Rizal Boulevard or Rizal Avenue, and a statue of Dr Rizal. It has been claimed that there has only been one other man in history who has had more statues erected to his memory, – and that is Jesus Christ.
23 years ago, – after many years of negotiations, the Ballarat City Council agreed to name this Community Park after Dr. Jose Rizal (the first Rizal Park in the Southern Hemisphere). This gesture by the Ballarat City Council to honour a great humanist, a man of letters and science, a hero of Asia who struggled against oppression and injustice for the moral and intellectual advancement of his people, is recognised and applauded.
It is most appropriate that Ballarat is the site of Australia’s first Rizal Park, as this was the site of Australia’s only armed rebellion by the civilian population against government oppression and injustice (the Eureka Rebellion).
Dr Jose Rizal’s life, work and martyrdom inspired the revolution that brought about the first constitutional democracy in Asia. He is recognised as the “father of Asian nationalism”. His was the first cry of nationalism in Asia, which introduced ideas, which can be called modern democracy and western liberalism.
The freedom in many Asian countries that followed the first successful overthrow of a colonising European power in Asia, and the resultant emancipation of some half dozen countries and millions of human beings owes in part its origins to the labours and death of Dr. Rizal. He espoused such principles years before men such as Mahatma Ghandi, Sun Yat-Sen, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela began their fights for freedom.
Rizal was truly an amazing man. As his friend Professor Blumentritt said, “a man of his stature only appears in the history of a nation once every other century”.
In his short life of only 35½ years he was: an anthropologist (he was a member of the Anthropological and Geographical Societies of Berlin), a botanist, a businessman, a cartographer, a dramatist, an economist, an educator, an engineer, an essayist, an entomologist (there is a frog, a beetle and a dragonfly named after him), a farmer, a folklorist, a geographer, a grammarian, a historian, a horticulturist, a humourist, a lexicographer, a linguist (he studied 22 languages, and used 5 effectively), a musician, a painter, a medical physician (he graduated from the Central University of Madrid, Spain aged 23 years), a specialist ophthalmologist (he studied in Paris and Heidelberg), a philosopher (awarded the Licentiate in Philosophy and Letters in Madrid aged 24), a poet, a polemist, a psychologist, a satirist, a sculptor, a sociologist, a surveyor (graduated aged 17 with the title “perito agrimensor”), a translator (he translated ‘William Tell’ into Tagalog, and Morgia’s history of the Philippines), a traveller to at least 15 countries (Austria, Belgium, Borneo, Ceylon, China, England, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland and the USA,) and a zoologist.
He had achieved all of this by the time he was shot in the back aged only 35½ years old.
But more than these, Rizal was also a patriot, a hero and a martyr.
Some may think that a soldier should have been the nation’s hero, but Rizal, a pacifist to the end, chose to fight ignorance and injustice with the pen. You can hide from bullets, or kill the person who carries a gun, but it is almost impossible to stand against the written truth.
He imbued his countrymen with a sense of racial pride, and a consciousness of national unity.
But Rizal did not only write and speak about nationalism. He also wrote and spoke out against racial prejudice, the worth and dignity of the individual whatever their background, the inviolability of human rights, the innate equality of all people and races, that every man and woman has a genuine contribution to make to the world if only they will try, and only if they are allowed to try. He wrote about the necessity of constitutional government and due process of law, popular sovereignty as the basis of all political authority, faith in human reason and enlightenment, the right of the masses to public education, and the belief that social progress comes through freedom.
Some may believe that Rizal is no longer relevant to the present day because the circumstances and the tyranny of the times in which he lived have long since passed.
But his ideas for humanity also extend well into the future, where he envisaged an end to racial prejudice, of freedom for all people where justice rules, and where all people are citizens of an enlightened world.
His teachings, his idealism, his vision, his writings and his example should be an inspiration for us today in our daily associations, our studies, our families, our occupations, our dreams and our aspirations, – and for the generations into the future.
Rizal’s legacy, and moral standards are for all times and all ages and all classes of people.
It is a truism that Rizal no longer belongs only to the Filipinos, but to the world
If you haven’t done it already, next time you are in the Philippines set yourself a goal to buy a copy of Zaide’s book (may be $8), which is the standard College text book for ‘Rizal 101’, and read it, to better understand this amazing life.
Whatever our age, whatever the circumstances of our lives, we should all have a hero in our lives, somebody to try to emulate; and there is no better person to have as a hero in our lives, to be inspired by, and to try to emulate, than Dr. Jose Rizal.
