Showing posts with label Rizal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rizal. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

More Rizal

I'm back to Jose Rizal again. For someone whose professed interest is human rights and modern political science, I seem to spend a lot of time studying 19th century intellectual history. (It is all related, I swear!). For all that I find many of Rizal's political stances objectionable, I can't help but feel great affection for the man when I actually read his work.

This letter, written to Filipino revolutionary Mariano Ponce in 1889, made me laugh:

Dear Friend,

I have sent you the proofs long ago. If you did not receive them, they must have been lost. Send me immediately other proofs; I have the manuscript.
We have many enemies and they are furious. Let us face the fight so that we shall not be disunited.
I am going to the library.