Shortly after this country rose up in arms to protest Dan Brown’s depiction of Manila as the “gates of hell,” it showered Paulo Coelho with a whole lotta love. The reason for it was that soon after Coelho heard the strangled cries of Pinoys over Brown’s book, he tweeted, “Dear Filipinos, your souls lead to the gates of heaven.”
His tweet was greeted effusively by netizens, various personalities, and even by the Department of Tourism. Carlos Celdran, who had earlier said that the Pinoys’ anger was understandable even if Manila arguably needed fixing, also tweeted, “We love you, Paulo.”
I must confess that I am not a great fan of Coelho. I liked his “The Alchemist,” but found a couple of his other books a little too inspirational for my taste. I managed only a couple of chapters of “By The River Piedra, I Sat Down and Wept.” Some may find it deeply spiritual, but I found it, well, more Mantovani than Karajan.
My reaction to all this was to wonder: Do we really need other people to validate our self-image or self-worth?
That in fact seems to be the case. It’s not really Brown’s description of Manila and Coelho’s defense of the Filipino soul that’s the fascinating thing here. It’s our reaction to it. It’s acutely revelatory of our psyche, or national psychology. It does take other people to make us feel big or small, important or unimportant.
It’s a sign of humongous insecurity. You have to wonder which one gives us a worse press—the presumed transgression or the prissiness with which we react to it, presuming it to be a transgression to begin with. Surely we cannot pin down an author to the views of his characters? Surely we cannot imagine that Thomas Harris has cannibalistic tendencies? Surely we cannot imagine Hilary Mantel to share the murderous predilections of Wolf Hall? How do you think we look, displaying these astonishing levels of ignorance?
Some years ago, we complained about Encyclopedia Britannica turning the world “Filipina” into “maid,” which had government officials hopping mad, and which turned out to be completely false. Some years ago, we complained about Claire Danes complaining, “The people there do not have anything—no arms, no legs, no eyes” (what’s that but a sublimely surrealistic way of putting things!), that resulted in the highest official of the land, Erap, banning her from our midst. Not too long ago, we complained, or Boy Abunda did, about Tony Gilroy saying he chose Manila for “The Bourne Legacy” because “it’s just so colorful and ugly and gritty, raw and stinky and crowded,” even though Gilroy couldn’t praise the Pinoy actors enough.
What do you think all this complaining makes us? You can be sure it’s not a proud people willing to defend flag and honor, ang mamatay nang dahil sa iyo. Wouldn’t we be better off just saying, or thinking: “That’s what they think of us? Who the hell cares?”
I suppose a great deal of it owes to a colonial mindset. To this day, we need the approval of others, or people we regard as our betters—although that’s not openly admitted—to feel good about ourselves. We are eternally grateful when they do, even if it is only a George Bush toasting Marcos for his adherence to democracy. And we are outraged and feel betrayed when they don’t—or indeed when they disparage us, or when we imagine they do. The disaffection over Gilroy’s remark was explicitly put in terms of betrayal: We showed him hospitality and this is how he repays us!
Like I said, it gives new insights into the culture, or national psyche.
From the other end, I am not unappreciative of Coelho’s tweet, not because of the approval he gives us—it’s time we stopped thinking like that—but because of the insight he offers us. True enough, we do have our strengths, we do have our soulfulness. I don’t know if it knocks at the gates of heaven, but it often comes pretty close to it. We don’t always see it but it’s there. Chief of it is our laughter, which enables us not just to survive but also to show kindness and, yes, hospitality, amid our harsh surroundings.
It’s not always true that in the face of desperation, people turn into animals. Sometimes, they turn into angels. A friend of mine once told me this story. He was one of those who volunteered to help in the aftermath of a storm that overran Albay some years ago. The place was still flooded, in some parts the water climbing up to the second floors of houses, leaving families stranded on their roofs. My friend’s group had gone around in a banca distributing food and blankets to the ravaged.
At one point, he said, they came upon a family of five, a couple and their three small children, perched on the roof of their house. It was nearly noon, and the family was making do with a can of sardines, which was all they seemed to have salvaged when they fled to the roof. How they managed to open it, my friend did not know, but they had its contents laid out on a plastic plate and were nibbling around it. When they got to the family, the father offered, “Kain po tayo.”
My friend was bowled over. Here was someone in the most desperate straits saying that. Of course it’s a ritual greeting, the sort of thing we say when we’re eating and somebody passes by. Nobody really accepts the offer, you answer also ritualistically, thank you but you’ve eaten. Still it struck my friend as the most dazzling thing in the world. Here was someone standing at the gates of hell, such as a watery grave could be called that, still capable of showing a glimpse of heaven. In a banca on the floodwaters of Albay, my friend wept.
Who the hell cares whether other people notice these things or not? Who the hell cares if other people approve of these things or not? That’s a soul knocking at the pearly gates.
That’s validation.