By REV. LUNA DINGAYAN
www.nordis.net

“The LORD has heard you whining and saying that you wished you had some meat and that you were better off in Egypt.” — Numbers 11:18

Freedom as Mental

Our country celebrated her 115th year of independence last June 12. National independence does not only mean freedom from the clutches of colonial powers. Rather, it involves all aspects of life. It is not only political and economic; it is also mental. It would also mean freedom from the enslavement of peoples’ hearts and minds popularly known as colonial mentality.

Colonial mentality is commonly understood as a systemic feeling of inferiority of peoples who have been subjected to colonialism relative to the values of foreign powers which had previously subjugated them. The concept essentially refers to the colonized peoples’ acceptance of the colonizer’s culture or way of life as intrinsically more worthy or superior.

Nationalist Filipino historian Renato Constantino recognized this to be rooted in our long years of colonial experiences under the Spaniards and the Americans. According to him, what is even more harmful aspect of colonial mentality and one that is less recognized is our failure to pinpoint our real national interests apart and distinct from those of our foreign colonizers. Thus, we feel that we cannot stand on our own without them. And this would render our independence empty and meaningless.

Slavery and Oppression

The Israelites in the Old Testament times also suffered the yoke of slavery and oppression under the Egyptian Empire for about 400 years. Thus, the Israelites viewed Egypt as a place of slavery and oppression. Although my Egyptian professor in archeology, Dr. Osama, does not believe that their ancestors ever oppressed the Israelites historically. As Dr. Osama pointed out during our study tour in Egypt, there is a huge stone tablet on the second floor of the Egyptian museum in Cairo wherein the history of the Egyptian civilization was beautifully inscribed. The time of the Israelites’ slavery in Egypt was supposed to be during the period of the New Kingdom. But there was no inscription in the stone tablet regarding this matter.

This doesn’t mean, however, that the Egyptians did not enslave the Israelites. Chapter one of the Book of Exodus clearly described how the Egyptians oppressed them so that they would not grow in number. Oftentimes, history is written from the perspective of the powers-that-be, from the point of view of the heroes and victors of history. The Bible, however, was written from the perspective of a persecuted minority. The stone tablet in the Egyptian museum is the majority report; the Bible is a minority.

God of Freedom

The Israelites believe in a God of freedom. They believe that by God’s mercy and mighty hand, they were delivered from the bondage of Egypt through God’s chosen servant, Moses, and were brought into a promised land “flowing with milk and honey.” However, in their journey through the wilderness, they encountered various forms of deprivation and want. They lacked food, especially meat, the food they used to eat in Egypt. Thus, they complained a lot. They wanted to return to Egypt. They claimed that life in Egypt is better than life in the wilderness. They wanted to put a stop to their march to freedom. They seemed to have forgotten that they were slaves in Egypt and God set them free.

If people lived too long in slavery, even if they were already set free, still they tend to think and behave like slaves. They don’t know how to live in freedom. Their hearts and minds are still enslaved. And so, they could not think of new possibilities, of a new and better way of life characterized by genuine freedom, justice, and responsibility. Their long years of oppression somehow shaped and molded their hearts and minds to become obedient colonials.

One of the most effective ways of dealing with colonial mentality is popular education. By raising peoples’ consciousness of themselves and their historical context and understand the root causes of their mental enslavement, they would be empowered to make their own history and shape their own destiny. They would be able to develop their own sense of worth and dignity as a people. They would be able to stand on their own feet, no longer dependent upon the dictates of their former colonizers. # nordis.net