This story
was taken from Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly
newsmagazine (www.bulatlat.com, www.bulatlat.net, www.bulatlat.org).
Vol. VI, No. 13, May 7-13, 2006
ILPS Honors Daniel Boone
Schirmer as an Outstanding Anti-Imperialist Fighter
It is of great importance to
hold in the highest regard and constantly honor the noble tradition of the
Anti-Imperialist League and the inspiring work and legacy of progressive
Americans like Daniel Boone Schirmer. The more of such Americans in the belly of
the beast, the greater is the confidence of the peoples of the world that the
No. 1 plunderer and terrorist power will be defeated in many parts of the world
and someday in the U.S. itself.
BY JOSE MARIA SISON
We, in the International League of Peoples’
Struggle (ILPS), hereby manifest our high respect for Daniel Boone Schirmer as
an outstanding fighter against U.S. imperialism and as an exponent of
international solidarity of the peoples in the revolutionary struggle against
imperialism and reaction and for a better world of greater freedom, democracy,
social justice, all-round progress and peace.
We join all the organizations and individuals in
the U.S., Philippines and in the whole world in conducting meaningful memorial
activities from the day after his passing away last April 21 to June 18 in
order to honor him for his militant political work and scholarship in support
of the peoples’ struggle against US imperialism. He was a genuine American
patriot and revolutionary internationalist in the tradition of the
Anti-Imperialist League and Mark Twain.
He was already a veteran of ideological,
political and organizational work among the youth and the workers when he went
back to school in Harvard University in the 1960s. He became involved in the
movement against the US war of aggression in Vietnam. It was by way of
supporting the Vietnamese people’s struggle for national liberation that he
chose as the subject of his doctoral dissertation the Anti-Imperialist League
and the Filipino-American War which started in 1899.
After he got his Ph.D. in 1972, the proclamation
of martial law in the Philippines and the imposition of the U.S.-instigated
fascist dictatorship on the Filipino people moved him to work for the
organization of the Friends of the Filipino People. This was accomplished in
1973. It consisted of American and Filipino-American academics who were
determined to support the Filipino people in their struggle for national freedom
and democracy.
Through the Katipunan ng Demokratikong Pilipino
(Union of Democratic Filipinos), I was able to observe immediately the work of
Daniel Boone Schirmer and his colleagues for the Filipino people. I am always
proud to be among the first Filipinos in the underground in 1973 to read Boone’s
Republic or Empire: American Resistance to the Philippine War. This
carried a personal inscription from him which was very inspiring. It was brought
to the Philippines by a Filipino who had apprenticed in The National Guardian
in New York.
Since then, I had occasional communications with
Boone in writing or orally through traveling mutual friends. I received from
him interesting reading materials, even while I was already under military
detention. Julie and I are grateful that he was able to visit our home in Quezon
City twice to express concern about my situation in prison and about issues.
Daniel Boone Schirmer and the Friends of the
Filipino People had a major share in gathering support from the American people,
in keeping up the spirit of resistance among the Filipinos in the U.S., in
exposing the imperialist motives of the U.S. for propping up the Marcos
dictatorship, in influencing American public opinion against the collaboration
of the U.S. and the Marcos ruling clique and in contributing to the isolation
and fall of the fascist dictatorship.
The service that Boone rendered to the Filipino
people did not end with supporting them in the struggle against Marcos. He
considered the U.S. military bases in the Philippines as the key point in U.S.
imperialist interests in the country. Indefatigably, he demanded and fought for
their dismantling. After the U.S. bases were dismantled in 1992, he denounced
every attempt of the U.S. and the puppet regimes to somehow allow U.S. military
forces to violate Philippine national sovereignty and territorial integrity and
to engage in military intervention under such deceptive signboards as “status of
forces,” “access and cross-servicing” and “visiting forces.”
It is of great importance to hold in the highest
regard and constantly honor the noble tradition of the Anti-Imperialist League
and the inspiring work and legacy of progressive Americans like Daniel Boone
Schirmer. The more of such Americans in the belly of the beast, the greater is
the confidence of the peoples of the world that the No. 1 plunderer and
terrorist power will be defeated in many parts of the world and someday in the
U.S. itself. Bulatlat
Prof. Jose Maria Sison is the chairman of the
International Coordinating Committee, International League of Peoples’ Struggle
(ILPS). © 2006 Bulatlat
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