0.2 Opus dei book's darkened rizal & Why - chapter 2  (Page 6/16)

MORE BACKGROUND

No serious detailed review until now to my knowledge has yet disputed the Opus Dei book’s recently renewed cover-up of the real historical Rizal and his prime teachings. Conspicuous by its absence are authoritative and critical reviews from historians and the academic community contesting its demolition job on Rizal’s character. On the contrary the reviews I’ve read that appeared in Philippine media have been positive, or respectful at the very least of the book’s belief in the retraction. Respectful and silent were they over the book’s “sham-freethinker thesis”. De Pedro passionately pleaded for greater acceptance of his iconic subject’s last thoughts and testament spelled out in the latter’s recantation of previously held beliefs and errors. If serious readers privately disagreed with the learned De Pedro’s findings rooted in Catholicism’s teachings about the hero’s piously submissive return to faith on December 29-30, 1896, they raised no publicly reasoned objections. Not one from his Southeast Asian races and peoples, Filipinos included, for whom he is supposedly their Pride of the Malayan Race defended and vindicated him against the mentioned book’s vilifying misrepresentations. What can you say from that, dear readers; does this indifference relate to an inability to transform into a First World people in scientific mentality, civility and wealth?

Whether he did retract or not does not really matter to the appreciation and assessment of his greatness, character, significance, or teachings—so defends an emerging big school of respecters of the Church’s document. Nearly all research, writings and teachings have been expressly or subtly redirected and slanted accordingly. Many from the public and academia, from members of the hero’s so-called Knights, Ladies, Youths, even from the hero’s most accomplished family descendants have promoted the latter obviously wrong stance about “it” not mattering either way. For, it has in practice diverted attention, concerns and research in Rizal-related studies away from final resolution of the destructive retraction issue to the religiously safe area of this chief Philippine hero’s supposedly endless contributions to Asian and Philippine anti-West nationalism. Highly nationalistic “retractionists” or respecters of “it” thus went on over-cultivating and elaborating in Rizalian nationalistic studies and neglecting Rizal’s prime concerns and distorting his own brand of nonviolent humanist nationalism. As allegedly a pro-independence nationalist the hero supposedly regarded Spain as his chief enemy, not the comparative cancers and dysfunctions of character he urged individuals of his race and peoples to address or else suffer permanent trapping in the “Fourth and Third Worlds”. From here it became easy and popular to blame Spain (and America later) for those dysfunctions and deficits of character, institutions and culture. The patriotic scientific humanist who did not retract would reply to this: “Take individual responsibility for your deficits that block revolutionizing transformations towards mentality-and-civility parity with the bar-raising First World.”