Thursday, August 26, 2010

Leftist Politics and Hacienda Luisita

Recently there have been talks of a compromise deal between the peasants and the legal owners of Hacienda Lusita. As it turns out, the peasants prefer stock distribution options over ownership of the physical land itself. Meanwhile, leftists all around are astounded at the peasants' decision. They just cannot fathom that the peasants would simply compromise in fighting for land that was worth blood fighting for. In other words, the leftists cannot believe that the peasants' wishes are actually different from THEIR wishes and THEIR politics.

The peasants of Hacienda Luisita just want to live in peace just like they were before the leftists came in and radicalized them, inflated their minds with grand ambitions and sinister anticapitalist sentiment. The peasants involved in Hacienda Luisita were content in earning an income by tilling a land not their own. Of course, the leftists do not understand this, for when they look at the poor peasants all they can think of is how 'exploited' they are. Society is an arena of conflict where the rich are always exploiting the poor, males are always exploiting females, whites are always exploiting the blacks, etc. In doing this they are the ones perpetuating the tension which they zealously seek to alleviate. Nitpicking and minding other peoples' business is what the left is all about. One can just imagine how self-righteous and arrogant they are to identify themselves with peasants in Hacienda Luisita and recommend politics as the solution to a 'problem' that the peasants never knew they had.

I hope the Hacienda Luisita compromise deal will be an rude awakening for leftists in the Philippines. I hope they become embarrassed in thinking that they know better than the people who actually have substantial interest in the matter. I hope they become sorry for the anguish and suffering that they have rendered unto the Hacienda Luisita farmers.

And yes, they have done harm to the peasants. Agrarian reform has done much more harm than good to the people it is designed to help. Make no mistake about it!

What are these harms done?

1. Politically-charged murders of peasants by hired assassins of the landowners
2. Mass conversion of agricultural land to industrial and residential land
3. Stagnant agricultural sector due to no additional capital investment for fear of land expropriation

But aren't I being too extreme in blaming leftist politicians and activists for something not intended by them? No! Political actions have unintended consequences.
Whether intended or not, and even if harm to the peasants was indirectly caused by leftist politics, those three enumerated above would never have happened without Marxist relgiosity infecting innocent farmers. Intentions don't matter, results do. Land reform activists and politicians should be jailed for what they have done!

No comments:

Post a Comment