Rational Insanity
Can Hiligaynon literature fare?
While we all already know the state Hiligaynon literature is in at the moment, we can never really tell the state it will be in five or ten years from now. Young writers nowadays are either discouraged to pursue a calling to write because of the deplorable state of Filipino writers both financially and socially. There is no money in writing, literature in particular, so most of the parents would say. Furthermore, vigilant journalists get their unjust rewards in the form of bullets through their heads from people who are either afraid of the truth or fearful of what the truth could bring.
Apparently, there is nothing inviting for the writer nowadays, or more so, the Hiligaynon writer, so to speak. I dare say that most accomplished Hiligaynon writers either go on to teach or pursue a different field altogether. For the handful who choose teaching as their profession there is hope for Hiligaynon literature, but it is a hope that is faltering considering how young people view the local tongue nowadays.
Most young people, especially those made to think that the 'in thing' is being able to speak and write in perfect English consider the local tongue 'buki' and therefore would rather write in English than in Hiligaynon. What they don't know is that writing in the local tongue does not only lift the status of the language itself but helps in the preservation of local culture as well. Dr. Leoncio Deriada once told me in a casual conversation that the easiest way to destroy a people is to destroy their language first. Adding to this, he said that during the American Regime, the Americans already knew that this was the easiest way to puncture the closed cultural sphere of the people and so required that English become the medium of instruction. The Americans succeeded in their aim. The traditional culture was almost obliterated when they were through with the Filipinos. Now, remnants of that discreet colonization attempt are still evident - the westernization of thoughts, i.e. that metropolitan life is more enticing than the laid back rural existence; the westernization of status concepts, i.e. that white skin is more attractive than dark skin or kayumanggi, and that white skin represents height in social status; and the westernization of academic preconceptions, i.e. that someone who could write in straight English is more intelligent than someone who could write well in the native tongue. All these contrived concepts are lies in themselves and I wouldn't be surprised to find only a few young thinkers nowadays who could see through these deceptions.
With all these remaining visages of a successful attempt to bury traditional practices and culture under layers of hypocrisy and false grandiosity the Hiligaynon writer is left to grapple with the real threat of one day having to go along and ebb away in the mainstream course of literature considering the social, financial, and cultural rewards of Hiligaynon literature. This is slowly becoming evident in young writers who attempt to write in Hiligaynon but retain English semantics in their work or a phenomenon we might call Hiligaynizing western concepts. This should not be. Cultural assertion dictates that for literature to truly serve its purpose of preserving local culture it should be able to mirror the culture of the people starting with the medium which is the language, down to the form and the material. This is perhaps the reason why the very small believers in the cause to preserve Hiligaynon literature start with the simpler and more attractive traditional literary forms like the paktakon (hiligaynon riddle), the loa (a hiligaynon rhyme usually verbalized during wakes) and the binalaybay (interchangeably used to refer to Hiligaynon poetry and Hiligaynon lyric poetry).
The very source of literature which is language is creeping to become the reason for its demise in the Hiligaynon sense, what with the proliferation of more financially rewarding jobs for English speakers in the call center industry?
I am not against English or its use, just to clarify. I would just like to enjoin our younger generation to enrich themselves not only with English but with the local tongue as well. We cease to be a people when we have lost all traces of our culture, much more our language.
I truly hope that the more senior and accomplished Hiligaynon writers would validate my cause for alarm and do what they can in preserving the language and doing what we can to help and preserve Hiligaynon Literature. Let us start here in our region and maybe move out to the country and to the world to once again see the old glory of our beloved Hiligaynon tongue.
Be rational; be insane... every once in a while!TTFN!
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