The merry month of January

January is named after the Roman god, ‘Janus,’ the god of doors, doorways, arches, openings, closings and the like. Janus is a god with two faces and has the ability to turn one face to reflect upon the past while the other face freshly pointed upon the future.

Also, January marks the New Year for many of us humans as a new beginning, wherein every beginning triggers us to thoughtfully consider past events that have accumulated to this present moment. Each of our moments stack up, one upon the other only to meet our present day, and then these moments unfold into our future.

Janus, with all his hindsight and foresight opens doors to both the reflection of our past and contemplation of our future. Essentially, the god Janus is like a doorman or a bellhop in a mansion that opens endless doorways to would-be possibilities for our future.

With that being said, let us travel back in our world history and see what transpired during this month of January as we look forward to 2016.

In January 1804: Haiti gained independence from France. Jean-Jacques Dessalines who had assumed leadership of the revolution after Toussaint L’ouverture’s 1802 capture by the French army declared Saint Domingue’s independence. Then, the new republic adopted the original pre-Columbian Arawak name of Haiti, meaning ‘mountainous land’.

The mostly black revolutionaries, who had been fighting since 1791, had crushed Napoleon’s army of 43,000 men in December 1803. In the 12 years, they had fought against and defeated not only the French colonists but also the Spanish and British armies. For an army of ex-slaves to take the path of rebellion into a decade long revolution and to defeat an entire network of empires is noteworthy. Add that to Haiti’s unprecedented title of the first Black Republic, which at that time would be considered a political anomaly.

A century after, also in the month of January, in Russia, was the ‘Bloody Sunday Massacre’ in St. Petersburg. Here, thousands of starving workers poured into the streets with father Gapon to beg their king for bread. However they were met by thousands of soldiers that Nicholas sent out to greet them with gunfire wherein hundreds of them dropped dead.

Scholars argue that the ‘Bloody Sunday Massacre’ sparked outrage and countless massive mobilizations with in the industrial concentrations of the Russian empire. Workers along with peasants united which caused the armed forces of Russia to switch sides that later led to the downfall of the Tsarist government. Russia then fell into the hands of the Bolsheviks who later waged war against the highest form of capitalism, known as Imperialism.

In relation to Imperialism, on 1994, New Year ’s Day, 3000 indigenous Mayan Indian guerrillas came down from the mountains of the southern province of Chiapas and declared war against the Mexican government. The insurgents representing the poorest and exploited people of Latin America, armed with everything from sticks and stones to AK-47s, commenced their uprising, it was the day when the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect.

This cynical Neoliberal agreement was the opportunity the Mexican ruling class had long sought to intermingle with Corporate America, with the hope it would finally propel them into the First World. But for the Indian peasants and farmers, it was their death warrant. NAFTA aggressively promoted corporate privatization, removed Mexico’s right to review foreign investment proposals, banned subsidies to the indigenous farmers, favored U.S. imports and, most significantly, required Mexico to alter its constitution.

Fast forward in the early quarters of the new millennium, January 2011, the ‘Jasmine Revolution’ toppled the 23 year old rule of Tunisian President Ben Ali. This event was witnessed globally through the wonders of social media. The revolution began after Mohammed Bouazizi, an unemployed 26 year old, protested government corruption via self-immolation infront a municipal office in the town of Side Bouzid in central Tunisia. Bouazizi, who had been supporting his family by selling fruits from a cart. He was enraged when local officials repeatedly demanded bribes and confiscated his merchandise.

His plight, which came to symbolize the injustice and economic hardships afflicting many Tunisians under the Ben Ali regime, inspired street protests throughout the country against the high unemployment, poverty and political repression. Neighboring countries soon followed suit which later came to be known as the infamous ‘Arab Spring’.

Notice the similarities in Philippine context? Like in Haiti, Philippines also suffered the ills of colonization wherein our country, nestled on a strategic location during the mercantilism era in which Philippines served as the ‘Gate Way’ to Asia. Yes, our country was nevertheless conquered but like Haitti’s army of ex-slaves, indigenous dwellers mostly in the north and south of Philippines waved off the entry of these colonizers.

Similarly like Russia, the Philippines’ state security forces also loves pointing and spraying their guns towards street parliamentarians. Remember Mendiola and Hacienda Luisita Massacre? Like Mayan Indians of Chiapas who surfaced and introduced themselves to the world on New Year ’s Day as their way of defiance against imperialist driven neo-liberal policies like NAFTA. The longest running Communist insurgency, New Peoples’ Army (NPA) in the Philippines has also been waging war against similar perpetrators along with their bureaucrat lapdogs. Lastly, in our current state, Filipino people can relate to Mohammed Bouazizi, most specially our ambulant vendors in the urban sector.

Funny that our country also shares a significant date in January, however it seems it is left out and forgotten. The event I believe triggered the beginning of Filipino nationalism which later ignited the 1896 Philippine Revolution. The event was the forgotten Cavite mutiny that took place 20th of January 1872. It can be recalled that the event preceded the execution of the Filipino priests Mariano Gomez, Jose Burgos and Jacinto Zamora, otherwise known as GOMBURZA.

The unsuccessful mutiny was participated in by around 200 soldiers and laborers of the Engineering and Artillery Corps who rose up after their salaries were reduced upon the order of the Governor General, by subjecting them to personal taxes, from which they were previously exempt. The taxes required them to pay a monetary sum as well as do forced labor or what they called ‘polo y servicio’.

The executions, particularly those of the GOMBURZA, were to have significant effects on people because of the shadowy nature of the trials. Dr. Jose Rizal dedicated his work, El Filibustirismo, to the executed priests. But more significantly, the execution was witnessed by young Andress Bonifacio and it later led him to establish the Kilusang Lihim (Underground Movement) KKK which played a very huge role towards our independence and liberated us from the tyranic rule of leaders in a Spainish colony.

January named after the god Janus indeed served its purpose. Quite fitting also that in the Latin meaning of January – Ianuarius came from word door, ‘ianua’, seen as the doorway to a new year. The Cavite mutiny opened the door and Rizal, Bonifacio, Jacinto, Luna along with others who took up arms for our country. They have entered it and they are waiting for us to follow.