Structural violence and the Tagalog/P/Filipino as national language.

SABBATICAL NOTES. 5 JULY 2014. SATURDAY. N7. 
Structural violence and the Tagalog/P/Filipino as national language. 

LET US BEGIN from the conclusion: the institution--the imposition--of Tagalog/P/Filipino is a form of structural violence. 

All national languages are forms of structural violence legitimized by the state by the discourse of nationalism. 

Everywhere we go, the formation of a national language has always begun with the deprivation of a people of their right to their languages, and that act, as violent as physical violence, or perhaps even worse, is something that the advocates of the Philippines national language (read: dialect) do not understand at all.

The right to one's own language is an inalienable human right, and these people who want to impose their will upon other peoples, do not understand what human rights are all about.

There are many things they do not understand, including that sense of privilege they enjoy because of this imposition of a language they pass off as 'national'.

The idea of structural violence is so subtle we do not even recognize it, but its effects are as sinister as those we can easily spot check, like those plunderers lining their pockets with monies coming from the government coffers.

I cite here the definition of others, and one can check the work of Holland and Henriott as well to complement what we have got here in this post:

"Structural violence is a term commonly ascribed to Johan Galtung, which he introduced in the article "Violence, Peace, and Peace Research" in 1969. It refers to a form of violence where some social structure or social institution may harm people by preventing them from meeting their basic needs. Institutionalized elitism, ethnocentrism, classism, racism, sexism, adultism, nationalism, heterosexism and ageism are some examples of structural violence as proposed by Galtung.[citation needed] According to Galtung, rather than conveying a physical image, structural violence is an "avoidable impairment of fundamental human needs". As it is avoidable, structural violence is a high cause of premature death and unnecessary disability. Since structural violence affects people differently in various social structures, it is very closely linked to social injustice." [Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_violence, retrieved 15 March 2014]

Now, let those who advocate Tagalogization learn from this.

FELIPENAS/