Rizal and the Theory of

Nationalism
Learning objectives:
• Understand the concept of Nationalism
• Know what essentially is a “nation”
• Relate Rizal’s works to the concept of nationalism / how do
Rizal’s work embody the concept of nationalism
• Know the different views regarding Rizal and his works
Reading Materials: The Nation as Imagined Community
Anderson, Benedict. 1991. Introduction. In Imagined communities: Reflections on the origins
and spread of nationalism, 1–7. Revised ed. London and New York: Verso. Pasig City: Anvil,
2003 PH edition. JC311 A656 1994; JC311 A656 2003

Anderson, Benedict. 1991. Cultural roots. In Imagined communities: Reflections on the origins
and spread of nationalism, 9–36. Revised ed. London and New York: Verso. Pasig City: Anvil,
2003 PH edition. JC311 A656 1994; JC311 A656 2003

Anderson, Benedict. 1991. Creole pioneers. In Imagined communities: Reflections on the

origins and spread of nationalism, 47–65. Revised ed. London and New York: Verso. Pasig City:
Anvil, 2003 PH edition. JC311 A656 1994; JC311 A656 2003

Guide Question: What is a nation and why is it “imagined?” What is

nationalism? How does Rizal and his works relate to Philippine
Nationalism?
Nation and Nationalism
political
Set of social
Nationalism systems
economic

Self governance and total sovereignty

Nation and Nationalism
Nationalism

• Developing and maintaining a national identity

• Shared characteristics such as culture, language, race
and religion
• Preserving and reshaping nation’s culture
• Essentially modern / developed in the late 18 th century
Key information
• According to Anderson, nationness is a cultural artifact that is
felt as having existed sine time immemorial but is objectively
modern as it first emerged toward the end of the 18th century.
• Anderson defines a nation as an imagined political community,
which is imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign.
• Anderson argues that the nation is imagined as a community
because regardless of the actual inequalities that prevail in it,
the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal
comradeship.
Key information

• Anderson argues that the nation is an imagined community because it

exists but in the figment of the collective imagination.
• Following Anderson, the Philippine nation is an imagined community
because you as a Filipino will never meet all 100 or so million Filipinos
yet you are convinced that they exist and you are related to them.
Key information
• Anderson points out the Rizal’s Noli conjured an imagined community
as if the readers and the author were familiar to and intimate with
each other, and the characters and readers shared the same
calendrical time.
• In analyzing the emergence of modern nationalism, Anderson begins
with the striking fact that all of the new South American republics had
been administrative units from the 16th to the 19th century.
Key information

• The novel provided the means or representing the nation as an

imagined community that operated on empty time enabling the
reader to be omniscient to see a delimited society and the actuations
of key people in it.
• The arrival of nationalism in a distinctively modern sense was tied to
the political baptism of the lower classes.
• Nationalist movements have been invariably populist in outlook and
sought to induct lower classes into political life.
Key information
• Master narratives
in Filipino nationalist imagination. Jose Rizal’s “Noli me tangere” and
“El filibusterismo” are not simply master pieces but they are master
narratives which have attained extraordinary exalted status.
• Community conjured up by Dr. Jose Rizal
Noli and Fili emerged as a founding text of Philippine nationalism.
With of course the problem of the community through literary procedure
as different and separate from spain exposing the colonial government
evils and institutional violence.
Key information
• Noli and fili as a foundling text of Philippine nationalism
the novels created a knowable Filipino community. It organize a
narrative development defining the new modern community and envelop
by unfavorable state of colonial society. It is knowable In the sense of
ethical and political decisions to speak of the Philippines to the fellow
Filipinos. Unethical - political creating awareness and challenge
• Promised freedom – Noli me tangere and El Filibusterismo
Rizal prefigured the problem that potentially challenged Filipinos in
the present ideas of modern Filipinos with a capacity to transform in
thought and action
Key information
• Noli me tangere and El Filibusterismo changed the history of the
nation
through his novels Rizal thought Filipinos the sense of nationalism and
love for their own land which is worth dying for. Rizal became the
rallying point of forces that resulted to anti- colonial movement.
• Existence of competing European colonial powers
Rizal’s novel dealt with the problem of formulation ideas of Filipino
nationess based on narrative progress, development and change. That
ran up against assumptions, disciplinary power and practices of
colonial regime in the Philippines.