It Runs in the Family

a poem in five parts by Loffy
(written for her DevStud 123 class a long, long time ago)

I.
Be the change you wish to see in the world
preached my father -- or was it Gandhi?
Forsake not the poor, for the poor is with us
and a bird has the right to be free
All these and more, I learned from my parents
who were quick to make me see
that though I'm a child, I can choose to care
about how government spends our money

II.
Land, life and liberty
the cry of a thousand voices
and yet never heard
But from the mountains come
a strength and will
and spirits undeterred
A plan to alter the course of a river
never saw the light of day
For they had deemed their lives as just
a very small price to pay
Pedro Dungoc
a Kalinga leader
with Macli-ing Dulag fought
the Chico Dam project
its plunderous structures
the oppression that it brought
Dungoc died a red fighter
but to this day
his legacy lives on
in his sons and daughters
who continue the fight
for self-determination
Pedro Dungoc, Jr.
a force behind TAKDER
is proud to have his father’s name
and be his father’s heir

III.
Three is said to be a magic number
a sturdy balance
a center with two wings
And so we have three men in a tub,
the Holy Trinity,
three wishes, three kings
Suffice it to say
there's simply no space
to identify all the others
But we must not forget
to include in the list
the three Villegas Brothers
Jose Jr. is a labor leader
and crusader for human rights
known for his ideals
of industrialization
and labor co-ownership insights
Bernardo is a favorite economist
of the U.S. Embassy, for one
whose capitalist nature
has given him
an extra mile to run
Edberto is and always was
a parliamentarian of the streets
whose intellect
and trademark zest
even jail can not deplete
Each is as different
from one another
as three brothers can be
But each is headstrong
in fighting for
his respective advocacy

IV.
The truth is said
to set you free
but it was different for Joe Burgos
For he was arrested
and imprisoned during
the dictatorship of Marcos
The publishers
of a newspaper that sought
to reveal the truth
Joe and Edith
have been harassed
and left with hurts to soothe
Jonas, like his parents, fought
for his own set of beliefs
A member of the KMP
he felt a farmer’s grief
And Jonas now,
like his parents then,
is being made to pay
for being a “threat”
to the structure that
is rotten all the way

V.
Be the change you wish to see in the world
I now preach to my son
For that’s the most that I can leave to him
when all is said and done
Perhaps an “activist gene” is carried
on to our next kin
Or maybe we just really think
indifference is a sin

The politics of color, wizard-style

Westernization is so ubiquitous it is not only contained in this dimension of time and space; it has spilled over to the realm of high fantasy as well. The general assumption in fantasy is that the heroes and main characters are white, basically Western. If someone is dark and less-than-good-looking (curious how these two traits seem to always go together), he is undoubtedly a member of the big baddie's legion of doom and would go on to be decapitated in the battlefield.

Until the Earthsea Cycle. Ursula Le Guin dares to challenge the norms of Westernized fantasy: why shouldn't the hero be dark-skinned? (Or more importantly, why shouldn't the hero be dark-skinned AND good-looking?) Why shouldn't the morally upright people of power look like sun-baked natives? Why shouldn't society resemble anything other than Europe in the Middle Ages?

Earthsea is a vast archipelago with a temperate climate, populated for the most part by brown-skinned people whose ways of life revolve around the sea. (Hmm, sounds like a country I know.) Magic in Earthsea is governed by Equilibrium, by Balance. I like how the use of magic has certain consequences -- whereas Harry Potter and his friends can cast spells here and there, the boy Ged was deaf and mute and blind for days after weaving a difficult spell. A Taoist theme is evident in that magic is supposed to be in harmony with the world: it should let things be as they are and must only be used to restore balance. So although a great mage can conjure up a comfy bed and whisk away rainclouds so easily, he goes to sleep on the ground under the pouring rain, much to the chagrin of his weary prentice.

What is also remarkable about the Earthsea Cycle is that there is no big baddie. There's no Sauron building up his grand army to fight the batttle to end all battles. There are even no battles -- at least not ones so hackneyed as good guys and bad guys hacking away in an open field. The conflicts are among and within the people and their beliefs and their understanding of the world they live in, which I've found to be more compelling than the archaic good versus evil storyline. The entire series is very philosophical and existential. It goes beyond the mere entertainment value of typical high fantasy to actually make you think. And while there are allusions to good versus evil, it throws you for a spin by asking, is what you've always believed to be good in fact truly good?

In this era of cardboard-cutout fantasy books fashioned to be as sellable as possible, the Earthsea Cycle is in a class of its own. I just hope and pray that Ursula Le Guin is the kind of writer I think she is and that she'd never allow Earthsea to be butchered by the biggest baddie of all -- Hollywood.