Filipinos can take comfort from the IRISH experience
March 8th, 2010If you, like many Filipinos, have lost hope in the Philippines and have mentally labeled it as a “Lost Cause”. Don’t lose hope… Not just yet. There’s one other “hopeless” poor and Catholic country that managed to get its cultural, economic, and political act together. We can look to IRELAND for a historical example of how we can rise up as a people and as a nation.
Ireland was exactly like the Philippines as recently as a few decades ago:
People wanted to emigrate the F out. As in PRONTO.
Hidebound and dogmatic Catholic Church making sure the country stayed assbackwards
Anemic economy
Cr@ppy infrastructure
Insurrection/Rebellion in one of the counties (Norther Ireland)
In terms of culture, many Irish were considered by some racists as “worse than blacks” when it comes to sexual morality, industriousness, and general civility. Many of the more “respectable” WASPS (White Anglo Saxon Protestants) would call them “green niggers”. The same way many of our Northern Asian and advanced ASEAN neighbors would consider Filipinos as “lower” than them.
Irish prostitutes filled brothels wherever in the world the Irish emigrated.
Irish men were often derided by other ethnic groups as drunks, lazy, and “good for nothing”
For years, the Irish bore the mental wounds and low self-esteem wrought by centuries of English coloinialism and subjugation.
In America, Irish were so universally looked down and derided that it took a while for Americans to consider them WHITE. See: How the Irish Became White
But until recent economic meltdown, Ireland has become one of the THE investment destinations in the EU. Many Irish who emigrated in the past started flowing back. Real estate boomed. The economy rocked. The war in Northern Ireland finally became a political issue instead of a military confrontation.
Ireland’s ascent, the same as Scotland’s ascent in the 1700s, and Japan’s in 1800’s PROVE that Cultural Change can bring about Economic and Political progress. If they can do it, what’s stopping us?
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