Nationalism and liberation / Renato Constantino.

The tragedy of the colonized everywhere is his alienation from his past. As one author aptly put it,"The memory which is assigned him is certainly not that of his people. The history which is taught his is not of his own."(Albert Memmi), The Colonizer and the Colonized, New York: Orion Press, 1965, p.113) The task of the nationalist historian, therefore, is to present his people with their own history written from their own point of view. He may be deemed successful only if he is able to restore the memory of struggle against colonial oppression long buried by massive instruments of imperialist conditioning. The theory and practice of writing people's history constitute a dynamic field which continues to develop with each individual's contribution. Historians learn from each other's strengths as well as weaknesses, thereby continually refining the approaches and techniques of historical writing in the interest of social and economic liberation. It is therefore useful to amplify ideas and recount experiences derived from a particular national situation. In the Philippines, for example, there have been attempts, no matter how imperfect, to correct the distortions propagated by colonial historiography through historical works written from the vantage point of the Filipino people. Other Third World historians may perhaps profit from a restatement of the theoretical and conceptual framework utilized in these pioneering efforts to make history an instrument of intellectual liberation in one specific country.