parochial. Tenure of a faculty is hotly contested, political lines are drawn. One has to contend with the so-called administrative mindset - authority figures of simple intelligence who think and behave operationally, self-bound by the parameters of their power, shackled by the fascism of tribal animosities.Details of Prof. Raymundo's case versus UP's Thought Police can be accessed from http://www.bulatlat.com/, among other websites. It is insinuated that her left-leaning politics does not score rapturously with some of her colleagues. Why, the logic escapes me.
I don't know Prof. Raymundo personally but I have seen her interview on TV once. Her plight is not removed from my own experiental context. To be a woman. To stand up for something.
I remember being questioned "what does it mean to be a woman?" Well, Marxist-feminists would be quick to posit that to be a woman is to be oppressed. And in a globablized capitalist system, to be a woman is to be twice oppressed. Personally, I am of the fervent belief that gender, per se, cannot be relied on as a basic unit of analysis since it is embedded in a broader power relations.
Make no mistake about this:I am not stereotyping women as hapless victims. That's not what I am saying. Grrrlll Power, yeah! Commodified by the mainstream media, rightly or wrongly, this drumbeating to celebrate women power has made concrete headways. What I am actually saying is that women have a rich revolutionary heritage - in the struggles for national independence and anti-imperialism, their participation cannot be discounted.
Prof. Raymundo is a magnificent testament to that. Unfortunately, UP's Thought Police, basking in the archaic glory of being the center of intellectual ferment, decrees her ilk has no room. So unfortunate.
(photo taken from www.bulatlat.com)
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