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Playing with the Big Boys
Basketball, American Imperialism, and Subaltern Discourse in the Philippines
By Lou Antolihao UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PRESS
Copyright © 2015 Lou Antolihao
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8032-7851-6
CHAPTER 1
Spheroid of Influence
Sports, Colonization, Modernity
What need have these men to attack? Why are men disturbed in this spectacle? Why are they totally committed to it? Why this useless combat? What is sport?
—Roland Barthes
The word "exercise," which in contemporary usage is associated with physical fitness and sports training, has a primordial link to earlier forms of territorial and political conflict. Having emerged in medieval Europe, the word has its origins in the Latin term exercitium, which is derived from exercitare, to train; a frequentative of exercêre, to train, to occupy; from ex + arcêre to enclose, to hold off. Physical strength was not only essential for survival in that era but was also important to groups and societies seeking to protect their resource bases or expand their territories. Early civilizations from China to Persia recognized the importance of physical fitness to the optimal performance of combatants and so they developed various training regimens and martial arts forms. In particular, leaders of premodern kingdoms and empires are often attributed with legendary physical abilities. In precolonial Southeast Asia, the demonstration of special physical prowess often served as the basis of a personality cult, which leaders employed to rally supporters and strike alliances with other groups for the maintenance and expansion of their territories and political influence. Physical exercise played an important role in subsequent historical eras until it reached a much wider influence after the Industrial Revolution, when it took on a new meaning as a form of leisure activity. Despite this shift, ancient concepts of "exercise" and "prowess" are still expressed through the global politics of sports. From the 1904 St. Louis Olympics to the upcoming 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro, sporting achievements are rhetorically used to convey civilizational or racial supremacy, cultural preeminence, and economic progress.
This chapter deals with the geopolitics of exercise and the exercise of geopolitics, and the blurring of the distinction between the two in the context of colonial sports. It attempts to retrace the genesis of the "national basketball culture" in the Philippines during the early period of the American colonial regime. In particular the chapter argues that the social engineering project of the American regime in the early twentieth century served as the catalyst for the emergence of basketball as the Philippines' most popular sport. These social engineering programs were part of the Americans' "effort to mold, and often to restructure" their new colony according to U.S. colonial designs. This concept was couched in the glossy rhetoric of modernization, used by the United States as a pretext for altering the social and cultural landscape in the Philippines. Sports was one of the colonial initiatives that was immediately associated with modernity. It appealed especially to the young Filipinos who, with greater access to formal education, were finding more time and opportunities to indulge in new pastimes. More than the other American sports, basketball in particular was identified with liberal religious denominations, higher educational institutions, and some of the esteemed values of urbanism.
The rise of nationalism in eighteenth-century Europe paved the way for the development of modern fitness systems. Apart from its importance in preparing citizens for defending national territories, the health benefits of physical exercise were also increasingly recognized. This awareness resulted in the development of gymnastics and its inclusion in the curriculums of educational institutions in Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Great Britain and other countries. The word "exercise" started to take on a new meaning during that period as the Industrial Revolution saw the rise of modern sports out of traditional games and a more rigid work-leisure dichotomy afforded ordinary people ample time for recreation. Thereafter the development of exercise into popular pastimes gradually shifted the association of the word from its traditional martial function to a more ludic rationale. This crucial change did not sever the ties between the concepts of exercise and expansionism, however. On the contrary, the diffusion of modern sports throughout the different parts of the world has been shaped by larger international power relations.
Outside Europe, physical education and modern sports were largely introduced by Western colonial powers, many of whom had well-established footholds in almost every part of the world by the mid-nineteenth century. These new sporting practices joined the more entrenched "metropolitan cultural traditions," such as religion and language, in fostering a colonial culture. As such, modern sport provided a more accessible channel, serving not only as a bridge spanning the physical and cultural distance between colonizer and the colonized but also as an instrument for strengthening the control of the former over the latter. In his analysis of the basis of British colonial power in sub-Saharan Africa, Andrew Apter noted how "[the] thin white line of imperial power in the colonies rested not on British force and fortitude alone, but on the foundations of colonial culture." This cultural linkage facilitated the administration of far-flung colonies, which enabled many imperial powers to retain and even increase their influence without needing much help from their armies.
In the Philippines, the history of its national pastime has been largely shaped by the country's relationship with the United States, its former colonial master. From basketball's introduction as an exercise regimen and a leisure activity in Manila's Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) in the early twentieth century, the sport evolved into an imperative cultural force that played a crucial role in consolidating American control over the archipelago. With its strong appeal as a popular intercollegiate game, basketball was seen as a good diversion to keep young people from participating in subversive activities. More importantly, the new sporting discipline, along with other forms of modern athletics, was also used as a pedagogical tool to impart modern values to the "savage natives" who needed physical as well as moral exercise to prepare themselves for self-government. Moreover, the promotion of sports was also utilized by the Americans as a channel to advance their political interest in the Asian region.
"Fitness" for Self-Government: Racial Politics, Physical Training, and Colonial Rule
When pushed to explain the U.S. government's retention of the Philippines as a colony, President William McKinley argued that the decision was made after American officials determined that the Filipinos were still "unfit for self-government." In retrospect he might not have only been referring to the local population's lack of knowledge and experience in democratic governance, but could also have been calling attention to some perceived "physical deficiencies" that the Filipinos needed to correct in order to effectively defend and run their nation. In particular, Americans believed "the susceptibility to illness, the high death rate, and the comparatively small amount of industry" to be some of the factors inhibiting Filipino self-government. At a glance the first two problems could be solved by developing an efficient health system while the last one could be addressed by fostering a motivating work culture. To all problems, however, the United States readily employed an all-embracing solution: physical exercise and competitive sports.
During the height of colonial conquest, U.S. soldiers became the first to introduce baseball and other American games in many parts of the Philippines. After the Philippine-American War, the soldiers' presence even in remote provinces was tapped to promote modern sports in a much wider scope. Particularly, the Santa Lucia Barracks, headquarters of the colonial Bureau of Constabulary in the Philippine capital of Manila, was considered a strategic location for spreading modern sports. It was there that the YMCA trained soldiers "on the various points necessary while they are in Manila so that when they go back to their provincial posts they will have little difficulty in getting athletics under way." Filipino writer Nick Joaquin even described the Santa Lucia Barracks as "the cradle of the basketball in the Philippines," since apart from many Filipinos learning the sport in the U.S. military gymnasium, the first Filipino basketball leagues were also based there. In fact, athletics also played an important role in "pacifying" some of the remaining territories that were yet to be fully integrated into the nation-state. In the mountainous Cordillera region, for instance, sports competitions were utilized to defuse the tension between indigenous groups who were known for periodically waging tribal wars or embarking on the more notorious headhunting expeditions between neighboring communities.
Around the same time, the establishment of the Bureau of Public Instruction in 1901 also afforded the newly established colonial government with "armies" that would carry on the task of bringing the colonial government closer to the people. The public school teachers, under the newly reorganized Bureau of Education (BOE), were specifically targeted for this purpose because, according to one American official, it was "the only unit of the government that touches intimately and without friction with the whole people of the Philippine Islands." Physical education and modern sports were included in the school curriculum and the rising popularity of athletic activities was largely attributed to the schoolteachers.
Moreover, the introduction of sports and athletics constituted an important element of the effort to implement a comprehensive program of health and sanitation. In a decade marked by famines and epidemics, the role of physical education and modern sports "in the process of making the body sound and vigorous, capable of resisting disease and of doing hard work without unnatural fatigue" was one of the main motivating factors for its active promotion. By 1911, Frederick England, the BOE's Playground Director, estimated that about 95 percent of the country's 700,000 pupils were engaged in physical education. This figure did not include the increasing number of sports enthusiasts outside the schools and institutions of higher education. In highlighting the importance of health science in the U.S. colonial administration, the medical historian Warwick Anderson noted how, "[By] 1902, the well-ordered laboratory, more than the army camp, appeared to represent the exemplary site for modern Filipino bodies and culture." In a few years, however, the laboratory would eventually yield to the gymnasium.
Beyond its pragmatic value in promoting a healthy well-being, exercise was also recognized for its efficacy in instilling some of the civic values essential to a modern democratic society. "The self-restraint, the obedience to rules, the respect for other fellow's rights that the athlete learns in the vigorous practice of give and take," Elwood Brown, the YMCA Physical Director noted, were just some of the attributes that the Filipinos needed to strengthen along with their "weak" muscles. To serve this goal, a sports-for-all program was promoted, particularly among those who were working in the colonial bureaucracy. This initiative proved to be especially useful in providing a much-needed diversion for government employees who were required to make the annual pilgrimage to the colonial hill station of Baguio City, where the entire government moved each summer so the Americans could escape the punishing tropical heat. Brown, who was loaned by the YMCA to the colonial government to promote physical education and sports programs in 1911, quoted a correspondence with the American director of the Bureau of Public Works. He reported that Filipinos
showed their displeasures at being sent to Baguio, away from their families and into the cold region by defacing the buildings, destroying important papers, damaging the plumbing, cutting the bed nets, etc. This year not one malicious mischief was reported, due to the athletic program which absorbed their attention completely.
Aside from providing for the recreational needs of government employees, the fitness program in Baguio was also strategically introduced so its participants could bring their knowledge and even newfound passion for sports to their respective provinces after the summer season. The use of the summer sessions in Baguio City to promote sports among the members of the colonial bureaucracy was similar to the system in the constabulary headquarters where soldiers were trained to propagate athletics in their assigned posts.
From Savages to Sportsmen: Race, Athletics, Americanization
In the course of the implementation of the social engineering agenda, special attention was given to young Filipinos, particularly in choosing the participants in the Americans' sports development programs. According to a BOE superintendent, this was due to the belief that one "cannot make Americans of the adult Filipinos." Nonetheless, the child-adult distinction apparently did not matter much since the Filipinos as a whole were viewed to be physically and culturally immature. A YMCA official, for instance, assumed that "the Filipino as a race are in the childhood of their development, and exhibit all the peculiarities, faults, and virtues of a rapidly developing adolescent boy." In this social Darwinist model, the perceived inferiority of the Filipino physique illustrated the hierarchy of difference between the backward colony and the modern metropole, a contrast that was vital in underscoring the racial foundation of American colonial power.
The 1909 exercise handbook Physical Training for Filipinos highlighted this difference, pointing out how the "the physical development of an Eastern tropical people differs widely than that of a Western people in the temperate zone," and thereby suggested that "a course in physical training for Philippine schools should be designed to meet existing conditions, and should be especially adapted to correct the physical deficiencies of the Filipinos." This line was not only an affirmation of the superiority of the white Anglo-Saxon race but also reflected the racialized rationalities of American expansionism that included the more controversial notions of Manifest Destiny and "the white man's burden."
Generally, the distinctive bodily attributes of the local inhabitants became an integral aspect of what Paul Kramer would call "the racial politics of empire." This concept essentially described how the Americans arranged "the way in which hierarchies of difference were generated and mobilized in order to legitimate and to organize invasion, conquest, and colonial administration." Like the country's unexplored mineral reserves and undeveloped agricultural lands, the Filipino physique, as a perceived marker of racial inferiority, became a target of colonial intervention that was intended to maximize its productivity and enhance its contribution to the process of nation-building.
More than skin color, the most accentuated feature of the physical difference between the Americans and the Filipinos was height. From the battleground to the basketball court, in real as well as in symbolic terms, physical size was one of the measures used to distinguish the dominant from the dominated. This general observation follows Gerald Gems's assertion that "the concept of whiteness adhered not only to skin color but to intellectual and physical capacities as well." More than a mere physical distinction, height demonstrated in a more vivid, quantifiable scale the difference between Americans and Filipinos. Anthropometric data and photographs were popularly used as part of the larger colonial discourse that presented local indigenous peoples as "savages" and "wild men." The U.S. colonial regime used this strategy to depict the Filipinos "as genetically inferior and unable to govern themselves without proper American guidance." Subsequently, this imperial rhetoric proliferated through official government documents and different literary forms, and was promoted through the display of the different indigenous groups in major exhibitions, both locally and abroad.
From Tribal War to Tug-of-War
The American period (1901–46) was noted for U.S. efforts to incorporate two geographic areas that the previous Spanish colonial regime (1565–1898) had failed to conquer and integrate into mainstream Filipino society. Loosely categorized as the territories of the non-Christian tribes, these regions were eventually put under two administrative units: the Mountain Province in the northern island of Luzon and the Moro Province in the southern part of the archipelago. The relative isolation of these two areas from the rest of the population enabled their people to maintain traditional practices that clashed with prevailing social principles in the United States as well as with the majority of Filipinos. The practice of slavery in Moro Province and headhunting in the Mountain Province, for instance, were often used by the American colonial regime to demonstrate the necessity to "civilize" the non-Christian groups, as well as the rest of the population whose level of development was merely a few steps ahead of the former.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Playing with the Big Boys by Lou Antolihao. Copyright © 2015 Lou Antolihao. Excerpted by permission of UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PRESS.
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