In retrospect, this twofold motion of negation and gestation-a dialectical unity of opposites-significantly parallels the artistic process itself as a double movement of exclusion and synthesis, and subsumes the linguistic phases of metaphor and metonymy (see Jakobson 1956). For the truth is that it was not through the clearing of wilderness to establish guilds and market-fairs, but through organized violence and the forcible imposition of feudal Christianity and theocratic authority that the scaffolding of the Philippine cities-not just Manila-was erected. I want to emphasize this initial and initiating fact as the constitutive element of difference between the Western conception of the city and the Philippine (in a sense peculiarly Third World) approach. UNLIKE THE WESTERN industrialized metropolis sprung from the eleventh-and twelfth-century burg (bourg, borough) of the nascent merchant class built in a circular pattern outside the walls of the medieval monastery or ecclesiastical enclave, the city of Manila (now Metro Manila, embracing Quezon City, the official capital, and adjacent suburbs and subcities) was "founded" by the Spanish conquistador Miguel L6pez de Legazpi on on the ruins of an Islamic settlement, the fortified hamlet of "Maynilad" ruled by two native rajahs.
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