UNDERNEATH all of flowery words and ideals, it’s important to remember that one of the principal functions of a state is to impose, represent and sustain consensus. Getting the people (or at least the vast majority of people) to agree with the official state line is how states stay in power, and how they keep society stable.
But maintaining consensus is often easier said than done. Aside from the ever-present political divisions that exist in all societies, states also have to contend with religious, ethnic and local differences. You see, most complex societies are filled with various factions, and most of the time, such factions will resent one another – communist against capitalist, atheist against religious, straight against LGBT, and ethnic group A against ethnic group B.
Whenever these groups or factions feel the need to attack their opponents or engage in actions that threaten the consensus, states must step in to stop it. “Stopping” irate and noncompliant factions or groups can take on several forms. Historically states either appease them, expel them, marginalize them or, in some instances, exterminate them.
The Bangsamoro Organic Law is the state’s way of appeasing/accommodating/working with the Muslim minority in Mindanao, and maintaining state consensus. Of course, Muslim Mindanao is not the only threat to state consensus. There’s also the NPA but their opposition is ideological and economic rather than ethno-religious and economic, and most attempts at rapprochement with the left-wingers have failed.
Offering special rights and privileges (such as affirmative action for example) and/or autonomy are some of the ways that states maintain consensus when minority groups are irate or feel marginalized. Such measures are never perfect and their sustainability is often questionable but they work in the short term.
This brings us back to the Bangsamoro Organic Law. The new law will give Muslim majority areas in Mindanao extensive autonomy in all branches of government, with “57 exclusive powers for the Bangsamoro,” and “14 concurrent powers between the two (Bangsamoro and Government).”
The people who dwell in such places are also given the special status of “citizens who are believers in Islam and who have retained some or all of their own social, economic, cultural, and political institutions.”
Underneath all the legalese and debate, we have to recognize the Bangsamoro Organic Law for what it is – a form of compromise with a minority group that feels (and justifiably so) different from the mainstream and whose interests are, to a certain extent, viewed as incompatible with the state consensus.
Will the Bangsamoro Organic Law address the concerns and complaints of Muslim Mindanao; will it bring them into the national consensus? Or is it a stopgap measure designed to pacify an irate and angry minority group? Only time will tell.
Throughout history, governments have struggled to keep their minority groups into the fold. Some have been successful, while others have not. It all depends on the time, the place, the methods and the players. If the BOL is successful, Bangsamoro autonomy will be similar to the type of autonomy practiced in Switzerland. If not … well, we’ve all been there before, haven’t we?/PN
