Literasy Ain't Everythin'

[Dayuhan]

Ultimately, I'd say the problem is that we stay there too long allowing both parties to try and encourage what they want. What we don't seem to do is go in, get done what we need to get done, and get out.

I can't argue with that; I've been saying it myself for way too many years.

[rant]
I've also pointed out, so many times that I feel like a broken 33 1/3 RPM long playing record (a relic from my past), that our problem is not that we don't understand insurgency or that we don't "get" COIN, our problem is our own obsessive desire to install governments in other countries. If we hadn't created governments we wouldn't have to deal with insurgency: other that the ones we created by installing governments, there's not an insurgency on the planet that we need to be directly involved with.
[/rant]

but my suggestions were based on the relatively simple case of what a national or local government should do in its own balliwick. However, I did not explicitly state that in my post.

I guess all of us should put a disclaimer in all of our posts - THIS POST DOES (DOES NOT) INVOLVE FOREIGN INTERVENTION.

There is a world of difference between that case and one where a foreign power intervenes under one or another of many guises....

A world of difference, yes, but also a world of similarity. When governments speak of "communication" with their own populace they are almost invariably discussing ways to bring their message to their populace and persuade them to believe it. It's a rare government indeed that sees communication as a two-way proposition, and that has any interest in listening to the message the populace is sending to it. This of course contributes to the desire of many populaces to reinforce the message by voting the bastards out and replacing them with a new set, or by blowing them up and replacing them with a new set, as circumstances and local tradition require.

Governing elites in many countries are effectively foreigners in much of their own territory, and have as little understanding of cultures that exist within their territory as foreigners... in some cases less. In these cases many of the same problems of comprehensibility and credibility that characterize foreign power efforts at communication are repeated.

I found an interesting example of national vs local constructs in your backyard when looking at the Cordillera - Evelyn J. Caballero, Traditional Artisanal Gold Mining Among the Kankana-ey and Their Current Concerns (2004). "Modernization" to and by US standards may cause more harm than good, especially when it ignores local standards which have been around for hundreds or thousands of years.

Interesting find... I'd thought that some of the areas discussed were Ibaloi rather than Kankanaey, but I'd have to ask someone who knows Benguet better than I do. In general the tribes in Benguet have been much less energetic and effective at resisting Manila's impositions than those farther north, and have consequently suffered rather more imposition.

Some of the conflicts arising form central government efforts to apply faraway laws in this area have bordered on the comical. Some years back it was revealed that according to the law all land of over 18% slope was supposed to be under the administration of the national government... which up here means literally everything. So far the law has not been applied to any great effect. We also have a fair bit of small scale mining in Mt Province, which so far has been managed according to (rapidly evolving) local custom rather than the dictates of Manila. An armed and notoriously prickly populace has its advantages.