Competing nationalisms, tactical alliances: The Communist Party of the Philippines’ stance on the Bangsamoro struggle during the anti-Marcos resistance

Abstract

ABSTRACT Focusing on hostile relations between Muslims and Christians, most accounts of secessionism in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao leave out the revolutionary solidarity expressed by a non-Muslim force, the Filipino communist movement, toward the Bangsamoro struggle. Despite their common beginnings during the upsurge of radical struggles during the Global Sixties, historical narratives of the two armed groups are usually discussed separately in the historiography of the martial law period in the Philippines (1972–1986). Using Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) documents from the University of the Philippines Main Library’s Philippine Radical Papers archive, this article interrogates the CPP’s stance on the Bangsamoro struggle as led in the main by the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) during the years of the anti-dictatorship resistance. Despite embracing competing nationalisms based on opposed understandings of the character of the Bangsamoro struggle, the CPP endeavored to build tactical alliances in the face of a common enemy in the Marcos dictatorship. Amid the persistence of neocolonial conditions in much of the Global South and rise of neofascist nationalisms today, this vision of solidarity offers important lessons for contemporary struggles on the limits and potentials of “Third World” nationalisms that emerged during the Global Sixties.