Epilogue
Epilogue
A Friendship Written in Blood
This epilogue illustrates how the transformation of anti-imperial struggles into Cold War “fronts” enabled and legitimated the Philippine state's use of repression and coercion. As elsewhere, anticommunism in the Philippines was never simply about combating adherents to the communist cause; the widespread dissent and uprisings in the immediate postwar period challenged a U.S. foreign policy agenda that relied on the Philippines to serve as a model of “orderly” decolonization. In response, the Philippine government, with U.S. aid and support, enacted a campaign of state violence that equated dissent with disloyalty and cast alternative ideas regarding the political and economic direction of postindependence years outside the legal bounds of political debate. In effect, the state was not required to allow those who were deemed to be communists the same freedoms that a liberal state otherwise promised its citizens. In ways strikingly similar to those of the 1950s and the Marcos era, Philippine activists continue to face the reality of state-sanctioned political terrorism today.
Keywords: Philippines, anticommunism, dissent, U.S. foreign policy, decolonization, Philippine government, U.S. aid, state violence, Philippine activists, political terrorism
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