Moro Attire

[The O]

Sorry. I wasn't trying to be offensive. I was just interested in the culture. But I'm not one who wants to disrespect a person's religion.

[Crucible]

Check your PM.

[The O]

I just found out today that M*** was actually a very bad word. Sorry for any Muslims that I have offended.

[eXcessiveForce]

Moro
Encyclopædia Britannica Article

Page 1 of 1



in the Philippines, any of several Muslim peoples of Mindanao, Palawan, the Sulu Archipelago, and other southern islands. Constituting about 5 percent of the Philippine population, they can be classified linguistically into 10 subgroups: the Maguindanao of North Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, and Maguindanao provinces; the Maranao of Lanao del Norte and Lanao del Sur provinces; …



I dunno about being a bad word, but it is a language, and apparently there is the moro liberation front, and seems to be a broad term in the philippines.

What is it supposed to mean?

[The O]

It's similar to calling a black guy the N word.

[thekuntawman]

i am a filipino muslim, and the word "moro" does not offend me. i have friends who are muslim also, and none of us is offended by that word.

who says that "moro" is a bad word? i have only heard it on the internet forums

[adacas]

I have a question as well about where a person can find some traditional filipino clothing. I know all the groups have their own thing but i am curious as to where a person could get their hands on them (without goind to philipines) and if not then where I can get some examples of what they look like. I would like to put together some wardrobes that could be worn to seminars or what not as show.

[Crucible]

kuntawman, are you pilipino and became muslim or are you from one of the 13 ethnolinguistic muslim peoples from Mindanao, Palawan and Sulu. There is a diffrence.

I personally do not have a opinion on this matter, but I do know that its a mixed issue and FilAms and pilipino's from the northern and central Philipines may not be present to some the intricacies that exist for muslims from the southern P.I. I myself am not fully educated the intricacies, but I have a sense of who spoke to "the O" and informed him about the apropriateness of the term moro and I trust their judgment. Myself if I were to go back and look at all my posts previously I probably use the term often and when I recently perused my texts and reference materials never once do I find an indigenous person from the southern P.I. refer to themselves as "moro". Looking through the works of Prof. Nagasura Madale of Mindanao state univeristy and the Maranao tribe or Prof. Samual Tan also of MSU and the Sama people, In my extensive library its only foriegners and pilipinos from the central and northern P.I. that refer to the people of the southern P.I. as moros, never an indigenous muslim from the south themselves.

Now, there has been effort from groups such as the MNLF and MILF to embrace the term to consolidate the muslim pilipino identity(such as in the term bangsamoro, the moro nation), but only they can speak for themselves. So I ask that you google their respective websites and see what they themselves have to say regarding the word moro. I may cut and paste some articles.

[Espada_y_daga]

It's similar to calling a black guy the N word.

Please post some sources on this, as I have never heard of any problems with the word "Moro".

If what you say is true, then every FMA book and article has plenty of offensive words.

Ditto for every history of the Philippine-American War of 1899-1913.

[The O]

Filipino Muslims are allowed to call each other that word. However, they beat up foreigners who call them the "M" word.

There's a story of a Northern Filipino guy who learned FMA during WWII. He was bragging to everyone how he new "Moro Techniques". The minute he said that to a Muslim, he was beaten within an inch of his life.

[Espada_y_daga]

Filipino Muslims are allowed to call each other that word. However, they beat up foreigners who call them the "M" word.

There's a story of a Northern Filipino guy who learned FMA during WWII. He was bragging to everyone how he new "Moro Techniques". The minute he said that to a Muslim, he was beaten within an inch of his life.

I'll ask you again--what are your sources for all of this?

[Espada_y_daga]

It's similar to calling a black guy the N word.

Really?

Let's see what ol' Webster's Dictionary says...

Moro

1. (Ethnol.) A member of any of the Moros, a group one of various tribes of the southern Phillippine Islands, mostly Malays adhering to Mohammedanism.

2. (Linguistics) Any of the languages of the Moro people, of the Austronesian language family.

I'm not seeing any indication above of the term Moro being considered "vulgar" or "offensive", and modern dictionaries usually list pertinent stuff like that.

[thekuntawman]

crucible,

i am born a muslim, even though i didnt grow up in mindanao. my moms native language was not tagalog, but that is not important. what is important, is that people do not worry about small things like that. so we are called moro. we are also called "mohammadan" by so called scholars (as if we worship the prophet muhammad, which is not true). i think you will probably find muslims who do not like to be called, moro, but they are probably educated, and sometimes educated like to come up with ideas that make them look smarter. but they do not speak for the rest of us. i think i am more offended by somebody calling me mohammadan than moro, since mohammadan shows an ignorance about my religion, and moro is just another language for , muslim.

[The O]

I'll ask you again--what are your sources for all of this?

Personal experience. On a recent trip to Mindanao, I asked my relatives if we were going to see any Moros. They were a bit shocked after I said that word and told me to be quiet. They said that Moro was a derogatory term for Muslim people and many will be quite offended if you call them that. My dad further explained it to me and said that it promoted a stereotype that Filipino Muslims were bandits, pirates, and outlaws in general. Muslims could call each other Moros all the time, but they don't like it when foreigners call them that word.

Also, that story I posted earlier was posted by a member of another forum regarding the whole "Moro" debate.

[Crucible]

Please post some sources on this, as I have never heard of any problems with the word "Moro".

If what you say is true, then every FMA book and article has plenty of offensive words.

Ditto for every history of the Philippine-American War of 1899-1913.

These are exerpts from "A History of Sulu" from the "The Muslim World" and "Muslim Rulers and Rebels, Everyday Politics and Armed Separatism in the Southern Philippines". Italics are mine. Paragraphs are from diffrent passages and may have some redundancy. Whats interesting is that apparently in the late 1960's it was the educated muslim elite that spearheaded the use of the term "moro" for Muslim Filipino identity.

Throughout the course of American rule in the Philippines, a particular set of policies was formulated in reference to a category of colonial subjects denominated as “Moros.” Although official American attitudes toward Philippine Muslims lacked the holy war complex that prompted the Spanish use of that designation (and despite the fact that the term was well established as a pejorative among Philippine Christians), American authorities adopted the usage “Moro,” with all of its conglomerating and epithetic connotations, as the exclusive term of reference for the entire thirteen Muslim ethnolinguistic groups of the Philippines. It is nearly impossible to find in official documents, any clear indication of the distinct histories and cultures possessed by the various subject peoples designated as “Moros.”

In a scholarly paper (entitled the Moros in the Phlippines) published in 1945 on the eve of full formal independence, Kuder looked back on his accomplishments. He observes initially that the term “Moro” is an exotic label affeixed by Europeans to Philippine Muslims in general and one not used among them. He also notes, echoing Saleeby, that more than three centuries of Spanish hostility had failed to bring about an overall alliance among the separate Muslim societies of the Philipppines. There follows a revelatory passage: “Within the decade and a half preceding the Japanese invasion of the Philippines increasing numbers of young Moros educated in the public schools and collegiate institutions of the Philippines and employed in the professions and activities of modern democratic culture had taken to referring to themselves as Mohammedan Filipinos”.

That at least some of Kuder’s student referred to themselves as Mohammedans is attested to by the formation of the “Mindanao and Sulu Muhammedan Students’ Association,“ a small organization composed of Philippine Muslim students at the University of Manilla.

“Moro” was, as we have seen, the term used by Spanish colonizers to refer to the local Muslim societies that resisted Spanish attempts to establish hegemony in the southern Philippines. The term survived as a pejorative among Christian Filipinos primarily through the cultural institution of the “moro-moro,” a from of folk theater in which Christian heroes battled Moro villains, who were depicted as cruel barbarous pirates. Rebel ideolagues, led by Nur Misuari, transformed the epithet into a positive symbol of national identity. Moros were depicted as the first nationalists of the Philippines, an entity whose very name denotes a colonized people. “Moro not Filipino” became a slogan of the rebellions.

"The negative compliments that the Sulus got from the colonizers are part of the negative “Moro image.” This psychological image, expressed in such phrases as “a good Moro is a dead Moro” was inculcated in the minds of the Christianized native allies of the Spaniards as a strategy to make them hate and distrust the Philippine Muslims. Thus, in the popular Filipino mind, “Moro” came to connote people who were regarded as ignorant, treacherous, savage, polygamous, slave holders, pirates and unlovely individuals. At first the Muslims took issue with the label “Moros” but as scholarship proved that there was no historical and factual bases for such negative associations, many Muslims proudly claim the Moro identity as reminder of the glorious and heroic past and as symbol of love for freedom and homeland. “Moro” has been promoted by the MNLF as a designation overriding the old group designations of Muslim ethnic groups in the Philippines. Unfortunately, to many, if not most Christian Filipinos the negative Moro image continues to persist. This negative image often defined their relationship with the Muslims. Similarly, such a negative Moro image is reciprocated with a negative Christian image in the minds of the Muslims."

“Moro” (or “Moor”) was the appellation applied to all the Muslim populations of Southeast Asia by the Portuguese who seized Melaka in 1511. It was the same label used by the Spanish conquerors of the northern Philippines. With their Reconquista of Muslim Spain a recent collective memory, the Spaniards in Manila regarded the Southern sultanates and beheld Moros-familiar Muslim enemies. “Moro” denoted a Muslim inhabitant of the unsubjugated southern islands. It was applied categorically and pejoratively with scant attention paid to linguistic or political distinctions among various “Moro” societies. While, for instance, eighteenth-century British and Dutch chroniclers most often refer to sea raiders from Cotabato as “Iranun” or Illano”, contemporaneous Spanish reports virtually always denominate them as “Moros”.
The Spaniards referred to the non-Muslim inhabitants of the Philippines as “indios,” a term that eventually came to designate the subjugated and Christianized populace. For indios-the principal victims of “Moro” marauders-the term “Moro” connoted savage and treacherous pirates

(regarding Islamic Identity in the New Republic)
It was an Identity founded upon the Spanish Ascription “Moro” (or Philippine Muslim) but, as the term “Moro” remained a pejorative among Philippine Christians, the most common alternative denomination became “Muslim Filipino,” connoting a Muslim citizen of the new (or soon-to-be) Philippine nation.

The Jabidah Massacre provided both provocation and metaphor. Philippine Muslims who had volunteered to serve the republic had been deceived, exploited, and treacherously murdered by Christian agents of the state. Efforts by Muslims to contribute to the Philippine nation as Muslims were repaid with abuse and betrayal. Misuari and other young Muslim activists saw only one proportionate response: Philippine Muslims had to “separate themselves from those whom they [were] materially disadvantaged”-they must proclaim themselves a “new people”. The separatist intellectuals rejected their ascribed hyphenated identities as Muslim-Filipinos (Muslim citizens of the Philippine nation) and proclaimed themselves “Moros.” In a bold piece of semantic alchemy they appropriated and transfigured a colonial and Christian pejorative to denominate the citizens of their newly imagined nation. Henceforth, “Moro” would denote the descendants of those unsubjugated peoples whom the Spaniards and their colonized subjects feared and distrusted.

The residents of Campo Muslim were generally familiar with the nationalist rhetoric of the rebellion, but even after years of appeals to Bangsamoro nationhood continued to denominate themselves either as “Muslims,” which was also the term used by the local Christians to refer to them, or by the name of their particular ethnolinguistic group, rather than identify themselves as “Moros.”