Salamat Hashim: Planting the Seeds of Jihad

More than any other Moro leader, Salamat Hashim reawakened the Islamic consciousness of the Moro people. He made them proud of their identity. He gave them a vision.

By CARLOS H. CONDE

DAVAO CITY – In the end, no amount of demonization by the Arroyo regime could obscure the greatness of Salamat Hashim. His people poured out their respect and admiration. Fellow revolutionaries hailed his steadfastness and loyalty to the revolution. Even government functionaries admitted, either grudgingly or hypocritically, that he had been a worthy adversary.

Not bad for a Moro leader who, only three months ago, was roundly labeled and disparaged by the government as a terrorist.

Taking over as the new MILF chairman is Al Haj Murad who has also headed the Front’s military component, Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces (BIAF).

Hashim, who died of natural causes on July 13 at age 61, had been the reclusive chairman of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). He rarely gave interviews or made public appearances. But his presence in Moro society was always palpable.

“More than any other Moro leader, Hashim reawakened the Islamic consciousness of the people. He made us proud of our identity. He gave us a vision,” said Moner Bajunaid, an Islamic scholar who had been a member of the MILF’s negotiating panel. And Hashim stuck with that vision through the end.

Pragmatic leader

Born in 1942 to an upper middle-class family in Maguindanao, Hashim was educated in Islamic studies and philosophy in Egypt. It was there that he became politicized, ending up forming, along with Nur Misuari, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF). Both also came from the same career they chose to lead before they went full-time as revolutionaries: Hashim as a teacher and Misuari, who taught political science at the University of the Philippines.

While Hashim was deeply religious, he was also pragmatic. When, in 1976, the MNLF was negotiating with the Marcos regime, Hashim had reservations. That year, Misuari signed the Tripoli Agreement drafted by the Marcos regime. By signing the agreement, Misuari basically allowed the subordination of the Moro revolution by the Philippine Constitution, which was what the Moro revolutionaries were rebelling against to begin with. Hashim thought signing the agreement was foolish.

When interviewed by journalist Carolyn Arguillas in April 2000, Hashim expounded on his differences with Misuari: “I did not like the idea of negotiating within the framework of Constitution. I said once we agree, we can’t move anymore because whatever we say, government will just say it’s against the Constitution. Another thing was I did not like the idea of the Tripoli Agreement (because) if we look at the territory covered by the Tripoli Agreement, it was not practical because it covers areas now no longer dominated by the native inhabitants/Bangsamoro so I believed it was not practical. It covered Davao. Davao was no longer dominated by the Bangsamoro.” Hashim told Arguillas that he wanted to cover “only the territories/areas where the Bangsamoro people were still a majority.”

Two years later, Hashim, along with like-minded revolutionaries, broke away from the MNLF, the first Muslim separatist organization, to form a group that later came to be known as the MILF. Misuari went on to deal with the government, signing in 1996 the so-called Final Peace Agreement that, ironically, spelled the doom of Misuari and boosted the MILF.

After Hashim’s death, Arguillas wrote: “The course of history could have changed had Hashim’s point been considered. But he was outvoted. Misuari’s idea prevailed, he recalled, because ‘majority of those who were around in Tripoli were his friends.’ If his suggestion had been followed in 1976, ‘something could have been achieved.’” Misuari is now in prison, after allegedly leading an uprising in southern Philippines early last year.

Searching for solutions

Although the MILF hews closely to Islamic principles, it nevertheless wants nothing less than a separate Islamic state for the Moros. “Give us back the freedom and independence, which were forcibly usurped from our people, and there will be just and lasting peace in Mindanao. It is as simple as that,” Hashim said in an interview with an Islamic publication 2001.

And if attaining a separate Islamic state requires considering options other than armed struggle, Hashim and the MILF seemed to be saying, so be it.