Naturalizing fear through lullabies

We are a country always searching for heroes to a point that boxers and singers are bestowed the honor despite their losses and flat notes. We are desperate maybe because there are so few true heroes, with many of those we want to look up to actually just pretenders and products of historical fiction and revisionism.

But we are also a country that, in the name of harmony, silences those who would speak up. In our everyday encounters with power, the normal is the one who takes the blow in silence. It has always been problematic that despite the need for us to challenge the system, it is easier for people to accept things the way they are. This is not apathy. This is simple resignation and acceptance due to fear—fear of reprisal, fear of the unknown, fear of disturbing the peace, fear of the consequences.

And this is true not only among the less in power and life, but even more true for those who are privileged. In fact, I would argue that courage is even in higher supply among those who have nothing to lose than those who have lots at stake.

Even at university, at which liberal minds are supposed to thrive, we are always cautious not to rock the boat. It is saddening that many people have deep problems with the system, but remain silent, relying on those who have the courage (or stupidity, perhaps, or naiveté) to speak on their behalf. No wonder we have very few heroes and martyrs, even as oppressive and corrupt governments, administrations and leaders flourish with the tacit consent of the many.
    
Courage is supposed to be a virtue, but people choose to be afraid because fear is more convenient, and even personally rewarding.

We can always romanticize the Pinoy’s proclivity towards harmony, and elevate it as the norm that justifies silence and acceptance. We can root this in many different sources, in our Catholic upbringing that sees forgiveness as virtue, in addition to poverty.  But there is another domain which nurtures and naturalizes fear.

The domestic sphere of the home, as an ordinary space, may provide for insidious, yet seemingly innocent, mechanisms to constrain the production of courage. And this resides in the manner we deploy narratives of caring and nurturing embodied in seemingly innocent lullabies, games and songs.  

Our Pinoy lullabies that were supposed to lull us to sleep may seem innocent, but embedded in their texts are two dominant and threatening narratives: “baby, you better sleep or something bad will happen”; or, “baby, you have to sleep now since something bad has happened.”

Melancholy in some lullabies is associated with fear of separation. Take for example the Visayan lullaby that goes like this: “Ili ili, tulog anay, wala dire, imong nanay, kadto tienda, bakal papay, ili ili, tulog anay” [Sleep, baby sleep. You mother is not here. She is off to the store to buy bread.]  

There is even one Bikolano lullaby that is plainly morbid in its message when it avows that the consequence for being a bad child is for your parents to cut off your head and throw it in the lake, and hoping that they will later take pity and mercifully take back the decapitated head when they see it floating in the water (“Ay Nanay ay Tatay, kun ako maraot, pugutan nin payo, ibuntog sa lawod. Kun mahiling nindo na aanod-anod, ay nanay ay tatay, sapuda man tulos.”).

Imagine how babies would have reacted. In singing these songs, we in fact do not lull them to a comforting rest. We scare them to sleep!

However, Western narratives for lulling babies to sleep are also as guilty. One can just imagine the effect on a child of being lulled to sleep by a song about a baby being rocked in a cradle on a treetop, softly being told that there is a possibility that the treetop will break and the cradle will fall, babies and all. I vividly remember the distressed face of my eldest son when he was still a baby every time I sang this lullaby to him.

Even nursery rhymes are full of scary images of eggs falling from a wall and not being able to be made whole again, or of Jack and Jill falling down a hill. Many fables and fairy tales have a plethora of witches and ogres. The roots of these narratives were actually dark, a thought that crosses my mind when I think about the seemingly innocent rhyme about a ring of roses and a pocketful of posies being deeply rooted in the time of the Black Plague, when children really "fell down" after sneezing.

While a more systematic study has to be conducted on the possible effects of these lullabies, nursery rhymes and fairy tales on future citizenship, others have already gone further to recast some of these in more “politically correct” ways, such as writing children’s stories or re-writing popular fairy tales to give lessons about gender equality and critical thinking.

Maybe, the moment we begin to sing lullabies of courage, tell nursery rhymes of bravery, and read fairy tales of liberation, we will no longer be looking for heroes. In that dream world, doing heroic deeds would become the new normal. – GMA News