After their loss in the Spanish-American War, Spain ceded multiple territories to the United States, including Puerto Rice, Guam, and the Philippines. The Philippines remained under American control until 1935. During their colonial rule, the Americans suppressed numerous native insurgencies. In his piece on Excremental Colonialism, Warwick Anderson discusses one of the major tools of American colonialism, bodily control. He argues that the control they exercised over bodies, specifically over the waste produced by those bodies, “legitimated and symbolized their social and political control” (Anderson, 643). I support this analysis, as the United States continues to employ this tactic today, both domestically and abroad.
The people of the Philippines desired independence long before they received it. The Americans had to find a way to exert authority over their newly acquired territory. Upon arriving in the Philippines, Americans found a civilization very unlike their own, or in their eyes, a lack of civilization altogether. Dr. Henry du Rest Phelan found Surigao to be a “picturesque” site but noted that is was “all more or less filthy” (Anderson, 645). He quickly began a “crusade against filth” which bore immediate positive results on the surface, but during which the mortality rate in the region actually increased (Anderson, 646). The crusade’s intention all along could be interpreted not as an effort to improve the health and wellness of the Filipino people, but as a way to force them to conform to American influence.
Approaches to waste evacuation are still part of the standard by which Americans judge other civilizations. Consider the Turkish/Squatting vs Western toilet debate. Squatting toilets are the norm in many nations around the world. To the untrained eye, they may appear as holes in the ground. While this is inaccurate, it becomes a measure by which western tourists gauge the “safety” or “cleanliness” of a possible destination. Just last summer, while preparing to travel to Morocco, I encountered the problem of the squatting toilet. I had never used (or even seen) one before, but the warnings disguised as advice that I received in the weeks leading up to the trip caused a lot of anxiety. Upon arrival, we were relieved to find that all of our homestays had ‘regular’ toilets.
This exposes yet again the bias that both American colonialists and modern Westerners hold against alternative forms of knowing, particularly knowing that comes from a non-White or non-European perspective. There is nothing inherently wrong with using a squatting toilet. In fact, some health professionals suggest that this position may be more natural for humans expelling waste and may help combat hemorrhoids and constipation. While the scientific evidence is scant, the notion has resonated with many Americans, contributing to the economic success of the Squatty Potty (Barclay). This simple device (which retails at around $35) achieves the same end as a squatting toilet, through a different (western) thought process. This could be viewed as an admission of error, but the typical ‘westerner’ continues to fear the squatting toilet, so the rest of the world’s tourist locations continue to bend to that will.
Similarly, the first Americans that arrived in the Philippines never intended to understand or even improve the Filipino way of life. Imperialists viewed the Filipino people as “trained baboons” (Anderson, 648) and “like so many children” in need of strong leadership (Anderson, 646). The recent war and social disruption had little bearing on their impression of Filipino society nor did any potential knowledge already held by Filipino health professionals. All that mattered was finding a tool for bending them to the American will. The tool, both in the 20th and 21st centuries, takes the form of waste.
Sources
Anderson, Warwick. “Excremental Colonialism: Public Health and the Poetics of Pollution.” Critical Inquiry, vol. 21, no. 3, 1995, pp. 640–669. JSTOR.
Barclay, Eliza. “For Best Toilet Health: Squat Or Sit?” NPR, NPR, 28 Sept. 2012, http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2012/09/20/161501413/for-best-toilet-health-squat-or-sit.
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