Karara sa Dempas: The Importance of Understanding Cultural Heritages and How It Can Make BARMM More Peaceful and Progressive
By Alyanna Fatmah Barapantao
“What does Karara sa Dempas mean, mother?” was the first question I had to ask when I was viewing the picture on which I was going to write a photo essay. As I asked that question, embarrassment dawned in my system, as I never thought that I had so much to learn and so much to unlearn. “Karara sa Dempas is a tangible cultural heritage done by our forefathers, most especially by women, and is still practiced right now, which is a livelihood. It means weaving mats,” was what my mother told me after my inquiry. How ironic. I am a proud female youth whose values and cores center on contributing to the betterment of my community, specifically in the BARMM region, yet I did not know anything about it. I was about to give up writing an essay when I had an epiphany. This ignorance of mine on matters should not hinder my advocacy to uplift the Bangsamoro, and despite my lacking knowledge on some aspects of our cultures and traditions, it should signify that I have to strengthen my understanding and not completely give up instead. For even if I am a single person, I too can create a ripple effect in our environment that can fully impact progress and help sustain the peace we have now in the Bangsamoro.
I can write an essay pretending to know about sustainable livelihood and insinuate how it affected my life and, surely, how it affects society. However, I will be genuine and take a different route, as I believe that the voice and angle that I am going to take in this essay do not only represent me but thousands of youths who do not know about Karara sa Dempas and may doubt their level of “pagiging Moro.” Instead, I am going to write passionately about this “cultural and educational deficit” problem that seems to be rampant in the BARMM and how, if we do not partake in addressing it, then we will never attain the Bangsamoro that we all desire. If we do not give these cultural heritages value, like the Kararag sa Dempas, then it will only push us to the opposite of cultural preservation, which will make us lose our Moro identity. Lastly, I will also talk about how only by looking back at our history as we trace the important cultural heritages around the BARMM can we truly achieve the real definition of a region with maximum peace and progress.
One root problem that exists is what I described in my first paragraph. Just because I lacked understanding on a certain matter, I almost gave up on my advocacy as the question “Is my advocacy even real if I do not fully grasp it all?” entered my body. This is what most Moro people experience. Their goal to help and support BARMM’s mission and vision is missing because they think that they cannot do it because they lack a minor understanding. They do not even try. It is rooted in their lack of trust in themselves, and I believe this is one of the biggest problems that we are battling right now. The more people don’t try to trace our pertinent history, the more the “cultural educational deficit” increases. The greater the “cultural educational deficit,” the more we lose understanding and love for the Bangsamoro struggle, transition, and, well, patriotism towards our region. That is why it needs to be discussed and addressed more, starting with ourselves. by absorbing the idea that learning takes time and does not go into you in one take. That we must continue our advocacy, which is to support BARMM, is not easy. It is the opposite: arduous. What matters is that no matter how hard we stumble in this journey, we pick ourselves up.
The reason why it is imperative for us to know more about cultures and traditions around the BARMM region and why we should continue to do so is due to the fact that culture is a way of life; it includes cultural conventions, rituals, and lifestyles and shapes how we, the Moros, act and think. It is essential to our sense of social and personal identity. It provides the social fabric that holds us together; it is essential to social cohesion and stable economic conditions.
Our cultural history is crucial to maintaining our current way of life. If we fail to preserve it, we fail to preserve our identity as Moro as well. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the Moro people as a whole to protect our historical records by learning more about them, giving them more value, and in other ways. The preservation can be accomplished in many ways, such as by protecting ourselves and others, teaching our own children to practice the customs and beliefs of our ancestors, and instructing them to continue passing them on to future generations, by raising and spreading awareness of our cultures, traditions, and practices, gathering and disseminating information through the media, including newspapers, magazines, seminars, and lectures, providing formal and informal cultural heritage education in our schools, and participating in and organizing significant events like festivals, carnivals, cultural activities, and competitions.
By connecting what I think about cultural heritages and how they can help us become more active citizens and understanding also existing livelihoods like Karara sa Dempas, we can build on a network of interdependent functional interactions in which each member of the social system is important and involved. I have realized that this type of livelihood, which is done by beautiful and strong women, offers purposeful labor that meets the social, economic, cultural, and spiritual needs of all community members—human and nonhuman, present and future—and protects biological and cultural diversity. I also have the realization that if we continue to speak up about these amazing livelihoods, we can promote equity in the access to and distribution of money and resources, in the sharing of productive and reproductive roles, and in the transmission of knowledge and skills in order to create sustainable lives. Furthermore, it can encourage local investment in the neighborhood and aid in capital retention within the regional economy, produce social as well as economic benefits, value both paid and unpaid labor, and offer safe access to opportunities and worthwhile participation in group activities. While some view these jobs as miniscule, they are very valuable for a lot of reasons, and in order to do our jobs also in patriotizing them, we should continue to study about them, speak up about them, and never give up in our advocacy, which is to help the BARMM region.
As we see, understanding and being able to analyze past history gives us the knowledge we need to recognize patterns in the present that could otherwise go unnoticed. Understanding the immense complexity of our region through its history would help one deal with the opportunities and problems of the present and future better. It can help us dream more and act upon these dreams to sustain peace in the Bangsamoro region and, of course, make progress. After all, history has an impact on our sense of who we are.
To sum up, historical investigation is crucial to the growth of the elusive informed citizenry, which is us, the Moros. It provides basic factual knowledge on the background of our political institutions as well as on the ideas and concerns that have an effect on the health of the BARMM region. Additionally, it improves our capacity for assessing interpretations, making use of data, and evaluating change and continuity. We lack the vision to accomplish this, but we can begin in that direction by forming historical mental habits through tracing cultural heritages, which will improve our performance as Moros. That is why the essence and uniqueness of this essay are high, for it talks not just about one cultural heritage, but about a root problem and how, through addressing this root problem, we can achieve the Bangsamoro we desire with its active and participating Moros. To end, our regional identity is mirrored in the historical accounts we choose to tell, so it is ours to speak, it is ours to study, and it is ours to treasure. All for a better Bangsamoro.