Eternal man

AN OUTSIDERS VIEW

Ken Fuller

03/31/2009

I n 1976, a Soviet writer called Evgeny Bogat published a book called Eternal Man. In this, he wrote of the importance of saying “No” to those who would have us confirm their superstition or dogma and, in so doing, deny everything for which we stand.

He gives three examples — all of them, ironically, religious figures. Jan Hus, the Bohemian religious thinker was, for his so-called heresy, burned at the stake by the Roman Catholic Church in 1415. Giordano Bruno, who argued that Christianity was irrational, having no scientific basis, was lured back to his native Italy and dragged before the Inquisition. As he was burned at the stake in 1600, he rejected the crucifix that was offered him. Some of us might take the view that Bogat’s other example is inconsistent, being that of a man on the “wrong side of history”: Thomas More who, refusing to swear to the acts formalizing Henry VIII’s break with Rome, was found guilty of treason and beheaded in 1535.

Bogat writes as follows. “Jan Hus was already on the pyre when, before lighting the straw, they for the last time demanded of him a renunciation, promising his life in return. He answered: “No!”

“‘No’ – so Thomas More answered too. And Giordano Bruno. And thousands of unknown rebels, mutineers and heretics have answered ‘no’ to inquisitors, kings, executioners. ‘No’ — not to the world, but to the inhuman forces in the world. This ‘no’ is perhaps the greatest thing in the ‘phenomenon of man.’ It is easier to part with life than with conscience. Because conscience is mankind within you. Renouncing it, you renounce immortality.”

Does this have anything to do with Bill Pomeroy? Well, of course it does, because he spent his life saying “No.”

In the 1930s, Bill looked at — and, of course experienced — an economic system that, even in a developed country, could cause widespread misery, and he said “No.”

The young Bill Pomeroy said “No” to the conformist life in Rochester, New York and joined a small band of fellow-nonconformists in seeking an alternative form of society — among them Pete Seeger, who would go on to achieve international acclaim as a progressive folk-singer.

During the war, as a serviceman in the Philippines, Bill said “Yes” to liberation but “No” to Douglas MacArthur’s mission of reconquest, making contact with the communist-led Hukbalahap guerrillas and rendering them whatever assistance he could.

After the war, he said “No” to what could have been a comfortable life in the USA and returned to the Philippines. Here, he said “No” to the half-independence allowed this country by the rulers of his own, and in 1950 he and his wife Celia Mariano volunteered for further discomfort by joining the Huk Rebellion.

After they were captured two years later, Bill was made a similar offer to that extended to Jan Hus and Giordano Bruno: Renounce your views and we’ll repatriate you to the USA. He looked Defense Secretary Magsaysay in the eye and told him “No, I prefer to remain where I am.” And when he said that, Pomeroy was talking about more than geography.

Throughout the 10 years that followed, various attempts were made — by Bible-punchers, renegade communists and intelligence officers — to get him to recant, but every time the answer was the same: “No!” But let’s not forget that the same techniques were used on his Filipino comrades, and almost without exception they also said “No!”

Come 1962, it was the turn of the Philippine and US governments to say “No.” To Bill, Malacañang said, “No, Mr. Pomeroy, you cannot stay here,” while Washington told Celia, “No, Mrs. Pomeroy, our door is barred.” So they ended up in London, where Bill lived for the rest of his life, writing on the Philippines, Africa, the Soviet Union.

During those years, Bill kept on saying “No” to all the things he’d rejected during the first half of his life, and he probably added a few new ones. Vanity would have been one of them. In the 20 years I knew Bill, I never once heard him utter a boastful note, even though he had plenty to boast about. It was only three years ago that I came across the information that the 1960s folk-singer Phil Ochs, after meeting Bill and jotting down a few notes, wrote and recorded a song called “Celia.” And that Pete Seeger, having known Bill since the 1930s, had introduced Ochs to him. Bill just never talked about these things.

It was Ken Biggs, a mutual friend who died a few years ago in Prague, who introduced me to Bill. “Like many great men,” Ken told me at the time, “Bill is very modest.”

There were two aspects to the greatness of William Pomeroy. In the Philippines, his greatness was also the greatness of thousands of Filipinos, who believed in, and struggled for, the same things as him, often at much greater cost. In the country of his birth, he is also one of a pantheon of greats.

Recently, I told an American friend that many of the people I admire are American, but they’re the kind of Americans that would still leave the average conservative with the mistaken impression that I’m anti-American. Among others, I had in mind John Reed, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Agnes Smedley, Jack London, W.E.B. Dubois, Theodore Dreiser and Mark Twain. And William Pomeroy. By and large, they all said “No” — and “Yes” — to the same things.

By never wavering in his commitment to the uplifting of humanity, Bill is, to those in Asia, America, Europe and Africa who knew either him or his work, an “eternal man.”

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This outsider delivered the following address at a memorial tribute to the late William Pomeroy at the University Hotel, UP, on March 29.

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