Blackwell Reference Online

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Moro nationalism refers to the ideology or sentiment held by people who self-consciously and deliberately identify themselves as “Moros” as opposed to “Filipinos,” believe in and appeal to a history and culture distinct from that of the rest of the Philippines, and consequently demand independence or greater autonomy from the Philippine state. “Moro” identity was initially articulated by and designated for Muslims, who currently make up about 4 percent of the Philippine population, most of them in what is now the southwestern Philippines. Coming from three major and ten minor ethnolinguistic groups, they invoke Islam as the unifying collective marker to distinguish themselves from “Filipinos,” where a majority of the population is Christian. Moro nationalism has been embraced and advanced by a people who believe themselves to have been illegally and unjustly incorporated into what became the Philippines without their consent, whose lands and resources have been encroached upon and exploited by migrants, multinational corporations, and other outsiders as sponsored or allowed by the Philippine state, whose culture and traditions have been threatened by this state's assimilationist and centralizing policies, and who have become marginalized and dispossessed minorities within the Philippines and within the territory they consider to be their homeland. Prior to the formation and consolidation ... log in or subscribe to read full text