rizal life

JOSE RIZAL LIFE HISTORY

José Protacio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda (June 19, 1861 – December 30, 1896), was a Filipino nationalist, writer and revolutionary. He is widely considered the greatest national hero of the Philippines. He was the author of Noli Me Tángere, El Filibusterismo and a number of poems and essay.José Rizal also had Spanish and Japanese ancestors.

Jose Rizal was born to a wealthy family in Calamba, Laguna and was the seventh of eleven children.His parents were Francisco Engracio Rizal Mercado y Alejandro (1818–1897) and Teodora Morales Alonso y Quintos (1827-1911); whose family later changed their surname to "Realonda".

Rizal first studied under Justiniano Aquino Cruz in Biñan. As to his father's request, he took the entrance examination in Colegio de San Juan de Letran and studied there for almost three months.He then enrolled at the Ateneo Municipal de Manila and graduated as one of the nine students in his class declared sobresaliente or outstanding. He continued his education at the Ateneo Municipal de Manila and at the same time in University of Santo Tomas where he did take up a preparatory course in law.Upon learning that his mother was going blind, he decided to switch to medicine at the medical school of Santo Tomas specializing later in ophthalmology.Upon learning that his mother was going blind, he decided to switch to medicine at the medical school of Santo Tomas specializing later in ophthalmology.At Heidelberg, the 25-year-old Rizal, completed in 1887 his eye specialization under the renowned professor, Otto Becker.Rizal was a polymath and also a polyglot, conversant in twenty-two languages.

The lovers of Dr.Jose Rizal are:
1)Philippines:-Rizal's true love was no one else but his country. He couldn't belong to any woman or any family for he was meant for nobler things.
2) Josephine Bracken
3)Suzanne Jacoby
4) Nellie Boustead
5)Gertrude Beckett
6)O Sei San
7)Consuelo Ortiga y Rey
8) Leonor Rivera
9) Leonor Valenzuela
10) Segunda Catigbac y Solis

HIS BATTLE:
By 1896, the rebellion fomented by the Katipunan, a militant secret society, had become a full-blown revolution, proving to be a nationwide uprising. Rizal had earlier volunteered his services as a doctor in Cuba and was given leave by Governor-General Ramón Blanco to serve in Cuba to minister to victims of yellow fever. Rizal and Josephine left Dapitan on August 1, 1896 with letter of recommendation from Blanco. Rizal was arrested en route to Cuba via Spain and was imprisoned in Barcelona on October 6, 1896. He was sent back the same day to Manila to stand trial as he was implicated in the revolution through his association with members of the Katipunan. During the entire passage, he was unchained, no Spaniard laid a hand on him, and had many opportunities to escape but refused to do so.
While imprisoned in Fort Santiago, he issued a manifesto disavowing the current revolution in its present state and declaring that the education of Filipinos and their achievement of a national identity were prerequisites to freedom.Rizal was tried before a court-martial for rebellion, sedition, and conspiracy, was convicted on all three charges, and sentenced to death. Blanco, who was sympathetic to Rizal, had been forced out of office. The friars, led by then Archbishop of Manila Bernardino Nozaleda, had 'intercalated' Camilo de Polavieja in his stead, as the new Spanish Governor-General of the Philippines after pressuring Queen-Regent Maria Cristina of Spain, thus sealing Rizal's fate.

HIS DEATH:
Moments before his execution on December 30, 1896 by a squad of Filipino soldiers of the Spanish Army, a backup force of regular Spanish Army troops stood ready to shoot the executioners should they fail to obey orders. The Spanish Army Surgeon General requested to take his pulse: it was normal. His last words were those of Jesus Christ: "consummatum est",--it is finished. He was secretly buried in Pacò Cemetery in Manila with no identification on his grave.
In his last letter to his family he wrote: "Treat our aged parents as you would wish to be treated...Love them greatly in memory of me...December 30, 1896."[24] He gave his family instructions for his burial: "Bury me in the ground. Place a stone and a cross over it. My name, the date of my birth and of my death. Nothing more. If later you wish to surround my grave with a fence, you can do it. No anniversaries."

COMPARISON OF RIZAL LIFE AND GANDHIJI LIFE:
Rizal's advocacy of institutional reforms by peaceful means rather than by violent revolution makes him Asia's first modern non-violent proponent of political reforms. Forerunner of Gandhi and contemporary of Tagore and Sun Yat Sen, all four created a new climate of thought throughout Asia, leading to the attrition of colonialism and the emergence of new Asiatic nations by the end of World War II. Rizal's appearance on the scene came at a time when European colonial power had been growing and spreading, mostly motivated by trade, some for the purpose of bringing Western forms of government and education to peoples regarded as backward. Coinciding with the appearance of those other leaders, Rizal from an early age had been enunciating in poems, tracts and plays, ideas all his own of modern nationhood as a practical possibility in Asia. In the Nolihe stated that if European civilization had nothing better to offer, colonialism in Asia was doomed. Such was recognized by Gandhi who regarded him as a forerunner in the cause of freedom. Jawaharlal Nehru, in his prison letters to his daughter Indira, acknowledged Rizal's significant contributions in the Asian freedom movement. These leaders regarded these contributions as keystones and acknowledged Rizal's role in the movement as foundation layer.

Rizal, through his reading of Morga and other western historians, knew of the genial image of Spain's early relations with his people. In his writings, he showed the disparity between the early colonialists and those of his day, with the latter's atrocities giving rise to Gomburza and the Philippine Revolution of 1896. His biographer, Austin Coates, and writer, Benedict Anderson, believe that Rizal gave the Philippine revolution a genuinely national character; and that Rizal's patriotism and his standing as one of Asia's first intellectuals have inspired others of the importance of a national identity to nation-building.