NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

During this past research trip to the Tohoku Region of Japan with the Popoki Peace Project there was one visual constant as we traveled the most significantly affected disaster areas. In Chamorro, odda', in English, dirt.

On March 11, 2011 a huge earthquake struck Japan and caused a meltdown in the Fukushima nuclear power plant, causing radiation to blanket areas even one hundred miles away. Although the areas of compulsory evacuation were much smaller than the areas that were significantly affected, you could still see signs, even four years later of how the radiation have infected the land and threatened populations.  Some areas the Japanese government says it will try to move people back to within the next few months, others a few years, other areas may take decades or centuries before they are "safe" for human habitation again. The earthquake also led to a huge tsunami which battered hundreds of miles of coast and destroyed the coastal areas of several cities and t…

The documentary "War for Guam" premiered last month across the US and its territories. There were two showings of it on the local PBS Guam, KGTF. It was incredibly exciting to see this documentary finally be finished, as I first worked on it more than 10 years ago while a graduate student in Micronesian Studies at UOG. I was hired as the local producer who set up the interviews and locations. I cannot help by feel a heavy dose of nostalgia as I watched the documentary and recalled so many moments in the production. Part of the nostalgia was feeling the loss of several individuals who were gracious enough to participate in the film, but who passed away before they could ever see it finished. In this moment as I am writing I find it difficult to even type their names down. A flood of moments during the production and beyond race down to my fingertips, causing my fingers to pause and lock.

On June 15th at 6 pm at UOG, in the CLASS Lecture Hall the Chamorro Studies program will…

I'm up late trying to finish my talk for tomorrow at the Marianas History Conference at UOG.

The title of my talk is "Jumping the Fence" and it is an evaluation of the impact that Nasion Chamoru and its first Maga'lahi Angel Santos has had on contemporary Guam. I outline a number of changes that they helped to facilitate in terms of culture and politics.

Jumping the fence is a metaphor for decolonization and it refers to the infamous incident when Angel Santos, Ed Benavente and several others jumped the fence at former Naval Air Station, or what is today known as "Tiyan." They did this right in front of media and military police, and when they were arrested Santos spat in the face of one of his captors. It was a moment that defined Nasion Chamoru for many people in a negative sense, but can also play a big role in helping us understand just how much they changed the island with their activism.

My favorite line thus far in my presentation is as follows:

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I've just been invited to go back to Okinawa later this month to speak at a conference at Okinawa International University. April 28 is a very big anniversary across Japan, because it is the day that in 1952 Japan recovered their sovereignty after being occupied by the US during World War II. While it is an important day to commemorate for most of Japan in Okinawa it is a bittersweet occasion and one that helps highlight their colonial history in relation. Despite all the rhetoric of Okinawa being part of Japan, on April 28, 1952 it was given over to the United States, who governed it as their military colony until 1972. For most Japanese the 28th would be a day to unify and to reflect on the way they moved forward and left behind their history of imperialism and loss, but for Okinawans it is a day reminding them of the lies that have always claimed their inclusion and the right to determine and control them, but which have led to them always being treated differently.

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Although Okinawa is a small island, like anywhere, distances are relative. Although to get from one end to the other is far easier than getting from one end of California to another, or one end of Greenland to another, southern and central areas of the island are distinct and detached in many ways from the less densely populated and more natural northern forests. For the past six years there has been a protest camp in Takae in Higashi village in Yanbaru Forest. The camp consists of several barricades in front of the entrances to US military training areas where they are currently building six helipads. Because this area is "far" away from the island's population centers, the protest gets less attention.

I wanted to help publicize the continuing struggle of the villagers in Takae, and so below I'm uploading several pictures.

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Articles on the brutal crackdown in Gaza by Israel from the website Common Dreams. 

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Published on Monday, November 19, 2012 by the Independent/UK
Journalistic Cliches: 'Surgical Air Strikes', 'Rooting Out Terror', and 'Cyber-Terrorism' Cannot Conceal Reality by Robert Fisk Terror, terror, terror, terror, terror. Here we go again. Israel is going to “root out Palestinian terror” – which it has been claiming to do, unsuccessfully, for 64 years – while Hamas, the latest in “Palestine’s” morbid militias, announces that Israel has “opened the gates of hell” by murdering its military leader, Ahmed al-Jabari.

Hezbollah several times announced that Israel had “opened the gates of hell” for attacking Lebanon. Yasser Arafat, who was a super-terrorist, then a super-statesman – after capitulating on the White House lawn – and then became a super-terrorist again when he realized he’d been conned by Camp David; he, too waffled on about the “gate…

The conservative echo chamber on Guam isn’t very large but it is very persistent. Guam doesn’t really have a Fox News that can pound into our heads everyday a consistent, hateful terrifying public ideology. Some Chamorros say that K57 News and talk radio plays that role, but this isn’t really true. K57 has the interesting role of being fairly liberal in a national context, but fairly conservative in a local context. K57, like most media on Guam is pretty inconsistent in its messaging. 

Even though there is no mecca for this conservative echo chamber it still exists. This network exists through the collection of certain events, figures and signifiers. Over time this collection gains strength and loses strength. These signifiers can at certain moments achieve a potent and undeniable aura, and other times bleed insignificance.
This collection doesn’t exist for the same reason that conservative networks exist in the states. In Guam what pumps life into this network, what makes it fee…

I have been to Okinawa twice over the past year. The first time last November for the Japan Peace Conference and then earlier this year in May, where I traveled with Ed Alvarez (director of the Commission on Decolonization) and former Guam Senator Marilyn Manibusan on a solidarity trip to meet with Okinawans interested in discussing decolonization. I saw so many things, meggai lini'e'-hu guihi, but one image that has stayed with me is a military fence covered in brightly colored ribbons. 

The fence in question was part of Camp Schwab near Henoko Bay in Northeastern Okinawa. It is the site of a proposed expansion of US facilities in the island and so it has been a site for regular protest and resistance as well. In order to secure the closing of Futenma in Ginowan City, a base that lies right in the middle of a crowded urban area, the US required that their bases in the north of the island be expanded to make up for the loss of their facility. As part of this proposed realignmen…