NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Although on Guam, we tend to the see the United Nations as being inefficient and taisetbe because of the way we have waited for decades for decolonization, this issue is actually something that the United Nations has actually been very successful in terms of promoting. Since 1946, more than 80 former colonies, more than 750 million people have decolonized. In looking at the past few centuries of human history, this is a very substantial reversal. At one point a small group of colonizer controlled the maps, planted the flags and draw the lines of the world. We still live with that legacy in so many ways, but one cannot deny the shifts that have taken place.

But there are still losers in this game of decolonization. The United Nations recognizes 17 official colonies, which amount to close to 2 million people. If we look beyond this formal level of recognition you could easily add in several dozen more territories or peoples that could be called colonies. We are the ones who are stillin…

Once again I've been invited to speak at the United Nations Regional Seminar for the Special Committee on Decolonization. I've spoken at this seminar as an expert twice before, in Ecuador in 2013 and in Nicaragua in 2015. This year the seminar will once again be held in Nicaragua.

I will be providing updates on the decolonization movement in Guam and also providing an overview of the different positions on decolonization for the three major candidates for president of the United States.

I'll be writing about my experiences and interactions under the label of "Tales of Decolonization" or "ToD" on this blog. Keep coming back throughout the week to learn more.

Press release for the regional seminar is pasted below:

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27 May 2016 GA/COL/3288
Special Committee on Decolonization to Hold Pacific Regional Seminar in Managua, Nicaragua, 31 May - 2 June
General Assembly Background Release
The Special Committee on Decolonization will hold the 2016…

Bei fangge' mas put i binaban FESTPAC gi otro biahi. Meggai na prublema, meggai na'ma'a'se gi taimanu na mamaneha i sirimonias. Sigi ha' hu hungok na debi di ta panot ha' este na hinasso siha, lao ai adai. Annai sen annok yan sen oppan i prublema siha taiguihi, para ke na un pañot, ti mampañot'an.

The Importance of Noise
Michael Lujan Bevacqua
Guam Daily Post
April 6, 2016

Writing about colonization in action can be a hysterical albeit terrifying experience. It is something that has consumed my work as an activist and a scholar for more than a decade. It reminds me of a Dilbert comic from long ago, where the pointy haired boss tells a worker that the collar he is putting on him comes with an electric shock which will buzz him if he leaves the area of his “office” or a circle drawn on the carpet. Later in the week the worker is still there and we learn that he has been taught to beg for food.

Seeing colonization in action is paying attention to those invisible walls that keep the co-worker in his place, and trying to get others to adjust their eyes just long enough to see that nothing, to very little is probably there. Colonization can involve very clear forms of force, violence and oppression, but it leaves intangible, sometimes barely perceptible marks that persist even if the c…

One thing that I struggled with when I first became more conscious about issues affecting Guam, especially around political status, was the question of why more people weren't interested in this and why so few people were committed to the idea of changing it. For my entire life, for the entire lives of my mother and father, for the entire lifetimes of my grandparents, Guam has been a colony of the United States. The face of American colonialism in Guam has changed significantly. My grandparents grew up at a time when Guam was strictly segregated and Chamorros were openly treated as inferior to white Americans. Today, although people on Guam do regularly experience second-class treatment at the hands of the United States at multiple levels, it is easy to dismiss this as simple ignorance or lack of respect and not tie to it a larger political relationship.

Para Guahu, ti ya-hu na mañåsaga ham yan i familia-ku gi un colony. Ti ya-hu na esta para kana' kuatro na siento na såkkan m…