NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

When I was writing my dissertation more than 10 years ago, one question that I constantly had, was what is the "Department of Interior" in the United States, especially in relation to the territories. The easy answer is that it is the office to oversees them. It is the office that oversees the natural resource, the parks, the relations with Native Americans, but also the way the US connects to its insular areas and colonies. We can refer to the Department of the Interior as the make-shift colonial office, a colonial office in denial that it is a colonial office. The office manages resources and helps to remind those of us who live in the territories that we are a resource, that our lands, our lives are more explicitly than any other place within the US and its empire, thought of as a commodity. The fact that our strongest link to the federal bureaucracy is the DOI is key in understanding our relationship to the US. We may have a variety of fantasies about what we are to

While I was away in St. Vincent attending the UN C24 Regional Seminar, i nobia-hu Dr. Isa Kelley Bowman, penned a simple, insightful and incisive bilingual! article about the very issues that were being discussed on the other side of the world. Her article is below and deals with the difficult realities of having a colonizer who has convinced themselves no matter what they have done or continue to do, that they represent freedom and liberty. Having colonies like Guam for more than a century belies that idea in obvious and easy ways. And that doesn't even go into the more nefarious history of the US, featuring slavery, displacement and genocide. But like all countries, the US can change. There is a commonsensical power in that notion that mala hechura asta sepultura, but there is nonetheless always the possibility for changing course, for social or political movements to change the course of a country towards something more just and more invested in equality, peace or righteousnes

The late French philosopher Jacques Derrida referred to “justice” as a term we use for impossible things. It is a word that we use for things that we can’t ever seem to resolve, about the problems of the past and the present. When a wrong is committed, justice is the word we use for things done in the name of fixing the problems that emerge from that violence, from that harm. But there is no precise science to justice, no easy way to agree upon what is the appropriate means of making amends for something. Criminal justice systems, restorative justice, reparations, apologies, these are all ways that we try to channel the trauma of the past. There is no equation for justice equivalence. Whatever happens in the name of justice will either be too much or too little. It cannot replace what was taken away, or those who have to give up something in the name of past wrongs will insist that they shouldn’t have to sacrifice for the sins of others. But the conversation and the process of de

What a strange world it is, where lately I find myself agreeing regularly with neo-conservatives, hawkish Democrats and former heads of the CIA. One thing that I am struggling to figure out, is why I find Donald Trump's foreign policy positions so repulsive. In a way, his lack of knowledge about the structure of American power in the world, makes it so that he is occasionally or randomly likely to take a position closer to my own. When he discusses withdrawing US support or participation from various alliances, he is talking about reducing America's imperial bootprint over the globe, something that local activists in communities forced to shoulder the burden of America's more than a 100 overseas bases have been demanding for years. Hillary Clinton on the other hand will no doubt maintain, albeit with reasonable imperial justifications, the vast and ridiculously expensive global network of American power. She is after all, the voice that reaffirmed the US commitment to m

For two weeks there has been non-stop discussions of American exceptionalism across the United States. This has been centered in the national conventions for both of the major parties of the United States, the Republicans and the Democrats. They each proposed different forms of American exceptionalism at least on the surface, one immediately more frightening and menacing, while the other more comforting and friendly. Both of them focused on the idea that the United States is exceptional in history and in the present moment, and holds the keys to human progress and security. But as I've written about before, these conventions are interesting because they represent the last chances for people from the colonies of the United States to participate in American democracy. As people who live in Guam, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, the US Virgin Islands and even the CNMI cannot vote for President of the US (and have no electoral college votes), they get to participate up until this point

In just 50 days, more than two dozen Pacific Island nations will gather in Guam for the 12th Festival of Pacific Arts or FESTPAC. Although geographically Guam's presence in the Pacific cannot be questioned, culturally and politically due to its history of colonization, the island and its native people, the Chamorros are regularly treated differently. As if they are a part of the Pacific, yet also exist apart from it as well. There’s a great website out there for those who are colonialism and political status geeks such as myself called Overseas Territories Review . It features regular updates on different currently-existing-colonies out there in the world (most of which are small islands like Guam in the Caribbean or the Pacific) and some commentary on what sort of challenges they might face as they try to change their colonial status. The website is run by Dr. Carlyle Corbin, an expert on decolonization and the various remaining colonies in the world, who

What is "foreign policy?" Does it simply refer to the relationships between nations? The policy frameworks through which some are treated as allies and others as enemies? Does it deal with the level of respect or trust that other nations are afforded? Foreign Policy is one of those elements that the media and the educated classes act like is critically important in terms of electing leaders. It is something that those more serious segments of society use to argue for the electability of certain candidates, such as Sarah Palin, Donald Trump or even George W. Bush. The sectors feel compelled to remind the American people as a whole about the seriousness of picking someone who does not only look within to serving the nation, but can also be relied upon to engage with the rest of the world. After all, no matter how large your country thinks it it, even if it is massive in terms of economy, population or land mass, the rest of the world remains. A country's for

One of the drawbacks to seeing your country as the most powerful in the world, or the greatest in the world, or even worse the greatest country in history, is that it makes changing yourself almost impossible. Your country will change, all countries are changing, often times whether the people want it to or not. But the larger your national ego is, the more difficult  it is to organize the chaotic coalition that is your national innards in order to solve basic problems. A smaller country, a less nationally narcissistic nation, which is less enamored with its own overblown and self-aggrandized image can have difficulties as well. But the "greatness" doesn't get in the way as much. Part of the problem if you think far too highly of yourself in this way is that your problems go from being unsolvable or impossible, to irrelevant, especially from those who may be standing in the way of any change, large or small, that could take place. The "greatness" of the countr