NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

 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.

On April 28, 1952 the Treaty of San Francisco ending World War II between Japan and the United States went into effect. As part of this treaty Japan would receive its sovereignty again, but the US would get to keep numerous bases in the country. Okinawa, as an island to the south of Japan, that had been forcibly annexed in 1879 was not thought of by most Japanese as being a true part of Japan. As a result it was the ideal “sacrifice” for Japan and was given to the United States in order for Japan to receive its sovereignty back. Bases that had been in mainland Japan were moved to the island, which was placed under US control until 1972. In the minds of the leaders of both Japan and the US, everyone got what they wanted. No one seemed to bother to ask the Okinawans about what they wanted. In Japan, April 28 th is thought of as an important anniversary, the day that Japan became whole again. This year the Japanese government announced that a celebration would

Each morning of the First Stewards symposium, members of the delegations from across the Pacific and the Western United States would gather at the main entrance to the Museum of the Native American Indian. As the sun was rising different delegations would take on the task of welcoming the day, welcoming each other, and forming spiritual and cultural bonds. These gatherings would take place before 6 am, and so it was sometimes difficult for everyone to make it. But for those of us who did, we were fortunate enough to participate in some of the most quiet, solemn and beautiful moments. The symposium had a lot of discussions, alot of exchanges of information, a lot connections based on explicit comprehension. English is the means of common communication and so we can all speak to each other and try to get each other to learn and understand. But these sunrise ceremonies were something different. At the ceremonies nothing was in English. Very little was explained in English. Each grou

Another update from Brue Gagnon on the international peace conference that took place in Jeju, South Korea over the weekend. I've pasted it below: ************************* The Navy is expanding its effort to put razor wire all along the rocky coastline so the villagers cannot any longer stand on their sacred ground. But the people keep coming by swimming or on kayaks. They are determined. They continue to be arrested. As I write this a group will find their way there for the Sunday morning Catholic mass. Yesterday we had a joint meeting between the villagers and our international guests. Our folks shared stories about U.S. and NATO space technology expansion into Sweden and Norway, the effort by the U.S. to get India to create their own aggressive Space Command to help "contain" China, and the Vandenberg AFB in California space missile launching center. One elderly man from Gangjeong village told us he can't sleep at night, suffers from depression, and sees

I am not a journalist, and for anyone who has read this blog before, that should be obvious. Even though I do try to capture as many details as I can when I attend an event, or analyze something, too often the analysis is far more important to me than the communication of the basic facts of something. So for example, the majority of the blog posts which I've written for this trip to Japan thus far, weren't written in such a way that you would know the ins and outs of what's being going on here, or understand all the issues that have been brought up, or what the conversations are like. Instead, I often focus on a single thing or set of things and then interrogate them in such a way, that its easy to think that I'm talking about massive huge things, when in truth from the event itself I'm drawing evidence or inspiration from, I was only analyzing a single thing said, or a single exchange. Most of the time I'm perfectly fine with this. I had once wanted to be a j