NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

In his uneven, albeit interesting book "The Fire and the Tale (2017)," Italian political theorist Giorgio Agamben provides an anecdote from the history of Judaism that struck an chord for me in terms of debates over Chamoru authenticity in culture, the issue of contemporary Chamoru cultural dance, and our relationship to our past. Here is the anecdote, which is the source of the title for this book on aesthetics.  “When Baal Schem, the founder of Hasidism, had a difficult task before him, he would go to a certain place in the woods, light a fire and meditate in prayer; and what he had set out to perform was done. When a generation later, the Maggid of Meseritz was faced with the same task, he would go to the same place in the woods, and say: “We can no longer light a fire, but we can pray.” And everything happened according to his will. When another generation had passed, Rabbi Moshe Leib of Sassov was faced with the same task, and he would to the same place in t

For those of you who don’t know, my dissertation in Ethnic Studies dealt with sovereignty, most specifically Guam’s role in producing America’s sovereignty, or what role its invisibility or nothingness plays in producing America as sovereign. This may sound confusing, but what makes it difficult for most to wrap their heads around, is the simple fact of saying that something which has been for hundreds of years produced discursively as being “small” or “faraway” or “faint” or “owned by the US” as somehow creating something as great and grand and mighty as the United States of America. One frustrating aspect of writing my dissertation was the preparing of a literature review, which is a sometimes helpful, sometimes useless review of what others have written about your topic of choice and how you will either use and build on them or defy them. If you are familiar with the bulk of work on sovereignty it all basically says the same thing nowadays, drawing mildly different c

My first forays into the world of public discourse and engagement came on the pages of the Pacific Daily News through letters to the editor. For years I conducted research in the Micronesian Area Research Center library and through interviews with politicians, activists and manåmko', but the thoughts and ideas that were spawning in my head didn't have many outlets save for discussions in classes or with trusted elders or friends. In 2004 I gave my first public presentation on the issue of decolonization or critical Chamorro Studies, when I shared a section of my research at a forum titled "World War II is it Over?" organized by the Guam Humanities Council at the Agana Shopping Center. I spoke alongside Dr. Patricia Taimanglo, the late historian Tony Palomo and Guam military historian Jennings Bunn. After that, I spent several years in graduate school presenting at conference around the US, often times to empty rooms, as Guam papers tended to be very low on the prior

I first wrote this article 13 years ago while I was applying for graduate school in the states and working part-time at the Guam Communications Network in Long Beach, California. My auntie Fran Lujan was working there as well and they had an irregular publication called Galaide'. Prior to my leaving Guam, I had photocopied hundreds of articles from the Pacific Daily News around the time of the the 9/11 attacks, and I had spent more than a year trying to organize my thoughts on it. It seemed so strange in that moment, how everyone was reaching out to the United States, trying to find a way to patriotically or tragically feel included in its embrace. But the more that people asserted their inclusion and their belonging, the more the structure of their exclusion became pronounced and obvious. I used the article below as my attempt. It remains my first all-out attempt at a critical intervention. I still find myself making some of these arguments, whereas others I have moved on from o

The Greeks are Right! by Slavoj Zizek The New Statesman 7/6/15 The unexpectedly strong No in the Greek referendum was a historical vote, cast in a desperate situation. In my work I often use the well-known joke from the last decade of the Soviet Union about Rabinovitch, a Jew who wants to emigrate. The bureaucrat at the emigration office asks him why, and Rabinovitch answers: “There are two reasons why. The first is that I’m afraid that in the Soviet Union the Communists will lose power, and the new power will put all the blame for the Communist crimes on us, Jews – there will again be anti-Jewish pogroms . . .” “But,” the bureaucrat interrupts him, “this is pure nonsense. Nothing can change in the Soviet Union, the power of the Communists will last for ever!”. “Well,” responds Rabinovitch calmly, “that’s my second reason.” I was informed that a new version of this joke is now circulating in Athens. A young Greek man visits the Australian consulate in Athens and

Published on Monday, December 9, 2013 by The Guardian If Nelson Mandela Really Had Won, He Wouldn't Be Seen as a Universal Hero Mandela must have died a bitter man. To honor his legacy, we should focus on the unfulfilled promises his leadership gave rise to by Slavoj Žižek     ‘It is all too simple to criticize Mandela for abandoning the socialist perspective after the end of apartheid: did he really have a choice? Was the move towards socialism a real option?’ (Photograph: Media24/Gallo Images/Getty Images) In the last two decades of his life, Nelson Mandela was celebrated as a model of how to liberate a country from the colonial yoke without succumbing to the temptation of dictatorial power and anti-capitalist posturing. In short, Mandela was not Robert Mugabe, and South Africa remained a multiparty democracy with a free press and a vibrant economy well-integrated into the global market

I've seen Slavoj Zizek use the example of "the red ink" many times over the years in many books. Interesting to see him now use it to describe what the Occupy movement is attempting to describe.  ************************** Published on Tuesday, April 24, 2012 by The Guardian/UK Occupy Wall Street: What Is To Be Done... Next? How a protest movement without a program can confront a capitalist system that defies reform by Slavoj Žižek What to do in the aftermath of the Occupy Wall Street movement, when the protests that started far away – in the Middle East, Greece, Spain, UK – reached the center, and are now reinforced and rolling out all around the world? In a San Francisco echo of the OWS movement on 16 October 2011, a guy addressed the crowd with an invitation to participate in it as if it were a happening in the hippy style of the 1960s: "They are asking us what is our program