NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

I have not written one of these posts in a while, although the collecting of Chamorro sayings continues. Fina'kuentos Chamorro is where I post different Chamorro sayings or phrases, they are important in providing us a sense of the Chamorro worldview, both in history and in a contemporary context, and give us a sense of the Chamorro particular flavor to life. Sometimes this flavor can be very familiar to other cultures, sometimes it can be very Catholic, sometimes is can appear to be very tied to the land and people here themselves. This saying "Si Yu'os, Yu'os. I taotao, taotao ha'" can be both very simple, yet also encompass very deep thoughts. It translates simply to "God is God, man is man." On the surface it is simply that men should not worry about things that are beyond their control, as those things lie in God's hands and he will determine what happens. It is a simplified serenity prayer. But it can also extend further into helpin

The "mad as hell" monologue from the film Network. I'm thinking about translating it into Chamorro this week. This past week I was having my students write letters in Chamorro to politicians and someone mentioned how "mad" they should be in their letter. As mad as you want to be. Na'chilong i siniente-mu yan i tinige'-mu. Sometimes, as the monologue makes very clear, sometimes the fury, the catharsis can be the cleansing of the soul, the clearing of the mind that can allow strategic action. Other times it can be something which ends up being enjoyed as the action itself, rather than the first step to political action. That dangerous step of boldly and angrily declaring yourself out of agency or activity. I remember last year when the elected officials at Adelup and at the Legislature quietly passed for themselves a pay increase. The amount of anger that appeared was significant. For a few days it was everywhere. People would randomly speak out it.

They say that what makes humans different than most other living creatures is their ability to visualize. To act not based on instinct or need or reaction to stimuli, but to hold within their mental processing an amalgamation of temporal moments, some of which have already happened and some of which could or never will happen. Humans therefore have the ability to strategize and adapt better than others, potentially. It also means they have a greater ability than any other species to lie to itself, to trick itself out of seeing obvious things and believing obvious things. To form intensely and exhaustively convoluted explanations for things, in order to keep them from being realized or understood, to suppress truth, to find ways to twist and neuter it. People become so attached to the current moment, in the same way the white at the crest of a wave feels dependent upon the particular form of the wave in order for it to exist. This attachment makes them see everything they can behind

The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon is one of the books that has had a huge impact on me. You can interpret this book to be so many things, although people traditionally focus on the call for violent nationalist revolutions as a means of decolonization. For me I have used Fanon's work, in particular this book in order to articulate so many of my own ideas about social change, in particular in Guam. He wrote a time when decolonization was a tide and it was something that he both channeled and rode. In the context of that time, but also even today when so much of the world has banished his writing to echoes of a bloody and mistaken past, there is still so much power behind them. Here is his last chapter, his conclusion to The Wretched of the Earth, which more than anything shows the humanist and idealist of Fanon, and the promise that decolonization always holds. ************************ Now, comrades, now is the time to decide to change sides. We

--> It is a surreal experience being a "professor" and a "doctor" in the sense of being an academic. Although I have the degrees and the background to give these labels the appropriate meaning, I still feel first and foremost that I am actually an artist. My sensibilities and my approaches to almost everything are more like that of an artist than that of a scholar. I constantly learn towards creativity and innovation rather than seeking the usual stability of disciplinary sheltering that characterizes most academics. This is why even though my career and so much of my reputation is tied to things such as development of Chamorro language programs, curriculum, Guam History research and the development of programs related to Chamorro culture and identity, I still yearn to create "art." I try my best to force it into the things I do, but I also want to actually create art in the sense of comic books, writing fiction and often times just painting a

“Shakespeare gi Guinaiya yan Chinatli’e’” Michael Lujan Bevacqua Marianas Variety 4/30/14 Shakespeare’s Hamlet asks, “ Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer / The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, / Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, / And by opposing end them?”   Hamlet is paralyzed by the fear of death or suffering, but ultimately moves toward decisive political rebellion.    Similarly, the African-American lesbian poet, scholar, and activist Audre Lorde speaks of the radicalizing crisis in her life when she faced a diagnosis of breast cancer: “I was going to die, if not sooner then later, whether or not I had ever spoken myself.   My silences had not protected me.   Your silence will not protect you.”   Most might assume that it is ridiculous to compare a “great” writer such as Shakespeare to an activist like Lorde. One of them so many seem to accept as the height of human achievement whereas the other is gener

--> Threats, dangers, risks, these are all things that are out there, but each society and each individual will find their own individual and collective ways of organizing them and ranking them. Everything from personal experience, cultural representations, ideological lens, or accumulation of resources comes into play in helping us understand the things that we should be afraid of and the things we don’t “really” need to be afraid of. It is a strange sort of game to watch because it doesn’t really make sense. It is a very human endeavor. The way that a human can truly define themselves in this world, even if it means accepting an obvious fiction instead of a truth and laughing while they sign their own death warrants. Such is the lesson of the Garden of Eden and the choice of Adam and Eve. What makes human beings human beings is their ability to act in aggressive, passionate and unthinking ways against their own interest. They are rife with potential interests and can pi

In the film The Matrix, the Agent Smith played by Hugo Weaving holds a short, but memorable philosophical session with his captive, resistance fighter Morpheus. He tells him about the first versions of the Matrix that were created in order to keep the imprisoned human population occupied while their energies were siphoned from them like batteries. In the early versions of the Matrix everything was perfect. It was like paradise, free of conflict and problems. It was a perfect world. That perfection is what made it impossible for humans to accept, and so when confronted with this perfect world humans rejected it wholesale and so those early versions of the Matrix were total failures. So instead of having the Matrix make people happy and give them a perfect world, the machines decided to give them a world similar to what they already knew. Imperfect, full of struggle, pain, loneliness, doubt and rejection. People accepted this and the Matrix continued to functi

It only takes a moment, please sign this petition in order to protect the natural beauty of Jeju Island, South Korea. http://www.avaaz.org/en/save_jeju_island/?copy   More information on Jeju and Gangjeong is pasted below. ********************** From: Robert Redford To: All of your people Subject: Tell Environmentalists & IUCN : No Base on Jeju Island Dear Friends of Jeju Island, From September 6-15, some 10,000 environmentalists will converge on Jeju Island to attend the World Conservation Congress (WCC) organized by the oldest environmental organization, the International Union of the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The IUCN’s slogan is that it promotes “a just world that values and conserves nature.” If recent actions are any indication, nothing could be further from the truth. The WCC will take place only a few minutes away from Gangjeong where the construction of a naval base is threatening one of the planet’s most spectacular soft