NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

I followed the recent special election for Senate in Alabama, far closer than anyone on the other side of the ocean probably should. Given the past tumultuous year under Trump and looking ahead to 2018 and what might possibly be different, especially with mid-term elections on the horizon, this election, as so many have written about, representing an important event in terms of scrying what lies ahead. Things look very good for Democrats in the Congress, as Trump ends his first year with historically low approval ratings. Amidst all the coverage of the Alabama, this one article struck out at me, and not for any Alabama related reason really. It is about a 99 year-old Alabama woman, who lived a very interesting life, especially in terms of her at one point being the First Lady of Costa Rica and being referred to as "The First Lady of the Revolution." This sorts of article are common media frames. You take an older person, with unique experiences or with some symbolic rel

This article is interesting. On the one hand, you could argue that it isn't necessarily talking about sovereignty in a overt political sense and so the title or the thesis is very overstated. It deals with an exchange over surfing and a sports article. But on the other hand, the article is a good reminder about the way that sovereignty can be woven into everything, and is something that can be fought at multiple levels, even the most basic of conversations. That it can begin with an idea, with a community formed simply by shared memories or shared desires and that it can grow from there. As I once wrote many year ago, "kada mumon linahyan ha tutuhon ni' un sinangan ha'." ***********************   Surfing as Sovereignty: How Native Hawaiians Resisted Colonialism by Dina Gilio-Whitaker Indian Country Today Media Network 11/14/14   In Hawaiian culture, surfing has always been more than a sport. So important was it that prayers and chants

--> Mamfeminista ham. Hami i hagan i mambruha ni’ ti en sehnge, ya in singon gi estoria ya in sisingon ha’ gi pa’og na tiempo i hineksen lalahi. Manmalago’ ham humatme i lugåt publiko ni’ i menhalom feminist ya ta usa gui’ para ta analisa i minagahet gi oriyå-ta. Gi i lugåt publiko nai ma kekesakke’ i direcho-ta yan makekedesponi i tahtaotao-ta siha. Para i kada diha na biolensia, i hinekse put i sexualidat, i fina’domestic, chinemma’ put minagof, fina’isao pinekka’ yan i manespipiha pinekka’, todu este siha pulitikåt na asunto, ya para ta kontra este siha yan i chi-ta ni’ ma nå’na’i hit ya humuyongña manlå’la’la’ hit på’go sin minalulok. Nina’fanhuyong este na sichu’asion ni’ i hinasson låhi, rasan apå’ka, Katoliko, heterosexual, bourgeois, ableist, cisgender yan monogamous. Debi di ta yamak este na sistema, debi di ta na’suha i naturåt-ña i hinasson taklåhi ya deskribiyi i mundo i pinadesin-måmi komo famalao’an. In hengge na un mumon linahyan debi di u feminista, osino ti

This week I, along with a few others will be unveiling a new blog that we have been working on. It is titled " Mumun Linahyan " which is one of the Chamorro words for saying "revolution." Although the title of the blog might make it seem that it will be strictly political, it isn't necessarily. There will be posts about literature, movies, comics and other types of media. Sometimes these posts may have some political dimension, sometimes they may just be instances of nerding out. As much as possible things will have Guam connections to them and as an excited side effect, the blog will feature plenty of things that don't appear to have any Chamorro connection, nonetheless written about in the Chamorro language. I wrote the passage below to talk about the meaning behind the name. http://www.mumunlinahyan.com.  ************** According to The Chamorro Dictionary by Donald Topping, “mumun linahyan” is a way of saying “revolution.” If we break it down

I am really looking forward to Django Unchained coming out on DVD so I can make my World History 2 students watch it. Although I'll be showing it to students in a history class, I wouldn't make them watch it because it is the most accurate film. There are several reasons why you might want to show films in a history class. 1. Gagu' hao: You are just lazy and want the films to help fill in the details for things that you yourself should be covering in your class. 2. Ya-mu documentaries: You love documentaries and you think that they are stuffed full of historical details and facts and present them to students in the most direct way possible. 3. Ayu i mas kannu'on: You don't necessarily show documentaries to students but instead popular films, because that is one of the ways they tend to inadvertently consume ideology about history and form their historical understanding. For me the 3rd choice is why I show films in class. Not to show students perfectly hist

In my World History class recently we discussed the Congo Free State. In my Guam History and World History classes I often create strange lists for students in order to understand the ways in which I see the history that I'm teaching. For Guam History I have two main lists, "The Most Heroic Chamorros That You've Never Heard Of" which features figures Chamorros from Guam History who were heroic and brave and accomplished great things, but don't fit into the usual historical narratives and are either accidentally or intentionally erased. I also have a list "The Assholes of Guam History" which has you might guess is a list of all the jerks in Guam's History. The people who have oppressed Chamorros, slaughtered them, held them back and just caused all sorts of problems. Some of them are Chamorro but most of them are non-Chamorros. These lists evolve as my understanding and knowledge evolve. For example many years ago if I was coming up with an Assh

Meggai dimasiao na spoilers gi este na post!!! Last year I read The Hunger Games trilogy and I greatly enjoyed the books and was ultimately irritated at them. I am never someone to say that time was wasted with reading or watching something that is terrible. I am proud to say that I have only ever walked out of one movie and that wasn't my choice. It was The Tuxedo starring Jackie Chan and it was because the people I was watching it with were appalled at how stupid it was and wanted to leave. I pouted since I hate walking out of movies, but ultimately I was riding with them and had to leave. I am notorious for being able to find some value in almost any ridiculous thing. Terrible movies hold interesting political and critical insights. Terrible books hold a similar empowering analytical social value. I remember a friend asking me if Tron: Legacy was a good movie. I said with a smile, yes it was, I would definitely recommend it. My friend and his girlfriend ended up watching i

"What is Normal?" Simon Critchley Adbusters Dec. 14, 2011 We are living through a dramatic and ever-widening separation between normal state politics and power. Many citizens still believe that state politics has power. They believe that governments, elected through a parliamentary system, represent the interests of those who elect them and that governments have the power to create effective, progressive change. But they don't and they can't. We do not live in democracies. We inhabit plutocracies: government by the rich. The corporate elites have overwhelming economic power with no political accountability. In the past decades, with the complicity and connivance of the political class, the Western world has become a kind of college of corporations linked together by money and serving only the interests of their business leaders and shareholders. This situation has led to the disgusting and ever-growing gulf that separates the superrich from the rest of us. St

From Ten Thousand Things : On May 23rd, Art teacher and peace blogger Sung-Hee Choi was arrested and detained with seven other people at Jeju Island for nonviolently protesting the South Korean government seizure of property belonging to 1,500 villagers in Gangjeong, Jeju Island, South Korea. The Lee administration wants to destroy this beautiful region of tangerine groves and greenhouses on the Gangjeong coast to make way for a navy base intended to house destroyers equipped with missile systems. At the time of her arrest, Sung-Hee Choi was holding a banner with the message printed on it: Do not touch even one stone, even one flower! She was arrested for simply holding the banner. She did not do anything to obstruct the South Korean government's destruction of the Gangjeong villagers' property. ************************ Below is a poem that was written by Sung Hee-Choi while she has been in prison. The revolution comes in time we do not know. It comes suddenly w

From Bruce Gagnon's Organizing Notes : The Peasants Need Pitchforks By Robert Scheer A “working class hero,” John Lennon told us in his song of that title, “is something to be/ Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV/ And you think you’re so clever and classless and free/ But you’re still fucking peasants as far as I can see.” The delusion of a classless America in which opportunity is equally distributed is the most effective deception perpetrated by the moneyed elite that controls all the key levers of power in what passes for our democracy. It is a myth blown away by Nobel Prize winner Joseph E. Stiglitz in the current issue of Vanity Fair. In an article titled “Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%” Stiglitz states that the top thin layer of the superwealthy controls 40 percent of all wealth in what is now the most sharply class-divided of all developed nations: “Americans have been watching protests against repressive regimes that concentrate massive wealth in the hands

Published on Tuesday, February 1, 2011 by The Guardian/UK Why Fear the Arab Revolutionary Spirit? by Slavoj Žižek What cannot but strike the eye in the revolts in Tunisia and Egypt is the conspicuous absence of Muslim fundamentalism. In the best secular democratic tradition, people simply revolted against an oppressive regime, its corruption and poverty, and demanded freedom and economic hope. The cynical wisdom of western liberals, according to which, in Arab countries, genuine democratic sense is limited to narrow liberal elites while the vast majority can only be mobilised through religious fundamentalism or nationalism, has been proven wrong. The big question is what will happen next? Who will emerge as the political winner? When a new provisional government was nominated in Tunis, it excluded Islamists and the more radical left. The reaction of smug liberals was: good, they are the basically same; two totalitarian extremes – but are things as simple as that? Is the true long

I truly enjoyed the movie Bodyguards and Assassins which was released last year and tells the riveting, somewhat action packed tale of a group of motley bodyguards who have to protect exiled and most wanted Chinese nationalist and revolutionary leader Sun Yat Sen while he is visiting Hong Kong for a few hours so he can make a plan for overthrowing the Qing Dynasty. In the movie, we see regular folks, from different parts of China, some of whom are not even fighters, sacrifice themselves in order to protect Sun Yat Sen and the dream of a unified, modern and democratic China that he is represents. My favorite part of the movie is when we at last see the face of the man that the Qing government wants dead at almost all costs and whom so many people are willing to risk their lives for. After meeting with represents of various provinces in China he thanks them for coming to the meeting and shares with them some of his thoughts on the meaning of revolution. His words are very profound and t