NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

  I am working tonight on a review of the past year on Guam in terms of decolonization. As a member of the Commission on Decolonization and the Independence for Guam Task Force and a community activist and scholar who has been working on and studying this issue for more than 10 years, I am excited to take up this task. Compared to the 1980s and 1990s when the issue of Commonwealth was prominent and much of the island was united behind it, the past decade and a half has been relatively quiet. Part of the reason for this is that the Commission on Decolonization, which replaced the old Commission on Self-Determination has lacked any real funding for the past two administrations. Staff positions have been paid for, but the Commission has received no funding whatsoever for programming or for educational materials. The previous administration under Felix Camacho almost seemed to shiver in fear at the idea of decolonization and did very little to support or promote it. When Eddie Calvo t

The issue of FAS citizens, people from the FSM primarily, is something that brings together so many divergent and divisive discourses in Guam. It is something that is not easily unpacked and not easily resolved because of the many ideological contact points, overlaps and contradictions. It is easy for some to make a blanket statement one way or another, but those voices tend to consider very little. They don't account for much of the overall nebulous ideological structure that gives meaning to this issue.  When talking about the issue of FAS citizens and their impact on Guam, so many things end up being touched upon and most people only want to admit to the relevance of one or two of those many possible discourses. We see multiculturalism giving the impression that all people are just people. We see immigrant stories, the way they play essential and often undervalued roles in sustaining economies. We see expressions of racism and expressions of anti-racism. People who shriek if

The pay raise controversy is now largely moot, but it did bring up some very important points about governance and about the connection or lack of connection that people feel to their governments in a democracy. In a democratic society, the government is supposed to represent the people, but that responsibility that people have is sometimes rejected, primarily because people want to cover their apathy or their lack of engagement. They complain more ferociously because they are not engaged, because they may not actually know what is going on. This does not mean that their critiques are not without merit, but only that they are often not very productive because the passion or conviction with which they are spoken has no bearing to how effective they are, or how much those critiquing actually understand. It was intriguing in this controversy to see how so many people would direct their ire to the Guam Legislature, simply because they were the ones doing the listening. The