NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

--> 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

Guam should think for itself, and should understand better its position in relation to the United States and the world around it. Just accepting an "American" ideological point of view for everything means pretending we live a different reality in a different part of the world. It also means we prevent ourselves from understanding the benefits and dangers that we get by virtue of our geographic position. This is not something that I would advocate solely because of the North Korea issue. So long as Guam remains a non-self-governing territory, an unincorporated territory, its relationship to the United States should be of great importance, but not define the island, its present or its future. To accept that this relationship is central is to keep the fantasies alive and rather than seek any real sovereignty or real inclusion, you end up eating the air of your fantasies and slowly starving yourself into non-existence. Part of the weakness of this island is its eager willingne

Okinawa is well known around the world as a site of protest. Its history has been marked with numerous protests regarding the many US military bases that is "hosts" as well as its colonial and neo-colonial treatment by the Japanese central government. Just last year over 100,000 people gathered for a demonstration. Okinawa is an island of protests, some big and some small. All protests are not equal. There is a logic to how they are perceived by the public. Some will appear to be more important than others. Some sites of protest will appear to be more essential than others. People will be more easily drawn to them. They will see those who stand along the fence, along the road, holding signs as being heroic. They will see places beside them where others should stand, where they could themselves stand. They will see this protest as representing important things, even if it violates laws and social norms. Other protests will be seen as less important. There will be an ever g

When I was younger living on Guam I fished regularly for a couple of months. I would go fishing with some guys from Yap or Chuuk with Hawaiian slings. I was never that great at it compared to my companions, but I also had fun. Sitting on a rock watching the sunrise, with a boat full of fish representing your efforts was always a meaningful moment. As I got more serious about UOG I stopped fishing and other than simple rod and reel with my dad, didn't think about fishing much. Since I moved back to Guam in 2008 I haven't fished at all, but fishing, most particularly native fishing rights for Chamorros and issues of sustainability have been part of my thinking and activism. I helped draft the rules and regulations for the native fishing rights a few years back. They were submitted to the Department of Agriculture who promptly did nothing with them. Other than callers to the Buzz in the morning, no one seems to consider it a big issue anymore. In the p

Ideology is one of those things about life that can feel so secure and clear. It can provide you a clear position from which you can see the world and assign value to certain idea, places and even bodies. But at the same time ideology is something that is so pervasive and massive, it cannot help but also be unforgivingly contradictory and sometimes appear to make absolutely no sense. There is a feeling that things should be black and white, but there is also a feeling that things are really actually gray. We move between these two positions in a strategic way. When things being black and white works in our favor, we take that position in order to argue that our position is in line with the clear nature of reality. There is no wiggle room, what we stand for and believe in is so completely clear. But when the ideological black and white world is not in our favor, we tend to take the position that the exceptions matter and that in between those two binary oppos

I don't normally go onto websites to read through comments, but I was intrigued by the recent story about Senator Mana Silva Taijeron's husband going ballistic at Unatalan Middle School. After talking to a teacher that works there, it seemed pretty cut and dried as to what happened. The father of the student was clearly angry and upset at the prospect of his daughter being bullied, but his behavior probably shouldn't be excused as aggressive caring. He behaved in a reckless way towards students at the school and towards staff there, and made assumptions about his daughter being mistreated or not being taken care of when he really had no idea what was going on, and didn't want to listen to anyone explain the situation to him. Since its an election year I expected the comments to be pretty divided between Democrats and Republicans. Then I remembered that on Guam the difference between Democrat and Republicans doesn't really exist, and is generally just based on wh

I can’t get my students at UOG excited about the 2012 Presidential race. This is to be expected considering that Guam, as a territory has no Electoral College votes and so it doesn’t get to help choose the next most powerful man in the world. In most similar classrooms across the United States, a group of apathetic students is an affront to democracy and self-government! But what is the point of calling on people in Guam to care about a race that they are prohibited from participating in? This November when you head to the polls you will get a ballot that asks you if you want to vote for either Willard Mitt Romney or Barack Hussein Obama. But since the vote doesn’t count, it makes you wonder why we even do it at all? It is yet another way that people on Guam seek to create the illusion of Guam being a secure and full part of the United States rather than face the truth of the situation. It is akin to seeing someone who is hallucinating that they are eating a gourmet meal

It's election year and so the ideological landscape of the island becomes far more vibrant than usual. When I say vibrant I don't mean that ideas are exchanged in a more honest and open way or that ideological transformations will take place in an easier way. I mean instead that the mentioning and invoking of ideology becomes more open and comfortable. The calling of people out. The feeling that certain things that may not normally matter much to you, all of a sudden do. The focusing in on certain details in order to make an argument for what sort of citizen and civil subject you are. When its not an election year do people care that much about where politicians stand on issues? They probably should, but do they really? When an election comes around they probably still don't really care, but now there is a feeling that you are supposed to show you care. You are supposed to pretend that you care. You wouldn't want people to think that you are a pointless lump of fl

“Crazy Talk” Michael Lujan Bevacqua The Marianas Variety July 4, 2012 The same scene happens every couple of months at my grandfather’s shop at the Chamorro village. A military family comes into the check out my grandfather’s handmade tools. They look around and are impressed. I answer their questions and give them some background on my grandfather Tun Jack Lujan’s role in perpetuating the Chamorro culture today as a Master Blacksmith. As they are leaving one of them turns to me and says “I want to thank you for showing this to us and answering our questions, you aren’t as terrible a person as I thought you were.” The first few times this scene took place I was taken aback. How did they know anything about me and what did they know that made them assume I’d be terrible? We’d never met before and how could they possess such strong negative feelings to me already? I’ve come to learn that the reason for this is because of my internet presence, primar

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