NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

It is a strange paradox in a colony to consider the issue of patriotism and or lack thereof. On the one hand, as a colony you are being discriminated or marginalized in some way that is fundamental to your political relationship. Whether it be massacres and mass exploitation of resources or the creation of rules and laws that disenfranchise you and leave sovereign power over your lives and lands with those thousands of miles away. In this context, patriotism or devotion to the colonizer seems very unlikely in a colony. But this isn't really the case. Although the basis for patriotism is a reciprocal inclusion. It is not simply a unilateral love, but rather the relationship whereby your political love will be rewarded with a set of basic rights or forms of recognition. Despite the inequality or lack of a well-defined circle of recognized belonging, patriotism is still routinely found in the colonies, and even takes on superlative forms. Colonies are structured so that, there

I was in Okinawa last week, during which time a US Navy sailor was arrested and charged with the raping of a Japanese woman in a hotel in Naha, the capital city of the island. As violence against women has been one of the most significant rallying cries for opposition to the US bases in the island, I expected this issue to dominate most of my discussions as I met with dozens of demilitarization and decolonization activists. My previous trip to Okinawa (gi ma'pos na sakkan) coincided with the anniversary of the most famous rape case in recent Okinawan history, where in 1995 a 12 year old girl was brutalized three US servicemen. That incident spurned on an island-wide protest movement, where close to 100,000 gathered on one occasion. But this most recent case didn't penetrate the conversations I was in, as much as I had anticipated. It was broached, it was invoked, but few expressed rich outrage at it. Few made the broader connections, that I often witnessed in the past. I wond

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

Today in class will be learning about the Wars Against Spain in the early 19th century. It is a period where Spain loses all of its colonies in Latin American (except for the Caribbean) in less than 30 years. In order to understand the roots of those anti-colonial wars we need to understand the indigenous forms of resistance that continued for centuries even after Spain had colonized, converted and enslaved most of Latin America. We'll be learning today about Tupac Amaru II who led an uprising against the Spanish in 1780. Below is a song written by Alejandro Romualdo that I sometimes share with my students. And hunggan, kumayu Si Tupac Amaru yan Si Tupac Shakur. Tupac Shakur was named after Tupac Amaru.  A CHORAL SONG FOR TUPAC AMARU By Alejandro Romualdo Valle Lo harán volar con dinamita. En masa, lo cargarán, lo arrastrarán. A golpes le llenarán de pólvora la boca. Lo volarán: ¡Y no podrán matarlo! They will blow him with dynamite. As on

This was written Saturday, November 19, 2011, before the "We Are Here" protest of President Obama during his short visit to Guam. *********************** Pau fatto magi Si Obama lamo'na hun. Supposedly President Obama is stopping in Guam tonight. People estimate he will be here at around 10 or 11 pm tonight, and only stay for at most two hours. He was scheduled to stop in Guam last year, but his pit stop was cancelled at the last second because of the Health Care Reform debate. We Are Guahan led a petition drive requesting that when he come to Guam he hold a townhall meeting to hear concerns about the buildup. They collected over 10,000 signatures in less than a month. Although the urgent momentum from the buildup process is for the most part evaporated, and now people see it more as stalled than going anywhere, the self-determination process appears to be picking up new speed. Gof likidu este na momento, ya magof hu na gaige yu' guini gi hilo' tano' p

“The Fourth Kind of Cake” Michael Lujan Bevacqua The Marianas Variety 11/9/11 My column two weeks ago “The Fourth Kind” received some interesting feedback. Some were supportive, some weren’t. For example, some criticized the outdated nature of the UN framework and how the sheer amount of local, national and international inertia on the issue means that new blood, particularly a Fourth Kind of blood should be injected into the discussion through the introduction of a new hybrid status. While this is true, Fourth Kind gospels attract attention in the same way fads do. They feel new and cool, but generally lack any enduring qualities. They are proposed to capture attention, to create conversation, but don’t do much else. History shows, both locally and elsewhere that the Fourth Kind of status has a way of making things appear to be fresh, new, and possible, they also derail the process away from decolonization and towards a solution that doesn’t solve what was initially intended t

The Governor of Guam has his own Youtube Channel . Yanggen ti un tungo' este esta, taya' guaha. It was only created last month, and it has so far only 19 uploads. You can find there some of his weekly messages, some testimonials from people who want their/need their tax refunds, and presentations on his government reorganization plans. I'm waiting to see if the Guam Legislature will create their own Youtube page. They probably won't for a while since they already have their own tv channel where you can watch them in session and when they hold public hearings. Of the videos on Calvo's channel, one in particular caught my eye. It was uploaded three weeks ago, and it was a message to every member of Congress. In it the Governor called on members of Congress to support Guam in a number of ways. Two of his calls might appear to be contradictory; first his call on Congress to make sure the military buildup happens, since they need to take advantage of Guam and its

I had meant to write about Avatar a few months ago after first watching it, but so many things were happening in my life and Guam and so I never got around to it. Gof ya-hu ayu na mubi, achokka’ guaha meggai ni’ siña hu tacha. I cheered and yelled throughout the movie, as I expressed my excitement and also my frustration. All in all though, I enjoyed the movie far more than I found it problematic. But as I once told an old friend, i kayu-hu estaba giya Berkeley, there is nothing fun which is not problematic. I cringed for plenty of reasons, at times it was like anthropology porn, and therefore it had all the elements that Ethnic Studies scholars are supposed to hate, meaning it was just like Dances with Wolves, where a white man is needed to save a helpless primitive, brown people. From the gaze of any “modern” subject, it is just too tempting not to engage in this fantasy, it is the most fun liberal form of viewing the rest of the world. There is something for everyone. If you

You might have noticed a slight change in my blog. For several months I've sported i banderan Guahan as my profile pick, due to the obvious nationalistic and ethnocentric character of my blog. It was also an important strategic choice, since when I started the Decolonize Guam blog, I wanted people who stumbled across it to still connect and feel familiar to it, even if the news posted on the blog might be completely new and strange to them (since the posts on the blog portray the US in a hardly benevolent light). When I started that blog though my profile pick was an interesting and confusing choice to many, this still from the film Mangal Pandey: The Rising, starring Amir Khan as one of the heroes of the First Indian Rebellion in 1857. Surely only those familiar with my random Nihi ta fanchat gi fino' Chamoru put Hindi Movies would have understood the choice. The choice was not only related to my love for Hindi movies, but also part of a much d