NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

My trip to Spain took me through South Korea, where I spent seven hours in the Incheon Airport in Seoul. In the same way that Guam and Okinawa have been connected for years now because of US military plans, so too have Guam and South Korea become connected as well. Guam has been a potential target for North Korea for many years now, as it is one of the most prominent US bases in the region. But over the past year the danger to Guam has become far more pronounced, from both sides of the Pacific. Late last year, North Korean rhetoric became more focused around Guam, far more than it ever had before. The year before that, Donald Trump was elected President of the US, and his foreign policy approach hasn't been very ideologically based, but seems to be rooted in impulsive Twitter tirades. Both of them combined mean that people on Guam have no idea what to think or even worry about next. North Korea is portrayed as a tin pot regime, simply full of bluster one moment, and

I will be in Spain this week for the conference " PRIMUS CIRCUMDEDISTI ME: Claves de la primera globalizacion ." It is a historical congress being organized primarily by the Spanish Ministry of Defense that will discuss the 500th anniversary of the first circumnavigation of the world by Ferdinand Magellan. I am attending the conference as the representative from Guam, where Magellan visited in March of 1521. I will be writing about my trip and the congress under the title "Circumnavigations." Not only because of the trip of Magellan itself, but also because of the ways in which Guam and myself are navigating as well, working our way around history and around the global filled with independent nations. Here is the description of the conference from its website.  ************************** Introduction The Spanish Ministry of Defence –in collaboration with the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports, and with the Junta de Castil

This weekend Peter Onedera’s play “Saina Destiladu” or “Elderly in Exile” is being shown at the John Robert Powers Theater in Maite. This play was originally performed almost 20 years ago, but it is as timely now as it was then. The story revolves around a modern Chamorro family caught between the traditional and contemporary values. The erosion of Chamorro culture, most prominently respect for i manamko, is the main drama of the play as two elderly grandparents are regularly disrespected and abandoned by their children. I watched the play over the weekend and couldn’t help but reflect on the state of our island and our culture today. It is so easy to say that times have changed or that culture just isn’t the same, but such talk is cheap and easy. We make decisions and make priorities and if things such as our language, respect and culture are declining it is because we aren’t choosing to embody them or protect them. Here are my thoughts, first in Chamorro and then transl

Published on Tuesday, April 2, 2013 by Foreign Policy In Focus America after Hegemony by Cole Harrison   With the Iraq war fading into memory even as the country still simmers, the U.S. peace movement faces the need to reframe its message. We have spent the last 10 years resisting the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – tragedies that have not only devastated those two countries and taken tens of thousands of lives, but have left thousands of returning veterans with lifelong disabilities and taken a huge toll on our national economy. We’ve exposed nuclear weapons’ threat to human survival, organized against sanctions and war on Iran and the Israeli occupation of Palestine, and built alliances with labor and community groups to cut the military budget. We’ve opposed lawless torture and drone killings, cyber-warfare attacks, and the U.S. “ pivot ,” which seeks to encircle China with military bases.

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

Published on Tuesday, January 10, 2012  by The Nation "Occupy Wall Street: Why Now? What's Next?" Naomi Klein and Yotam Marom in Conversation About Occupy Wall Street by Naomi Klein and Yotam Marom The following conversation was recorded recently in New York City: Naomi Klein: One of the things that’s most mysterious about this moment is “Why now?” People have been fighting austerity measures and calling out abuses by the banks for a couple of years, with basically the same analysis: “We won’t pay for your crisis.” But it just didn’t seem to take off, at least in the US. There were marches and there were political projects and there were protests like Bloombergville, but they were largely ignored. There really was not anything on a mass scale, nothing that really struck a nerve. And now suddenly, this group of people in a park set off something extraordinary. So how do you account for that, having been involved in Occupy Wall Street since the beginning, but also

I’ve been back in Guam now for more than a week since my South Korea trip. I’ll still be back-posting for the new few weeks as there is still so much more to say and blog about. Remember that you can easily access the posts for certain days of my trip by clicking on the appropriate tag. Day 1: Seoul Day 2: Pyeongtaek Day 3: Gangjeong Day 4: Seoul Day 5: Mugeon-ri As I think back on my trip I met so many fantastic people and heard so many tragic and inspiring stories. But when I was thinking back on what part of the trip stayed with me the most, or what is sort of that haunting excess, that sticks out and determines far more meaning now than it probably did then, one exchange constantly pops into my mind. It could be so many things: the beauty of Jeju, and the tinaiprisu of the fight of the villagers of Gangjeong, the tragic marks on the soul and skin of political prisoners, the way a people struggle with the division of their nation and its past history of colonization (and curre

On my trip from Incheon Airport to my hotel in Jongo-gu, I saw 7 Dunkin Doughnuts. Para bai hu admite na didide’ tiningo’-hu put South Korea, lao bei sangani hamyo, nag of nina’manman yu’ ni’ este. I know the whole spiel about globalization and way franchises such as McDonald’s and Starbucks have become global. So I wasn’t shocked when I saw Sponge Bob Squarepants dubbed on TV, or an episode of House with Korean subtitles. I saw a few McDonalds and Starbucks, Pizza Huts on the way to my hotel, and wasn’t surprised at all. But the fact that I found 7 Dunkin Doughnuts really intrigued me and made me wonder if there is some interesting or tragic story behind how South Korea came to be so inundated with that particular franchise. So while I was on the bus, I vowed to keep track of all the Dunkin Doughnuts that I find in South Korea, and eventually when I return to Guam conduct some research to see if there is any backstory to be found. Stay tuned for the final tally of Dunkin Donuts on

Published on Friday, March 26, 2010 by the New York Times Syndicate Globalization Marches On Growing popular outrage has not challenged corporate power. by Noam Chomsky Shifts in global power, ongoing or potential, are a lively topic among policy makers and observers. One question is whether (or when) China will displace the United States as the dominant global player, perhaps along with India. Such a shift would return the global system to something like it was before the European conquests. Economic growth in China and India has been rapid, and because they rejected the West's policies of financial deregulation, they survived the recession better than most. Nonetheless, questions arise. One standard measure of social health is the U.N. Human Development Index. As of 2008, India ranks 134th, slightly above Cambodia and below Laos and Tajikistan, about where it has been for many years. China ranks 92nd-tied with Belize, a bit above Jordan, below the Dominican Republic and Iran.