NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

It is intriguing the way that so many people assume something to be impossible and frightening in a particularly local or familiar context, but then completely miss the way that they accept such things in other contexts without even a hint of fear or apprehension. In Guam, a colony of the US for more than a century, and a colony of Spain for several centuries prior to that, this is frustratingly true and real in terms of the people of the island, both indigenous and non-indigenous, living in terror of Guam becoming independent. For other nations and other locations, independence is something to celebrate, a key moment in terms of a nation's development or evolution, something to look back on pride, even if your country has serious problems past or present. But it is intriguing how for example, Filipinos, Chinese or Koreans and others on Guam can celebrate the nationhood and the independence of their own nations, whether it be from colonialism, from imperialism or from their own s

I asunton decolonization gof takhilo' gi halacha na tiempo giya Guahan. Magof yu' put este, sa' esta mas ki dies na sakkan hu kekechonnek este. Lao, kada na manli'e' yu' kombetsaion pat diniskuti gi kumunidat put este, ha na'annok na ti manlisto hit. Put hemplo, gi ma'pos na simana, humuyong na tinige' gi PDN put i salape' federat iya Guahan ha risisibi kada sakkan, ya put este na salape' siempre ti sina manindependente hit. Esta manoppe ham yan si Victoria Leon Guerrero. In kattayi i editor para i PDN, ya esta mana'huyong i tinige'-mami. Kada humalom yu' gi este na klasen diniskuti, hu huhungok i meggai na chinatkinemprende put decolonization yan i matulaika-ña i estao-ta pulitikat. I mas takhilo' pat i mas atdet na prublema, ti i salape' federat, ti put taimanu na para ta difenden maisa hit, ti put taimanu na para ta na'ladangkolo i ekonomia-ta. Todu enao siha, hunggan prublema, lao ti sen atdet. Guah

Although the world could probably agree on the fact that colonial should no longer exist and be eradicated from the world, this does not mean that much of the world will lift a finger to do anything about it. The consensus over something can in a way kill the possibility of doing anything about it. It is an interesting dynamic that creates this effect. The more people agree that something should not exist, the more they tend to assert its existence as being marginal and small. Or that it contemporary emergence is irregular and unique, it does not represent much of the world save for itself. The fact that all can agree on colonialism being eradicated also creates the impression that it is beyond contestation or beyond intervention. For instance, almost everyone in the world would agree to some form of the notion that "politicians are corrupt." The commonsensical quality of this can be problematic. The larger and wider spread a notion like this is, the more difficult it can b

The person in charge of this year's UN Regional Seminar is Xavier Lasso Mendoza, Chairman of the Special Committee, who is from Ecuador. He gave a short speech which began the first day, where he outlined the tasks we hope to accomplish and gave us some words of encouragement. He quoted part of the poem "Retorno" by Nicaraguan poet Ruben Dario. The words have stuck with me the entire time I've been here. "Si pequeña es la Patria, unu grande la sueña" This translates to, "If the homeland is small, one dreams it large."  This is an important reminder for the Non-Self-Governing Territories or colonies of today, as many of them are small islands, with small populations who by the way most people (including those in those islands) tend to see the world today, are far too small and too faraway to ever become independent or achieve decolonization. As colonies we are bred to see ourselves as the stuck, dependent, lower end of every binary and regar

Monday, Aug 29, 2011 10:30 ET The decade's biggest scam  By Glenn Greenwald Salon.com The Los Angeles Times examines the staggering sums of money expended on patently absurd domestic "homeland security" projects: $75 billion per year for things such as a Zodiac boat with side-scan sonar to respond to a potential attack on a lake in tiny Keith County, Nebraska, and hundreds of "9-ton BearCat armored vehicles, complete with turret" to guard against things like an attack on DreamWorks in Los Angeles.  All of that -- which is independent of the exponentially greater sums spent on foreign wars, occupations, bombings, and the vast array of weaponry and private contractors to support it all -- is in response to this mammoth, existential, the-single-greatest-challenge-of-our-generation threat: "The number of people worldwide who are killed by Muslim-type terrorists, Al Qaeda wannabes, is maybe a few hundred outside of war zones. It's basically

I've been meaning for sometime to write some of my thoughts on the resistance to militarization taking place in the small village of Gangjeong on the island of Jeju in South Korea. I put up a couple of posts llast week about the most recent round of protests. I traveled there for two days last summer in order to learn about the struggle going on there against plans to build a joint Naval facility for US and South Korean forces. The facility would be used for Aegis Destroyers and would displace many farmers an end up destroying some very beautiful and unique coral off the coast. I was struck by the tenacity of the villagers when I was there. They knew that things were against them, that much of the rest of the island and the rest of South Korea didn't care what happened in their quaint village, and that better something like this be put in a tiny village then in the backyards of some larger community. Such is the logic that has meant that Okinawa which is 0.6% of the total la

Sen magof hu na sumasaga' yu' pa'go giya Guahan. Estaba, annai sumasaga' gi lagu, fihu mampos mahalang para este na isla. Lao desde hu "move" hu tatte para Guahan, hassan nai na nina'mahalang yu' ni' i lina'la' gi lagu. Hunggan, guaha na biahi, mandiseha yu' na este giya Guahan, pat este giya Guahan, lao ti presisu este na siniente. Mas ki nahong i lina'la'-hu guini, guaha na biahi, mas ki bula'. Mismo machuchuda' i tasa-hu. Lao desde hiningok-hu put i dos na rallies ni' manmaplaneha ni' i fumati'tinas i Daily Show yan i Colbert Report, fihu mandiseseha yu' na gaige yu' gi lagu ta'lo. Ti para mo'na ya ti para apmam, lao para un simana ha' buente, kosaki sina hu saonao ayu na linahayan gi ayu na dinana'. For those interested, I've got the rally and march messages below. ************************ "RALLY TO RESTORE SANITY" Jon Stewart National Mall, Washington D.C

Do you know how ridiculous the United States is when one of its most dominant voices in political discourse today is someone who is too scared to do interviews with human beings who might not worship her, who embodies almost perfectly the Stephen Colbert truthism that truth comes from the gut and the hip and not the mind, and whose interventions boil down to mindless little posts on Facebook and Twitter, but are reported as something far more meaningful and powerful? Gof o'sun yu' nu Si Sarah Palin yan i bida-na. Taihinasso gui', lao sa' hafa meggai na taotao guihi gi lagu muna'fofotte i fino'-na? ********************************* Sarah Palin: The Sound and the Fury Michael Joseph Gross Vanity Fair October 10, 2010 Backstage in the arena, a little girl in Mary Janes pushes her brother in a baby carriage, stopping a few yards shy of a heavy, 100-foot-long black curtain. The curtain splits the arena in two, shielding the children from an audience of 4,000 p