Tres Sinangan

I'm down to the last few weeks to finish up my dissertation. I'm finishing a year ahead of schedule, so everything is a bit crazy and last minute, but its very important for me that I finish up as soon as I can and move on to other things. I've been in some sort of college for twelve years straight now and its starting to wear down on me, and the need for decent money to pay off loans and support a child and health insurance as I start getting older is also compelling me to finish up.

Obviously, there won't be much blogging for the next few weeks, unless I'm just posting stuff from my dissertation on here. (Gi minagahet, maolek este na hinasso.)

Before returning to writing I did want to share three quotes which have sustained me through the writing process, and are keeping me going as I type. The first is critical, the second is more reflective and the third is a call to action. They represent in a very nice (maninos) way the spirit of my dissertation.

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Sandy Grande, Red Pedagogy

The United States is a nation defined by its original sin: the genocide of American Indians…American Indian tribes are viewed as an inherent threat to the nation, poised to expose the great lies of U.S. democracy: that we are a nation of laws and not random power; that we are guided by reason and not faith; that we are governed by representation and not executive order; and finally, that we stand as a self-determined citizenry and not a kingdom of blood or aristocracy…From the perspective of American Indians, “democracy” has been wielded with impunity as the first and most virulent weapon of mass destruction.

Chief Seattle of the Duwamish

You Europeans did not weave the web of life, you are only a single strand of it. Whatever you do to the web, you do to yourself. Tribe follows tribe, nation follows nation. It is like the waves of the sea, it is the order of nature and regret is useless. Your time of decay may be distant, but it will surely come. For even your god who walks and talks to you as friend to friend cannot escape the common destiny. We may be brothers and sisters after all. We shall see.

Epeli Hau’ofa, “Our Sea of Islands”

Oceania is vast, Oceania is expanding, Oceania is hospitable and generous, Oceania is humanity rising from the depths of brine and regions of fire deeper still, Oceania is us. We are the sea, we are the ocean, we must wake up this ancient truth and together use it to overturn all hegemonic views that aim to ultimately confine us again, physically and psychologically, in the tiny spaces that we have resisted accepting as our sole appointed places and from which we have recently liberated ourselves. We must not allow anyone to belittle us again, and take away our freedom.