NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Dave Davis is a name that is synonymous on Guam with racist rhetoric aimed at Chamorros. He wrote letters to the editor of the PDN for many years and somewhere along the way was given a regular column in the Marianas Variety which he calls very warmly "The Outsider Perspective." In his column he regularly attacks the Government of Guam, Chamorro culture, Chamorro activists, and people who use Federal social services. These are things that everyone on Guam regularly assaults verbally, but the difference is that most people save those conversations for when they are amongst people they know agree with them and can therefore enjoy all the pleasures of racist rhetoric without fear of someone saying "Taimanu un atotga sumangan ennao!" But what makes Davis particularly odious for most people on Guam is that he doesn't only attack those who people usually attack, but he does also take glee in attempting to eviscerate Chamorro culture. He enjoys arguing that there is ...

Biba kumpleanos Akli'e'. Estague i mina'dos na kumeplanos-mu!

I took my UOG summer class students to Mount Lamlam for an extra credit hike over the weekend. For those of you who know me, you might already be making ominous sounds and widening your eyes preparing for an update about my struggle with that particular peak on Guam. For those of you who don't know me I won't bore you too much, but let me just say that me and Mount Lamlam have a history, a difficult, painful history of me getting lost on that hike. On a good day a hike up and down Mount Lamlam should take 2 - 3 hours depending on how fast you move. On a bad day it can take 4 - 6 hours. The extra times comes from the sword grass or bamboo being too dense that trails disappear and also can come from the fact that if your group is too large they get spread out and staggered along a winding, uneven and sometimes dangerous path slowing you down. The hike over the weekend was no different, as close to 50 of my students and their friends showed up and this led to a long day of hik...

Gof ya-hu i "The Day in 100 Seconds" ni' fina'tinas as Talking Points Memo. Taya' cable-hu, ya achokka' meggai tinaitai-hu gi i internet kada diha, ti hu gof tutungo' i hafa masusesedi gi i mundon i mainstream media. Guaha dos mas ya-hu na huego. I fine'nina huegon video siha, ko'lo'lo'na "Sahyan Estreyas 2" pat estaba hu fa'na'an "Kareran Estreyas 2" pat fino' Ingles "Starcraft 2." Gof ya-hu humugando ayu yan umegga' lokkue' gi i professionat yan gof kapas na ganadot na banda. I mina'dos "politics" ayu un gof "frustrating" yan "interesante" yan "bunito" na huego. Guaha nai i mampulitikat mambaibaila, guaha mamyaoyaoyao, ya sesso manmumumu. Guaha manmaolek na taotao siha yan guaha mambaba lokkue'. Ayek un banda ya pakpaki yan bibayi i ganadot-mu siha! Este i "Day in 100 Seconds" ginnen i kumeplanos-hu gi i ma'pos na simana.

My friend in South Korea Sung Hee Choice has been put in prison for the past two months for peacefully obstructing the construction of a Navy base in the tiny village of Gangjeong in Southen Jeju. She used to run the blog No Base Korea Stories , but after being arrested her friends have taken over the task of updating it on the fight against militarism in South Korea. David Vine, an anthropologist who is most famous for his excellent book on the secret history of Diego Garcia, had a chance to visit Sung Hee recently and wrote up his interview for the website Foreign Policy in Focus. ***************************** Jeju Island Activist Sung-Hee Choi Interviewed in Prison Foreign Policy in Focus By David Vine, July 26, 2011 Last week, I had the honor of going to prison. I was conducting research on South Korea’s beautiful Jeju Island, off the country’s southern coast, and was lucky enough to be one of the two people per day allowed to speak with the renowned imprisoned activist S...

I find the messages of Guam's business community to be really funny sometimes. Sure, there's the usual rhetoric about their particular interests being the interests for all, and that people who have millions of dollars and small to medium sized local empires are just regular people too who want what's best for the entire island. The military buildup was of course one object of discourse where this rhetoric would emerge most clearly, as the particular interests of the rich to get contracts, to engorge themselves in speculative capitalism, and basically swim in a pile of golden tickets, came to also somehow mean that the average Joe Cruz would also be getting a huge slice of economic prosperity. Nothing even remotely close is on the horizon even if the buildup as it was first proposed should go through, but somehow people accepted na chumilong the millions made by one to the new minimum wage jobs that the buildup will create for hundreds. What I find na'chalek today is ...

The recent attacks in Norway at first glance seemed like a dream come true for crazy conservatives who love to use Islam around the world as an example of why Americans must increase military budgets, stop the seeping spread of multiculturalism, counter the pansiness of liberalism and tolerance and take up the glorious counter-Jihad against the global Islamic Jihad. Norway, one of those crazy liberal, sort of socialist countries, which people always point to along with Sweden, as places which the United States should follow in terms of improving some basic social service or government program. The people at Fox News must have been very estatic at first after hearing about the attack, since it would no doubt give them great red meat for several news cycles, inviting on people who would argue against the building of mosques in American communities (one of whom is popular Republican Presidential possible candidate Herman Cain) and maybe even bring back that crazy Texas Congressman who say...

For Immediate Release from the Guåhan Coalition for Peace and Justice July 25, 2011 Local Author/Attorney Wins Prestigious Petra Award for Human Rights Work One of Guam’s finest writers and attorneys, Julian Aguon, was recently chosen as a 2011 Petra Fellow for his “distinctive contributions to the rights, autonomy and dignity” of the people of Guam and the Pacific region, and the work he has done “for the cause of justice, fairness, and human dignity,” according to the Petra Foundation. The Petra Fellowship comes with a $7,500 financial award, which will be presented to Mr. Aguon in Cambridge, Massachusetts the weekend of November 18 - 20, 2011. Mr. Aguon will also join an “inclusive, informal, hands-on national network of citizen activists who are working across the lines of age, ethnicity, class and issue to build a more just society,” according to the Petra Foundation. As described on the Foundation’s website, “The Petra Foundation was established in 1988 to sustain the ...

The Office of Senator Ben Pangelinan has for a few years now took on the task of trying to get people registered for the Chamorro registry. According to Guam Public Law a decolonization plebiscite cannot take place until 70% of those who are eligible to vote (those who are legally "Chamorro") have signed up for the registry. On Senator Pangelinan's website you can see what the count was as of last year April, less than 1,000, which is far short of the tens of thousands who need to be registered. In the rise since the start of the year of public discourse on self-determination, this issue of 70% has been regularly challenged as an insurmountable barrier to the process. The original intent of the law is clear. In times past referendum's on political status have low turnout and so the requirement is designed to ensure that if a plebiscite takes place, enough people vote so that the next step in Guam's political evolution is not decided by a tiny group.  Senator Ben...

Always nice when Guam gets a mention in The Nation. ************************ Around the Globe, US Military Bases Generate Resentment, Not Security Katrina vanden Heuvel June 13, 201 The Nation  As we debate an exit from Afghanistan , it’s critical that we focus not only on the costs of deploying the current force of more than 100,000 troops , but also on the costs of maintaining permanent bases long after those troops leave. This is an issue that demands a hard look not only in Afghanistan and Iraq, but around the globe—where the United States has a veritable empire of bases. According to the Pentagon , there are approximately 865 US military bases abroad—over 1,000 if new bases in Iraq and Afghanistan are included. The cost? $102 billion annually—and that doesn’t include the costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan bases. In a must-read article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Sciences , anthropologist Hugh Gusterson points out that these bases “constitute 95 percent of all the mil...

Last week a small group of people started walking at 5:30 am in front of the Malesso Church. They headed north along Route 4 for hours, passing through Inarajan and Ipan and eventually ending in the middle of the day at the Manengon Memorial in Ylig, Yo’na. For those who finished the journey it was a difficult trek of 19 miles the last half of which was under the unforgiving Guam sun. The name of this walk was "Remember Our Strength" or "Hasso i Minetgot-ta." I started off with the group in Malesso, but by mile 13, for my own personal reasons felt like stopping and didn't continue. Although I was tired by that point it wasn't an issue of physical pain that made me stop. I made this decision because in my eyes the walk had become something I didn't want to participate in anymore, and with only 6 miles left I decided to catch a ride back to my car. My personal issues with the walk however shouldn't detract however from the event's potential impor...