NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

At the 2010 World Conference Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs, everything is conducted in English and Japanese. Since most of the people attending the conference are from Japan and do not speak English, all the overseas delegates have headsets and during the proceedings off to the side there is an interpreter who is telling us what people are saying. While I was in South Korea I had the experience of attending a conference where I did not understand a single word, and while I did get a lot of other work done during that time, it was disappointing to not be able to follow what was being said. One thing that the organizers of the conference request in order to make their job easier is that we turn in our speeches ahead of time so that it can be translated into Japanese ahead of time, or so the interpreter can have it in front of them while you speak to help guide them. I submitted my speech a week ahead of time, but was told the day I arrived to make some changes and cut its length. Ins...

Kana' tumanges annai hu taitai este na betsu. Gi i tiempo-ku guini giya Hapon, meggai na estoria hu hungok put i pinadesin i maninafekta ni' i hinatmen atomic. Siempre bula na aniti gi este na lugat, sa:' siempre Siha chumochonnek i taotao guini mo'na gi i kinalamten kontra atmas nuclear. Un hibakusha na palao'an tumuge' este gi 1973. Estaba gui giya Hiroshima annai hinatme ni' i atmas atomic, lao ti matai gui'. Lao annai mumapotge gui' duru chathinasso-na na sina nina'dano' i patgon-na ni' i radiation. Ha tuge'i i patgon-na este annai gaigaige ha' gi halom i tiyan-na. Para este na klasin taotao (i mannina'ye radiation), guaha racism kontra siha, sa' nu i otro na taotao Hapon, kalang kalaskas, but manamatatse este siha. Ti debi di un asagua este na klasin taotao siha sa' attelong i haga'-niha, madano' i tahtaotao-niha. Achokka' esta 65 na sakkan desde ayu na baba na ogga'an, sigi ha' ma susedi gui...

The week during which the anniversaries of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings fall is a time during which the battle over Japanese national identity reaches its peak. For it is during this time that the discourse on Japan being a victim from World War II is thickest and most vibrant. As the stories of hundreds of thousands who died in the atomic blasts are recounted, it is very easy to forget the prologue to that moment, where Japan had spent decades sometimes violently building an empire, which at its peak, during World War II consisted of colonies in China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Korea, Vietnam and Guam. As Japan is utterly defeated and destroyed by the United States after World War II (and bares the radiation scars to prove it) and forced to unconditionally surrender and accept numerous US military bases there as part of their new relationship, it emerges as newly humbled, bearing the shameful mark of defeat. As the nation seeks to move on, it resorts to victimization in order...

While driving around Hiroshima in a cab this morning I learned that the driver was the son of a hibakusha , or someone who had been hit in the atomic blast in Hiroshima but had survived. I along with delegates from Nigeria and Vietnam were in the car and when our guide told him that we were all in town for the 2010 World Conference Against Atom and Hydrogen Bombs, he enthusiastically welcomed us all. He went on to talk a little bit about himself and his mother and then summed up his story with an obvious but important point. He said that he could not understand, even after people have seen the horrible damage that they cause, why anyone in this world would want nuclear weapons to continue to be in this world. Para Guiya, ti hongge’on na manggaigaige ha’ gi este na mundo, este na klasin “weapons.” Earlier this year, activists groups from around the world, but activists in particular in Japan had worked to gather signatures worldwide calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons, which wa...

“…let Japan be the core of the pencil…” I heard this via an interpreter via my headset and immediately looked up from my notebook. The speaker was an elderly Japanese woman, who had been speaking already for several minutes and had touched upon a huge number of issues which drive the work of Japanese progressive; peace, Article 9, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Hibakusha, nuclear war, economic. Her statement by that time had gone from being inspiring to overwhelming to too far-reaching, and so she made this statement in an attempt to sum up her message, by asking the Japanese people present on the first day of the 2010 World Conference Against A and H Bombs, that they work to make their country the “core of the pencil.” She did not take the metaphor any further than this, either because she dropped it or because the interpreter didn’t pick up on it. In my mind though, I kept rolling and kumilili mo’na ayu na idea esta ki mana’kabåles gui’ gi hinasso-ku. Two things came to mind after hearing t...

This morning three different trips were organized for the visiting delegates so that they could visit the facilities where hibakusha or people affected by the nuclear blasts in Hiroshima are being cared for. There are still tens of thousands of hibakusha left in Japan, the youngest being 66 years old now. I along with delegates from Vietnam, Nigeria, Norway, Brazil, Nepal and Fiji visited a nursing home where 97 hibakusha from ages 66 -99 were being cared for. We got to meet some of them, visit their cafeteria, social hall and even see pictures of some of the regular activities and festivities they celebrate. At the start of our visit we were given an overview of the work being done there by the superintendent. He spoke through a translator and as such, one always feels like you are watching a badly dubbed, constantly delayed movie. In this movie you politely look at the person speaking, as they speak, and nod politely even if you comprehend nothing of what is being said, and then you ...

In June I traveled to South Korea on a solidarity trip with delegates from the Philippines, Okinawa and the United States, to learn about the current situations of different struggles against US and South Korean military expansion. It’s not even two months later and I’m already on another similar sort of solidarity trip. For the next ten days I’ll be in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan learning about the history of nuclear damage to this country and the peoples from these cities, but I’ll also be speaking to and presenting with people from other countries about the dangers of nuclear weapons and the need for the world to finally sum up the courage to abolition them. The conference that I’m attending is the 2010 World Conference Against Atom and Hydrogen Bombs. There are more than a hundred delegates from at last count 23 countries, 70 + NGOs and 9 national governments. The conference will be talking about nuclear weapons from all angles, how to fight against existing battles for compen...

One of my favorite lectures to give in my World History 2 class is the one on Haiti. Especially since the earthquake there earlier this year, I find it truly important to break the silence that surrounds Haiti and its revolutionary history. I was appalled at how through months of coverage over Haiti by media in the United States, the narrative was always the same, tragedy in a third world country. Collapse in a place where collapse and disaster is a way of life. The valiant efforts by the first world in recognizing that suffering and taking steps to alleviate it, to help those helpless souls. Given the scent of human suffering its understandable that they take this angle, but what was left out of their coverage, the historical aspects was also expected but still nonetheless horrifying to watch (or rather to not watch). The media's purpose in this case was to help the people of the US "discover" Haiti. the concept of discovery is always interesting. It has the aura of lea...

Federal judge blocks key parts of Arizona immigration law The ruling halts implementation of provisions that require police to determine the immigration status of people they stop and suspect of being in the U.S. illegally. An immediate appeal is expected. By Nicholas Riccardi and Anna Gorman Los Angeles Times 5:50 PM PDT, July 28, 2010 A federal judge on Wednesday blocked most of a controversial Arizona immigration law just hours before it was to take effect, handing the Obama administration a win in the first stage of a legal battle expected to end up in the U.S. Supreme Court. U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton in Phoenix issued a temporary injunction against parts of the law that would require police to determine the status of people they lawfully stopped and suspected were in the country illegally. Bolton also forbade Arizona from making it a state crime to not carry immigration documents, and struck down two other provisions as an unconstitutional attempt by Arizona to underm...

I’m feeling depressed this month. Tinemba yu’ gi este na mes. I spent the last year trying to get a permanent job at UOG and got nothing despite applying for several positions. Right now I’m teaching part time at UOG this month to get by, but come August, I won’t have a full-time job but will still have two kids to support, credit card debt to appease and a mountain of student loan debt that is always mahalang for my salape’. I’m spending the month of July trying to line up some full-time work for decent pay, but haven’t found anything certain yet. This is especially so when I’m watching a movie and some fantastic, but old pop or rock song comes on, and I’m tempted to start singing along with the soundtrack of the movie. I used to do that, but movies have a way of chopping up or rearranging a song to make it fit and so its really really embarrassing when you are the only person in a theater yelling along to a song and it cuts out, but you keep belting it out for a few embarrassing sec...