Circumnavigations #2: Sumugo' yu giya 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 then the most serious threat to peace in the world today.
Trump gives off the same aura of insanity, albeit in a different way.
He exasperates Guam's already tenuous colonial status.
Where we on Guam don't know from one moment to the next if we are part of the US, and Trump, by being even more erratic than your average US leader, only makes us more cognizant of our lack of stable place in the world.
It doesn't help that when facing threats you don't want a "chaos president."
Don't want someone, for whom it seems, would gladly let your island be consumed in a sea of fire and fury in order to get over some poor golf scores or perhaps a badly cooked cheeseburger.
But one of the most frustrating aspects of the entire debacle is the lack of presence Guam has in the discussion and in the coverage.
I gave several dozen interviews with international and national media last year about the North Korean threat, and much of their focus was on how the people on the island were reacting or feeling.
But I and others, tried to push back on this idea, and assert that the real anxiety and worry comes not from the direct threat necessarily, but the fact that we have no place in the discussion or decisions about said threat.
That they swirl around you, and even the basic idea that some amorphous government or military is making decisions on your behalf, doesn't feel quite right.
While in Seoul, I spoke to a few South Koreans (those that could speak some English), introducing myself as being from Guam and wanting to know their thoughts on the issue of North Korea.
This conversation will become more important in so many ways, not just in military terms, but in economic ways as well.
It is fascinating how a place such as Guam can be so integrated and connected to other countries, yet because of its political status be part of a globalized community, but feel detached from it.
Part of it is formal, as we don't get to sit down next to other countries and talk about our place in the world, but it is also because of our status, where we feel like those rights belong to the US and not to us.
Formally, Guam is supposed to be excluded from those discussions, but in what ways can we nonetheless force them or create those networks of power?
That is one thing that I will be thinking heavily about, while on this trip.
Comments