As someone who takes seriously the role of contemporary and historical colonialism in shaping Guam, I’ve been impressed with his rhetoric, but also wary as to how much of it is real and how much of it might be simple posturing.
Every governor of Guam has the same choices in terms of their approach to navigating the sometimes stormy, sometimes placid seas of federal-territorial relations. You can pretend you are just like a state and accept the Hansel and Gretel like breadcrumbs of tokenism that make you feel like you are moving forward when you are really not. Or you can play the colonial card, and try to define yourself from your actual position, which is much more difficult in the short term but does have the aura of possibly helping to lead Guam in the next step of its political evolution.
Although the governor of Texas may have flirted recently with secessionist talk, Guam is the kind of place where if the governor talks about Guam being outside the political union or about Guam becoming independent, that isn’t just rhetoric but the facts of the matter. This sort of talk about colonialism is one of the tools every governor has at their disposal. Governors of old always sought to skirt the issue and play the role of smiley and compliant natives, but more recent Maga’låhi have enjoyed the appearance of being strong and standing up to Uncle Sam, the punkish satisfaction of speaking truth to power, and of course trying to shame the Feds when they don’t leave their bases to come and visit the people.
For Calvo and any Guam governor, the importance of this tactic is always how much action you put behind the rhetoric. Are you just name-calling or are you pushing concretely for self-determination or for Guam being more self-sufficient and taking better care of itself? One of the main downsides to this approach is that if you take this strategy too far, you can quickly appear to be ungrateful or too radical. Although Guam is a colony, it is first and foremost a colony that lives in denial about its status, so the governor takes a risk by reminding people of things which they would rather forget or not deal with. The importance of playing the colonial card is local, giving the island a gentle reminder, but doesn’t do much elsewhere.
Calling the U.S. a colonizer in both a contemporary and historical sense is in truth far from radical and is something which can be proven over and over. The problem most people have with this sort of calling out is not that it’s untrue, but rather that it might upset the U.S. Too often Guam lives in fear of not wanting to distress the overbearing, all-consuming American father figure, who the island may loathe one minute, but feel desperately dependent upon the next. We sometimes resist speaking the truth since there is a fear that it’ll make Uncle Sam mad and it’ll make him withdraw funds, withdraw troops, leave the island and take everything that he has given us. This is, however, barely true and barely a real issue.
Politicians in D.C. can posture in ways to make it seem like they have been wounded by offensive rhetoric, but it rarely has any effect on policy. Every once in a while, the self-determination rhetoric will reach the ears of a clueless congressperson and some statement will be put out, screeching that the people on Guam are ungrateful, and that maybe they should just be let loose like the ungrateful achakma’ that they are. This response is always there, but it has little effect, it has never actually led to anything.
What an interesting world it would be if this threat actually came true and suddenly Guam found itself one day independent or sold off to China to improve the debt rating of the U.S.
The real problem with calling the U.S. a colonizer is much worse and much more banal. It is just that it doesn’t care, and worse — it doesn’t know enough about itself to even understand what the implications of this label are.
The greater a nation is convinced it is, the less likely it is to ever actually do anything about the sins of its past or the injustice that is carried out in its name. The United States, which has moved to the top of the world through ingenuity, innovation, the promotion of human freedom and liberty, but also genocide, slavery, imperialism and overthrowing a lot of foreign leaders who didn’t support their military or economic interests, has almost too much baggage to ever even want to open them up. It is for that reason it remains a nation which, above all, can forget things as quickly as they happen, and can have a terrible history in almost every corner of the globe, which has almost no ability to affect how people feel about themselves or their country.
With this ability to forget and ignore so much, how minute and insignificant it is to be called a “colonizer” by the governor of a tiny faraway colony.
MICHAEL LUJAN BEVACQUA
Mangilao, Guam
