In this global community, I say, “No island is an island.”
We may be a chain of islands, but our world is too interconnected for us to remain so insular.
A financial crisis, anti-government protests, and terrorist attacks thousands of miles away all affect 14 small islands just west of the Marianas Trench.
So, when we consider today’s question, amid all the connections that link continents, nations, and people, rather than declaring our independence, perhaps we should declare our interdependence.
That is why I believe we should remain a commonwealth.
Doing so will allow us to cultivate our interdependence with the United States and the rest of the world in a way that will secure a better future for our islands and for our people.
Now, make no mistake. Choosing to remain a commonwealth will have some negative impact on our islands. The negative impact stems from the Covenant that established our commonwealth and the political realities of American hegemony.
Let’s be honest with ourselves, for all its acclaim, the Covenant is a flawed document.
First, Section 503 undermines the Covenant’s spirit of mutual consent by giving the U. S. Congress the authority to unilaterally revoke local control of labor and immigration.
Second, when the Covenant was created, many important issues were left out of the Covenant, such as submerged lands, maritime jurisdiction, and proper representation in the U. S. Congress.
Third, for all its talk of self-determination and self-governance, the Covenant clearly states that the commonwealth is established under the sovereignty of the United States of America.
These flaws are the direct result of a political environment that favors U.S. interests over NMI interests. When the Covenant was created and in our continuing dealings with the United States, idealistic rhetoric often obscures political reality.
Although the U.S. was entrusted by the United Nations after World War II to help the Northern Marianas determine its own political destiny, that destiny was tarnished by America’s own agenda of manifest destiny. As one of the world’s two superpowers engaged in a cold war, the United States forced islands throughout the Pacific to conform to its military interests.
America was essentially a bully. And it still is.
Did the U.S. consult with the NMI in any meaningful way when establishing the Marianas Trench Monument?
Did the U.S. consult with the NMI in any meaningful way when federalizing labor and immigration?
And, more recently, did the U.S. at least privately consult with Gov. Eddie Calvo when sending major Senate leaders through Guam?
These are not the actions of a concerned trustee or an equal partner in a functional relationship. These are the actions of a bully that knows he can get away with taking away our land, taking away our power, and taking away our dignity.
So, no, I have no illusions about the state of our commonwealth.
I know — we all know — that it’s not perfect.
However, as imperfect as it is, independence is not the answer.
Besides, how independent could we be anyway?
Just as we shouldn’t let idealistic rhetoric obscure the reality of being a commonwealth, neither should we let idealistic rhetoric obscure the reality of being independent.
With all due respect to our Pacific neighbors, how really independent are the Republic of Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands?
Aren’t they just as reliant on federal aid as we are?
Aren’t they just as controlled by U.S. foreign policy as we are?
Aren’t they just as dependent on the U.S. as we are?
So, despite its imperfections, there are clear advantages to remaining a commonwealth.
For all its flaws, the Covenant gave us control of our land, control of our tax structure, and, for a time, control of our labor and immigration.
And for all its flaws, being a commonwealth has helped build our islands’ economy, infrastructure, and prosperity.
Despite the recent economic downturn, our commonwealth status allowed us to develop industries that fueled our economy in the ’80s and ’90s.
Our relationship with the federal government has also provided millions of dollars in economic aid and infrastructure development.
And the Covenant provided our people with U.S. citizenship, citizenship that we continue to enjoy to this day.
Yes, things are bad now, but compared to the rest of the world, we are faring this economic hardship much better because of our relationship with the U.S.
At a time when many economies in the world are sinking, our economy is being kept afloat by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund, and continuing federal grants.
But we must look beyond the here and now to truly see the positive impact of being a commonwealth.
Unlike many other young democracies throughout the world that have suffered violent uprisings and bloody overthrows of power, we have enjoyed relative stability in our 30-plus years as a commonwealth.
That stability comes from the protection of the most powerful military in the history of mankind. But it also comes from one of the richest democratic traditions this world has ever known.
And what makes America’s democracy work is not money, not power, not even government itself. What makes it work is pluralism, or the system in which the minority has as much a say as the majority.
In American pluralism, even the minority voice of our islands can be heard among the 541 members of Congress.
In American pluralism, even the minority voice of our islands can be heard in the 9th Circuit Court and maybe one day in the Supreme Court.
And in American pluralism, even the minority voice of our islands can be heard by the president through the Department of the Interior.
That pluralism, and the very core of our commonwealth, is based on our relationship with the United States.
That relationship, however, has deteriorated in recent years.
Rather than a functional relationship based on interdependence, our political union has become a dysfunctional relationship based on codependence.
It is the same kind of codependence one finds in unhealthy relationships plagued by substance abuse, addiction, and domestic violence.
In our case, we in the commonwealth have abused our addiction — federal hand-outs — and have thus subjected ourselves to the repeated abuse of an overbearing federal government.
If we are to remain a commonwealth, both partners in this relationship must take steps to fix the relationship.
In other words, the time has come to renegotiate the Covenant.
For its part, the United States must do three things.
First, the U.S. should do more to honor the spirit of the Covenant. The spirit of the Covenant is self-government and autonomy. The U.S. must honor that spirit to maintain its legitimacy as the world’s champion of democracy.
Second, the U.S. should address important issues that were excluded from the Covenant, namely submerged lands. As a chain of islands, our greatest resource is the ocean. But we cannot survive and thrive unless we are given greater control over that precious resource.
Third, the U.S. should engage in more meaningful consultation before major decisions are made that affect our islands.
These are the things the U.S. must to do repair our relationship.
For our part, the commonwealth must also do three things.
First, the commonwealth should mature politically and adopt a more realistic and strategic approach toward our relationship with the U.S. Rather than complain about how the U.S. uses our islands for its foreign policy, we should accept that reality and leverage our strategic importance in order to gain the most for our islands.
Second, the commonwealth should own up to its mistakes and operate with more integrity. Misspending federal funds, wining and dining Jack Abramoff and Tom Delay, and accusing the federal government of all sorts of evils have only hurt our relationship with the U.S. If we are to gain the respect of the U.S. as an equal partner in this relationship, then we must earn that respect by behaving like a mature democracy.
Third, the commonwealth should become less dependent and more self-reliant. So long as we stay addicted to federal hand-outs, we remain a vulnerable, unequal partner in this relationship.
But becoming less dependent does not mean we should cut our ties with the U.S.
We must fix this relationship, not end it.
As we renegotiate the Covenant, we must transform our dysfunctional codependence into a functional interdependence.
As commentator John Del Rosario Jr. so aptly put it in a recent opinion piece, “it remains our obligation to begin a functional relationship anew.”
As islanders, we know how to make relationships work, even in the aftermath of war.
After World War II, our people rose from the ashes and rebuilt these islands, one village at a time, one relationship at a time. We did this despite all that was lost in the war.
As Nancy Flood wrote in her book about the war, “Warriors in the Crossfire”:
“The blood of the many lives lost has washed away. May the memory of their struggles and tragic deaths not wash away. May the courage of those who survived always be remembered.”
We must do more than just remember their struggles and deaths.
We must honor their memory by making sure they did not die in vain.
We must find the courage to make this relationship work.
Because we need this relationship.
We need this commonwealth.
We need each other.
(Maria S. Balajadia is a senior student at Mount Carmel High School. This is her winning speech at the recently held 27th Attorney Generals’ Cup.)
