We believed the then-administrators on Capital Hill. We obeyed our “trainers” of the Trustee United States as they would lead us into democracy. We were pawns in the turf war between the Naval Administration and the Department of the Interior. We had no idea if we were going to be the next frontier of the “Office of Insular Affairs” like the “BIA” with the “Bureau of Indian Affairs.” No one knew of the BIA’s “successes” on the reservations in the 1970’s. But the Naval Administration also had its agenda. Capital Hill was the site of the secret activities for the CIA and other covert operations. The Hill was exclusive, locked away from our own people on our own island.
From that Trust Territory Administration sprung forth the Congress of Micronesia. Here we learned Democracy.
High Commissioner Norwood worked with the generation of our leaders from Micronesia. We had Senate President Tosiwo Nakayama working with our Sen. Olympio T. Borja. Along him sat Sens. Amata Kabua and Andon Amaraich. At the Congress of Micronesia building on Saipan, the forefathers of our Commonwealth and the visionaries of the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau engaged in the rule of law. The names Lazarus Salii, Dwight Heine, Cisco Uludong, Bailey Olter, Chief Petrus Mailo of Truk and Senator Palacios of Saipan are hardly footnotes in our history. They saw greatness.
But today many struggle to find the vision of Micronesian leadership in our islands. One might wonder then what is the “Micronesian Way” in contrast to the TT mentality. In his 1998 book “The Greatest Generation,” Tom Brokaw wrote of the Americans who lead America through World War II to greatness. Brokaw argued that these folks were the greatest generation of any society. These men and women “fought not for fame and recognition, but because it was the right thing to do.” After fighting in Europe and in the Pacific they returned and rebuilt America into a superpower.
Likewise many of us would argue that the leaders in the Congress of Micronesia and our District may have been our greatest generation. They had the audacity of a vision of a greater Micronesia. “Brown and Proud” they were. We hungered for our independence as nations. We demanded from the United Nations and the United States the right to quench our thirst for our ownership of our future — that the colonial paternalism had met its end. Yet the road was not easy. There was a bitter and heavy price paid for this separation from our Micronesian brothers and sisters. 1970 saw the manifestation of that bitterness with the burning of the Congress of Micronesia building and later the Carolinian Utt. Yet it was never a fight for independence here in the Marianas. Chamorros wished for a Commonwealth. Carolinians wished to remain with the rest of Micronesia.
Our chosen path was for a Commonwealth, with the United States, seeking economic development for our people while conceding the strategic value of the Marianas to its military strength and in foreign affairs.
The generation which has followed is charged with keeping this legacy. But as with Brokaw we may wonder whether they were our greatest generation for our Commonwealth. Today we are at a crossroads. Many lament the crab mentality. We pull each other down instead of lifting ourselves up together like a high tide. But who will pull us up and out and not just themselves? It may be that the greatest generation of Micronesians is the same as those Americans of whom Brokaw wrote — that they did act because it was the right thing to do for our people. That is the choice today. The question is what of our generation today? Dare we dream to be greater? Who are we? The legacy is ours to keep or fail for that great generation who came before us and strive to be greater.
