Festival of Dangerous Ideas (US vs. Compact Islands)
October 26, 2009
By Santy Asanuma
Palauans do not take ideas well. Ideas as simple as one may think are what fuel life to move forward. Without ideas life as we know it may not have any sense or direction to it. A “mechas” once told me her assessment of our modern government system, “don’t underestimate the power of a stupid person because he/she can vote for leaders of a country.” This statement means many things to me but one meaning is that ideas can come from anyone regardless of how educated or not. Today a priest in church said, “if you want to be first you have to serve others…you have to lower yourself.” Not an easy idea to follow though.After getting ideas from the priest, I came home to see a BBC debate on a proposition that “Democracy Is Not For Everyone.” This debate took place in Sydney, Australia. Being born into a democratic society, I was impressed with those who made sensible and to some degree a convincing debate that democracy was ineffective and should not be imposed on the rest of world. A strange twist in this debate was a Vice-Chairman of Catholic Universities who was on the team agreeing with this statement. On the other team who argued that democracy should be promoted even in Islamic societies is a daughter of Philippines Abusayap extremist who grew up to witness the evil corruption of marshal law era during Marcos Administration. Ideas were stretched to the fullest in searching for the truth under the banner Festival of Dangerous Ideas program for BBC. People on both sides were evenly matched, more importantly, given equal chance to express their respective ideas without fear.
Here is a dangerous idea: Compact is nothing more than an agreement between a master and a slave. Of course, the slave will end up agreeing and the master getting the better end of the deal. The US paid for only fifteen years but got a fifty years deal on the Compact. While Palauans were forced to vote and ratify the Compact to give it a treaty stature, US on their side only passed a public law that was not even comprehensive enough to address the unique and diverse cultures and traditions of the respective inhabitants of the different Micronesian islands. Yapese cannot be treated like Palauans but I suppose we all look alike to them.
Here is another dangerous idea: US is now treating Freely Associated States or Compact Islands like we are the enemies. Under the Homeland Security discriminating scrutiny, Micronesians with violations of laws in the islands are now treated like real terrorists and not granted entry into US. Palau has been forced to give US the entire Palauan citizens wrap sheet for US to choose who can enter US or not. What happened to the Compact and all that mutual friendship and open door sentiments used to convince Palauans to vote for Compact in the first place. US should not treat us like other illegal immigrants. It should be noted that immigration entry into US was granted as a consolation for the unfulfilled economic development of Palau under US Administration.
Here is more recent dangerous idea: US is not invited to talk yet but decided to show up on island and pushing to finish the talk this week. US is still treating us as unequal partner and definitely no match to stand up to them to argue for a fair deal. Palauans are so afraid of the idea that US will get angry. And as a result, the island slaves will most likely bow once again to the champion of democracy USA.
The biggest fear is that I risk being labeled as anti-democracy for standing up for a fair share and equal treatment for the Palauan people under the Compact. End debate no more chance is the most dangerous idea of all.
October 26, 2009 at 8:07 am
Sometimes voices that speak the ugly truth are labeled dangerous and taken as threats to democracy. A true democratic state should not condemn its citizens for raising valid arguments. Mr. Asanuma, your work is valued by people such as myself so please keep it going.
We were wronged from the get-go. Grassroots efforts to resist nuclear weapons on our islands were denied by a political maneuver to change the criteria of a passing a law. What is democracy if a nation that looks out for the best interest of its people is molded in favor of a much bigger, wealthier, and powerful state?
We are caught up in a situation where we go all out to please our master (U.S.) by any means possible (i.e. accepting the Uighurs). We are founded on the principles of democracy when as a sovereign state, we have limited options in practicing democracy itself in a global context. We are a democratic robot that clings to the U.S. in terms of foreign policies without questioning the consequences and morality of our decisions; a good example is voting for Israel. We are beginning to look like “iuasi” in the eyes of the world nations. But then again, how could we vote against our master? Until our country figures out a way to be a global player in terms of trade and production, we are still under the mercy of our sole provider. There is a lot of work to do and maybe if the public start voting for people who are educated and passionate about change and justice, both in practice and theory, and not vote for their relatives and neighbors, we can finally call ourselves sovereign.
Voting for qualified leaders is not an easy task in Palau at all. Changing it is like teaching an old dog new tricks. I have witnessed it from the front lines of political campaigning and it saddens me that our people go against their best interest by accepting cheap promises and momentary pleasures. Is there hope? I don’t know. Maybe for the next election, we can start on a new direction by first shutting down wwfm. lol