Statehood

We are not referring to a particular condition that someone is in at a specific time, e.g., a person’s emotional state. We refer to a political community under a government, aka a country, nation, republic, or federation.

There are levels of governance in the United States, with the federal as the overarching authority, developing a network of local and intermediary levels called states. The U.S. is a 239-year experiment in governance that grew from an original 13-state rebellion against Britain to the present union of 50 states and territories. Of the five inhabited territories, the CNMI and Puerto Rico opted for Commonwealth.

The CNMI is programmatically treated like a state by federal programs, unless specifically excluded. The ambiguity of the state of the “States” outside the 50 is the source of innovation and creativity within the local, either decried when proven cumbersome and lauded when proven beneficent. Such abides in the nebulous nature of the Covenant—the CNMI in political union with the U.S., with local officials often sounding as if they represent an independent nation.

The relationship between the military and local politics is a gray area except where a lease exists on the use of real estate. The strategic military value of the Marianas is a factor to negotiations with the feds, which needs the real estate as their welcome in Korea and Japan has soured.

The notion of statehood is only clear among academic eggheads when they are exchanging verbal and literary discourse. In actual practice, other than its sense that it somehow resembles a “sovereign” entity, the state of statehood is hardly a fixed position. Inter- and intra-state relations have defined spheres, e.g., the Midwest and South, while “united” States show various degrees of adherence to law.

The United States decision-making experiment in the context of a new global reality serves as a demo, not just a staid geographical entity that borders Mexico and Canada, with territories in the Caribbean and the Pacific. The States during the Civil War focused on disparate natures; its unity and the power of federal reps took root soon after, finally taking on an “imperial” character from Portugal and Spain impulses, and later, from the British Isles, against Hungarian, Austrian, Italian and Meiji empires, assumed by the U.S. after WWII.

The original 13-states ratified the current U.S. Constitution, and the 37 states that followed were admitted into the union as the Constitution got amended, and territories defined. Statehood in the U.S. is a definition of an intermediary state of governance between federal laws and local program and project decisions.

State rights is still heard as a rallying cry, but in a time of instant communication and rapid transport, what transpires in Florida is known in Maine, California, and Alaska in three seconds!

The CNMI emotionally is still on the “liberation” phase. Today’s statehood emphasis merits introspection on local governance. It is well to define our own liberation. © 2015 Saipan Tribune