Simple minds

By Mar-Vic Cagurangan

I recently stumbled over an old article I wrote in 2007 about a 1945 secret memo that revealed how the U.S. military viewed the Pacific islands then (or still?). I found myself laughing as I read and re-read it.

I don’t know why it took five years for me to find the humor in the content of the memo, which rings like a caricature of the U.S.-territorial relationship.

The memo, written by Vice Adm. G.D. Murray, then commander of the Marianas Navy Force, stated that “the economic development and administration of relatively few native inhabitants should be subordinate to the real purpose for which those islands are held.”

“Military control of these islands is essential as their military value far outweighs their economic value,” Murray stated in the three-page memo that recommended the Navy’s control of Guam and other western Pacific islands.

Murray said the Pacific islands’ commercial or industrial value and its resources were “of little or no relative importance to the welfare of the United States.”

“From the military stand point,” Murray said, “a contented healthy and loyal native population contributes a strong link in the strength of those lands as bases.”

Murray described the island natives as “simple people, requiring few of our modern luxuries for their welfare and happiness. The characteristics and nature of the majority of inhabitants on these islands are such that the artificial or forced raising of their standard of living to one approaching that of the United States would be detrimental to their best interest and would contribute little to the safety and welfare of the United States.”

It was written on Nov. 21, 1945, obviously during a period when thought censorship and politeness were not being practiced in the sociopolitical landscape.

Over half a century later, one wonders if there was any evolution in the U.S. government’s attitude toward the “simple people” of the Pacific islands.

This was answered last month during a conference held in Guam by the U.S. District Court of Guam and the CNMI, where a panel of constitutional scholars and experts on insular issues tackled a series of landmark decisions on insular cases, which narrowly held that protections under U.S. Constitution did not fully apply to territories. The Supreme Court decisions, in so many words, stated that “those simple folks are not one of us.”

The same condescending attitude remains, according to the panelists, who pointed to the vague standards in constitutional application and the “layers of ambiguities” that purportedly endorse the status of islanders as second-class citizens. Hence their inability to vote in national elections and their delegates’ lack of voting power in Congress.

Among the panelists, University of Guam president Robert Underwood spoke-in almost self-flagellating fashion-as the voice of reason. “As far as Congress is concerned,” he said, “the way we are treated is just fair because we are not putting anything into the pot. National participation comes with contribution.”

Dr. Underwood, who served as Guam’s delegate to Congress for 10 years, said there is a rational basis to treat territories differently. “Some things work to our advantage; some to our disadvantage. Being outside and being an unincorporated territory allows us to take advantage of what works in our favor. Once they figure out that being unincorporated give us more advantages, then they would try to incorporate us.”

Dr. Underwood also noted the insular jurisdictions’ tendencies to compartmentalize issues depending on what suits them right.

He hit the nail on the head. Guam, for example, could not make a consistent position on the military buildup. At one point, opposing the planned military expansion on Guam was a fashionable thing to do. When the relocation plan was eventually scaled down, government leaders backpedaled. Then they accelerated their efforts to lobby for the implementation of the original plan, using China as the boogeyman. “China is a threat to the region’s security, therefore we need the U.S. military,” they say. Incidentally, these are the same people who are lobbying for a China visa waiver.

“Someone has to find a kind of integrating vision. It goes back to the way we articulate our vision; and we have no clear vision because we treat every issue independent of others,” Dr. Underwood said.

In a nutshell, insular jurisdictions should get over their victim mentality. Let’s start figuring out what we want and take on the challenge to prove that we are not simpletons.