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New blood needed
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Posted on Mar 08 2012
People have presented many reasons for the end of Article 12, many of them related to business and economic benefits. I am not a businesswoman, but the wife of a retiree, so I cannot be sure about the business and economic side. But I know what I see around me on Saipan, and there is a big problem that getting rid of Article 12 can fix.
The backwardness of the CNMI’s culture and government cannot be ignored. Nor can we ignore the fact that almost any NMD person can get themselves a government job. And the big reason for this is that mainland Americans and other non-NMDs can never own land here, because of Article 12. So we come to Saipan for a short time and don’t get involved in government and politics. And the CNMI’s society stays the way it is, stagnant and reactionary, with always the same NMD people elected to power, with the same isolationist worldviews in the public sphere, and with many unnecessary jobs given out to friends and family.
Imagine what can happen if we get rid of Article 12. My husband Bob and I, mainland American retirees, and many others would flock to Saipan to buy land. For the money I can get for our old house in California, I could buy a huge plot of land on Saipan, if only it wasn’t for Article 12. There are three hundred million of us mainland Americans, and record numbers of us are retired and retiring soon. There are also countless Filipinos, Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese who could afford land on Saipan. And we would start treating Saipan as really our social and political home, not just that “stopping off point.” Our voting power would finally make non-NMD the dominant political force, and we would change the current government’s practices, and especially cut excess government hiring!
I urge everyone, NMD or not, to stand behind repealing Article 12. It would bring fresh blood to Saipan, would give them a good reason to stay, and would help remake and reform Saipan’s political system. Saipan and landownership on Saipan have too long been the domain of just one privileged group, the NMDs. Let’s open it up for everybody, to take away that one group’s stranglehold on this island, and see a totally new Saipan.
[B]Clarisa Jacobs[/B] [I]Capital Hill, Saipan[/I]
