Fourth of July Celebration

The overcast and heavy rain in recent days seem to depict dimmed local sentiment about Independence Day when weighed against our soured relationship with the federal government. Granted, most people would flock the streets in Garapan to watch the parade, game and food booths around the carnival ground, who care less about the significance of this historic day.

Questions about the purposeful and unjustified bashing of these islands grandly designed by departing helmsman at Interior’s OIA (Allen Stayman) is the quiet but dominant queries in our mind: Is this basic precepts of American Democracy? Is this another American Experiment–build an economy based on the free enterprise system–then return with an army of detractors to ruin it altogether? What about the battle cry for “equal representation” in the US Congress or some form of representation that grants credence and prominence to participatory democracy?

Coupled with the vicious assault on the local economy by the Asian Crisis, the NMI’s efforts to forge a brighter tomorrow for both its people and guests is equally dimmed by the instability wrought by a major shift in federal policy that is reluctant to listen to the sentiments of the local governance.

So much for self-government or the so-called participatory democracy. The sum of it all is the dizzying scheme of purposeful exclusion on basically every front as we listen to President Clinton’s umpteen speeches about the “economic good times” and his apparent insincerity to ensure that “nobody’s left behind”.

If anything, the responsible thing to do as we go through the course of this historic occasion in American History is for Washington to equally remember the sacrifice of our grandparents when the hostilities of WWII descended on these islands more than 50 years ago. In 1975, President Ford signed the Covenant Agreement and inherent in this sacred document is the sacrifice of our giving up all that we are with fervent hope that the new relationship would guide us into assimilation with our mother country’s economic community.

There’s still hope in the trust that we’ve placed unequivocally in all that our country stands for however browbeaten we may be by the agenda of special interest groups. We hope too that as the last Fourth of July recedes into history in this millennium that our detractors would reinvent their mind set to take up more salient issues such as granting this group of US Citizens or Americans “equal representation” in the most powerful chambers on earth.

Let us join hands and walk side by side to make our country even greater as we head to meet the challenges of the next millennium. Happy Birthday “America the Beautiful” and let “freedom ring from sea to shining sea”. Si Yuus Maase` yan ghilisow!