This too shall pass

If there’s anything that the indigenous people are known for, it’s their resiliency of picking-up the pieces, moving on to another day in hopes of a brighter tomorrow no matter how viciously they’ve been stampeded by their detractors.

Perhaps this is the very difficulty of American Democracy—entailing an often long and senseless journey in a fight to securing our rights as US Citizens—where the oppressed minority must necessarily clamor long and hard for justice to protect their political rights. It’s the real world where, more often than not, the warpedly powerful ignores the very premise upon which our country was born.

What makes the case of the NMI far more difficult is its location in remote Northwestern Pacific. In other words, it isn’t part of the contiguous US mainland and even if it is so, the numbers game (population) would only serve us right if we associate ourselves with other larger minorities who have recently begun efforts for a share of the political power in Washington.

A quick glimpse into US History, specifically, on the struggles of African Americans is replete of tales of slavery and discrimination. While the former may be history, the latter is still very much alive in the land of the free and it is for this reason that Latino Americans, Japanese Americans, Chinese Americans and other minorities have begun their long journey to consolidating their numbers into a voting block.

The single most comically warped irony of this controversy lies in the boastful pronouncement by the Clinton administration to ensure that the “economic good times” doesn’t “leave anybody behind”. As Clinton traverses the country to spread this message, we quiz whether he’s wary that the NMI, however the smallest community, is a part of the larger American family. While he says one thing, it boggles the mind how conveniently such policy has effectively excluded any reasonable efforts to gradually assimilate the economic future of the NMI into the American Economic Community.

But for all our travails with a well orchestrated federal effort to compromise our rights to self-government, there’s a lot of work ahead of us in the daunting task to protect our political rights in the seat of power in Washington. Suffice it to say, if human rights advocates are true to their commitment on justice, then they should be in the forefront working the clock to grant the NMI a voice in both chambers of the US Congress.

To say that such a problem is a constitutional anomaly is to perpetuate a grand excuse as to consistently deny the smallest group of US Citizens their rights to “equal representation”. But our hopes for a better working relationship with Washington remains strong for we too believe that alienation and discrimination must someday pass too. ABC’s less than 20/20 vision too shall pass. Let’s keep our heads up high and march on and let us constantly remind our benefactors in Washington to “let freedom ring from sea to shining sea”. Si Yuus Maase`!