Micronesia's unity and America First

These Islands By Robert A. Underwood

 These islands are caught up in worldwide trends, with Micronesia cast as a pawn in the great chess game between the world’s powers. We are buffeted by geostrategic competition and, simultaneously, by the effects of oil prices and fossil-fuel-driven climate change. For a time, Pacific islands, especially atoll nations like Kiribati and the Marshall Islands, led the charge in pointing out that climate change is an existential threat. There are now competing existential concerns.

As Americans, island territories are obligated to follow the United States' lead. As collaborators, the freely associated states are expected to do the same. In keeping with the Make America Great Again movement, we are now being asked to do our part in putting America first. That means accepting America’s view of geostrategic conflict and President Trump’s assertion that climate change concerns are based on a hoax.

As far as the Trump administration is concerned, the real existential threat is to American hegemony rather than the submergence of our islands.

Now comes the search for critical minerals and the expansion of American control of the seabed around the Marianas. America First includes resource extraction.

We now face new environmental challenges and the prospect of permanent damage. This is the latest wrinkle in maintaining American geostrategic dominance. Instead of responding to island communities' outcries against the proposed deep-sea mining, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management increased the target site by 100 percent over the originally proposed area.

If there is anything valuable around the freely associated states, expect the U.S. to take similar action, regardless of “sovereign” exclusive economic zones.

Micronesian islands may respond either individually or collectively. It is tempting to argue that regional organizations, such as the Micronesian Island Forum, should shift their focus from transportation and trade to geostrategic issues. But such collaboration faces deep-seated impediments that highlight differences rather than commonalities among Micronesian islands.

There are also different perspectives across generations. It also matters whether the islanders are speaking from their home islands or from the somewhat amorphous diaspora.

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As I advocate for regional action, Guam's role itself is called into question. There is an understandable resentment about the treatment of Micronesian migrants in Guam. The island's weakness as a political entity has also been raised.

Younger and more strident voices have accurately pointed out that Guam is not a sovereign nation and therefore cannot assert itself in the same way as the FAS. For Guam to pretend that it has an independent voice is delusional, and for it to take any leadership role is unthinkable.

Even cultural differences have been identified. For CHamorus to proclaim themselves Micronesians seems ironic, since they have historically divorced themselves from the rest of the region. The anthropological definition of proto-Micronesians includes everyone except CHamorus, Palauans and Yapese. These three groups were not part of the Micronesian migration into the region. But they are now Micronesians in name, as evidenced by popular programs like “One Micronesia” and being located in the same region.

It is more than just the treatment of the FSM migrants in Guam that needs evaluation. It is the entire diasporic phenomenon across the Pacific.

    My first foray into the surrounding islands was as an education evaluator for the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands in the 1970s. In that capacity, I went to many islands, including Fefan, the third-largest island in the Chuuk lagoon.

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That short visit enriched my understanding in ways that continue today. The family who attends to my yard regularly today is from Fefan. The parents were born a decade after I visited their homeland. I couldn’t have imagined then that we would share common interests. Today, we must consider a common agenda.

   When my mother was alive, we had an excellent caretaker whose husband ran for the Chuuk legislature while living in Guam.

   Notwithstanding the diaspora, the collective Chuukese population remains connected through civic participation and family networks, whether in Guam, Hawaii or Oregon.

    I know that the diaspora takes itself very seriously across all of the islands. The CHamoru diaspora has become more assertive and participatory in homeland issues. It is natural and inevitable. But has the diaspora itself become a new constituency with the potential to reshape the homeland’s political ethos? They have their own communication networks, as well as blogs and newsletters, created by those abroad. Many of these are developed by island voices who were raised outside the homeland.

Voices from the diaspora range in the level of interest in policy issues. Some behave as if they are in exile rather than simply living elsewhere. Frequently, they have a healthy self-image, seeing themselves as having cultivated abilities that are absent back home. Are they planning to return to help put the islands back on a more progressive road?

The impetus for joint action is hindered by differing perceptions of one another, distinct colonial histories and disparities in perceived political agency. The freely associated states have autonomy, while Guam and the Northern Marianas have the least flexibility. These dynamics are refracted through diasporic lenses, known as the compact migrant experience, which challenge all of the islands.

Can island togetherness, or “nesia” unity, overcome these obstacles? It is possible, but we must remember that some obstacles are generated by the U.S. government itself.

While Washington desires joint collaboration with the America First agenda in these islands, we are not being treated as a unified group. It is easier to pursue an America First agenda if there is little or no regionwide action. Pursuing the America First agenda is made easier as long as the territories are separated from the freely associated states.

Add a little intergenerational conflict and diasporic perspectives, and the result may be confusion, disjuncture and suspicion.

It seems this is where we are right now. Time to get out of this gaping hole, which seems deeper than the Marianas Trench. For most of my political life in Washington D.C., I heard, “When you are in a hole, stop digging.” It seems like good advice for all of us.

Dr. Robert Underwood is the former president of the University of Guam and former member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Send feedback to anacletus2010@gmail.com.

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