Campaignin'

12-8-10

Today there was a “campaign rally” the incumbent candidate running for Senator At-Large for Chuuk State. By campaign rally I mean that the guy showed up on the island and the whole island had a meeting. This is not a post about Chuukese politics, but rather just a few interesting observations I made during the meeting.

1. The set up—This is clearly a big event for the people of Satowan. I guess it’s not every day that a senator comes to visit a tiny island 180 miles from the state center. The meeting was held in a large, well, meeting hall next to the Catholic Church. The municipal government of Satowan only owns a handful of chairs, so everyone except the important people (i.e. the senator, the senator’s posse, the mayor of Satowan, myself) sat on the ground. The chairs were arranged and rearranged no less than 12 times before the ceremony began—apparently they had to be perfect.
2. The police presence—I don’t know whether they came with the senator or if they were already here on Satowan, but there were at least 20 police officers present for the ceremony. The best part was when the senator was marching in to the meeting hall, and all of the police officers did a military-like heel turn and salute. This kind of precision is something rarely seen in FSM, and it almost made me laugh out loud. After the senator walked by, the police officers carried on with what they had been doing, namely smoking cigarettes and lounging.
3. The jacket--The senator wore a heavy winter jacket throughout the entire 2 hour meeting. Keep in mind that while it is cold in the States right now, it is decidedly not cold here in Micronesia—it was easily 85 degrees today. It was clear that he wasn’t wearing it because he was cold as he was sweating bullets and fanning himself the whole time. I don’t know if it’s a sign of authority or what, but he looked totally ridiculous and pretty uncomfortable too.
4. The cigarettes—In the middle of the meeting, one of the members of the senator’s posse got up and started passing out cigarettes to everyone in the audience. Here on Satowan, there isn’t a question of whether or not you smoke, just how often you smoke. The reason for the handing out of cigarettes was simple: the senator wanted votes. What the Chuukese call “campaigning,” Americans would call “bribery.” Before he left the island, the senator had given out some 30 bags of rice, cases and cases of canned meat, and countless cigarettes.
5. The breast feeding—Picture this: you’re at the DNC. Barack Obama in in the middle of a moving speech defending some policy decision that he made, and a woman in the second row lifts her shirt and begins breastfeeding her son. Well, I wasn’t at the DNC and it wasn’t Barack Obama defending his policy decisions, but the rest it true. I guess this should stop surprising me by now—I’ve seen women breastfeeding in church, watching basketball, and, my favorite, while driving (yes, I mean operating a motor vehicle not just riding in one). That’s just impressive.


Ben