18 March 2004

Dragon

Patchy fog and rain this morning, cold and dank. It snowed in the night, though it did not stick. Old names and new ones floated through my dreams.

I blame the neighbors for my fitful sleep. The Ironworkers returned late lfrom their celebration of the Patron Saint of Ireland, and befuddled with spirits, missed their door. The rattle of the key in my lock startled me as I was turning down the covers. I opened the door and looked out at them as they searched for their unit.

It was only twenty feet away, and after marshalling their faculties, they found it right where they left it.

I awoke to riot and murder in Kosovo. That is an old war, yesterday's news, but the residents apparently are not willing to forget. The name stuck out in the morning commentary from across the sea as I lay looking up in the darkness. It is supposed to be the worst violence in the province in almost five years. Fighting erupted in the divided city of Mitrovica over an incident in which Albanian children were chased into a river and drowned.

Children.

The Serbs are blamed. It has been a while since I have vilified the Serbs. They have their greivancs, too.

I drifted back toward that warm place where nothing hurts. The radio babbled on. A hotel has been blown skyward in Baghdad, twenty or thirty dead. More soldiers are murdered, too, but it increasingly hard to separate the incidents.

Without missing a beat, the deep gentle voice tells me Spring might be back this weekend. It makes me long long for the gentle breeze off the ocean, for the smell of flowers, and a saunter along a deserted North Shore beach.

My sons were born in the Islands and did not know the cold when they were little.

I remember their surprise at stepping outside in Virginia in the early spring, barefoot, and grimacing at the unaccustomed sensation akin to pain radiating up from the concrete driveway.

Do you remember when Hawaii was not a state in the Union? It was on this day in March of 1959 that President Dwight Eisenhower signed the bill that made Hawaii an equal partner with the Mainland.

I remember, though it is dim and far away. There was quite a stir about it at the time, two new states being created from territories. Eskimos and hula dancers joined this great nation as full citizens. The census released a report indicating that Caucasians will be a minority in this land in only fifty years. I imagine the thought of that would have given Dwight some pause as he picked up the pen to sign the bill.

Hispanic and Asian-American populations in the United States are expected to triple by 2050, when non-Hispanic whites would account for the barest majority. Hispanic-Americans would make up nearly a quarter of the nation's population at mid-century, cementing a gradual reconquista of the territories seized from Mexico in the great westward expansion.

The hoopla about Statehood and status echoed down through the decades. Some of our other island possessions wrestled with the status issue. The emotion created Puerto Rican terrorists. It appears that the extension of civic benefits to Puerto Rico was enough to placate the angry young men of that lovely island, at least for now.

Hawaii took a different path.

Hawaiians- Japanese-Americans, for the most part- paid the supreme sacrifice to earn Statehood. The 500th Regimental Combat Team, not trusted to fight in the Pacific war, had amassed the most decorations of any unit that fought in Europe. Veterans of that outfit served Hawaii in Congress through the rest of our lifetimes. Dan Inoue is still up there, ranking member on Appropriations and Spark Matsunaga is not long gone from the corridors of power.

I reached out to shake the hand that Dan doesn't have anymore when I encountered him up in the attic hearing room of the Capitol. He instead put out his right hand, used to it after all these years but I was still embarrassed.

There are other islands with other grievances. Far to the west of Honlolulu lies Formosa, which we now call Taiwan. I like it there. It is a curious place, a rock swamped with Chinese debris from the civil war on the mainland, an echo of thunder. Four years ago, Taiwanese voters ended more than a half century of Nationalist Party rule, ejecting the party of Sun Yat-sen and installing the populists opposition leader, Chen Shui-bian.

Democracy has some interesting features, and it is the fulcrum of our foreign policy until it becomes painfully inconvenient. But you need to dance with who brought you to the dance, and that is what our policy is. We are silent partners in this election this year in Tawian reflects the reality of a change in demographics perhaps more profound than the one that looms for us here.

It is a risky election strategy, ugly like ours. To maintain power, Chen is playing the China card. Taiwan has 23 million citizens. China has 1.3 billion people and surging economy. The United States has embraced the One China policy, which recognizes Hong Kong and Taiwan as integral parts of the Middle Kingdom. Yet we have sworn to defend democracy against any Chinese attack.

The Taiwan election has been depicted as a choice between subjugation to Communist China and nationalism, with a delicate toe dipping in the waters of formal independence.

That would wake the dragon across the Straits, and unhinge the balance in the region. The Nationalist Party of Chiang Kai-shek has reinvented itself as the party of conciliation, which surely must have the wizened Generalissimo whirling in his teapot mausoleum in Taipei. The election hinges on how far native Taiwanese want to push the Chinese who retreated to the island in 1949, and if they wish to tell the Mainland that they belong to a separate nation.

After all, having pushed the Nationalists out of power, perhaps they wish to inform the Communists that they must get in line with Japan and the Holland who also once ruled Formosa.

I think trade is better than war. But people who live on islands seem to have their own ideas about things. I do not believe in poking dragons unless it is absolutely necessary. They bite sometimes.

But perhaps I am just preoccupied. I am not sure I can handle a landwar in Asia. I think I would rather be on a tranquil beach on the North Shore. Dragons and car bombs seem a world away there, and the sleep is never fitful.