There are a number of reasons why PR should (continue to) postpone the status issue further into the future, despite its 50+ years discussion. Being faithful to my training, I will summarize the reason why PR needs to wait in financial terms: PR owns an option with unlimited expiration, and options have time value if unexercised (and no time value if exercised). PR has the option but not the obligation to decide its political destiny at some point into the future.
Before I am crucified because of this simplistic and "colonial" explanation, let me explain what I mean. Nobody knows how the future will look like or what the future will bring to PR or how the world will look. There is an extreme world under which I a majority of Puertorricans would choose to become a state and another extreme under which a majority of Puertorricans would choose to become an independent state. Between those two worlds, we move and try to give shape to our world. On one extreme, a peaceful, capitalist, democracy rich, with free flow of capital and goods (and potentially people) world would reduce the advantages of statehood while granting value to the flexibility of being an independent country. On the other extreme, a polarized world, where democracy and/or capitalism are threatened, or where trade barriers are being imposed, would call f0r potentially aligning ourselves with the "good guys." In all likelihood, the world will navigate between those two extremes.
The option also exhibits additional value for PR: Puertorricans are split in half regarding the two options (although over 95% would like to have some type of monetary union with the US and would like to remain US citizens). Forcing PR's to choose is wasteful spending of money, people's time, national attention and it changes the people's focus on what should matter. What the population should be focused on is on improving the economy, our skills, the standard of living of all PRs and extracting as much of the population as we can from poverty, providing good education for all PRs and creating a peaceful and loving society.
What does the status has to do with any of this!? The status discussion only detracts from those goals. It puts common economic and social views on different camps because of ideological separation. In other words, leaders who share the same thoughts about how to move PR forward, can't agree on anything just because they have different status ideologies.
Luis Munoz Marin used the ELA, the option, as a tool for development - and he indeed showed it, but, the status discussion has been retarding our development now for close to 35 years. There is nothing we gain from statehood or independence that we can' t do with the current status. The additional federal funds (under statehood) or the ability to enter into int'l treaties or cheaper cargo costs (under independence) are just a couple of the hundred examples the two sides could come up with as to why we should become one or the other.
The bottom line is that PRs ability to produce goods and services and to educate itself with tomorrow's technologies has nothing to do with the status, but, with the willingness and the productivity of the residents of PR. In a way, it is the status "issue" is what is really holding back our development. It is this generation's responsibility to go back to the thoughts that Munoz laid out in the 1940s-1950s: setting up a path for a peaceful society that is forward looking, but, that also understands its past; a society that has an international mindset and that is committed of leaving its imprint in the world. Once a higher level of development is reached, once we have an educated society that understands and respects its past and is not afraid of the future, and once PR is confident about its place in the world, a majority of the population will see a very clear choice in front of them: be it statehood, be it independence or any other status that is internationally accepted at the time, it will be very clear. Maintaining the 50/50 fight will simply drive us farther from that goal.
No comments:
Post a Comment