Decolonization Models for America’s Last Colony: Puerto Rico

A Quarter-Century Lost

207 A Quarter-Century Lost December 30, 2009 In 1985, having experienced eight years of the Carlos Romero-Barceló administration, the Puerto Rico Planning Board circulated an informe social, a report on Puerto Rican society, which discussed the quality-oflife issue that was a concern twenty-four years ago, because “economic development, modern advances, growing technology and the problems related to them, have been shattering the peace, stability, and harmonious coexistence that were patrimony of previous generations.” The study reported that “the First Annual Conference on Quality of Life held in Puerto Rico identified a series of factors associated with the quality-of-life crisis that Puerto Ricans were experiencing”: 1. A mass-education system in which most educators agreed that they provided only a little knowledge, without actually educating the individual. 2. Marked tendencies toward achieving quick results and toward uncontrolled ambition, turning a society that once was able to share and be generous with others into one that was egotistical and individualistic. 3. A level of unemployment never seen before. 4. A level of rampant criminality and vandalism that frightened citizens and made them prisoners in their own homes, behind their so-called “ornamental” ironwork. 5. A physical environment contaminated with noise and chemical compounds, with large-scale extermination of species and the 208  Newspaper Columns end of flora and fauna that once were sources of beauty for the island. 6. Verbal aggression in the discussion of different public issues. 7. The constant bombardment of political issues. 8. Television programs that added nothing to the upbringing of our children and instead took away traditional values, destroying any model of what decent persons are. The study concludes that if Puerto Rico’s situation is not solved, “it will increasingly contribute to the creation of insecure, fearful and anxious citizens who are alienated from their families, their communities, and mainly from themselves. These are the individuals who would be key actors in broken marriages, juvenile delinquency, government dependency , mental institutions, and in the lack of tolerance to be seen in political discussions, educational institutions, the workplace, in the streets, in public places, in the intimacy of homes, and wherever there is any kind of human interaction.” A quarter-century has elapsed [since this report was issued], and no one can say that the situation has been corrected; what is more, the consensus is that it has become worse. Since the publication of that study, we have experienced eight years of the Rafael Hernández-Colón administration, eight years of Pedro Rossell ó, four years of Sila Calderón, four years of Aníbal Acevedo-Vilá, and one year of Luis Fortuño. None of the Popular Democratic Party or New Progressive Party governments has managed to rescue us from the crisis we have been living through for twenty-four years. On the contrary, they have brought our society to the breaking point and our economy to the point of bankruptcy. Our recent governors have been of different ideologies, professions, backgrounds, ages, regions, social classes, and genders. The fact that none of them has been able to solve our crisis leads us to conclude that the problem is not in the governors, but in the structure of government—that is, in Puerto Rico’s political status. While the world has changed in these twenty-four years, becoming a global economy tending to favor the sovereignty of nations, Puerto Rico A Quarter-Century Lost  209 remains in a colonial status, and its dependency on the colonial power has increased. China is replacing the United States as the principal economic power in Latin America, but Puerto Rico remains at the margin of global opportunity. To solve Puerto Rico’s problems, we must go to the root of the matter. We must develop a plan for a country that is sovereign, with the inherent powers needed to solve our problems. The alternative is to continue to languish as an obsolete colony, without quality of life, no matter who the governor in office may be. ...