A TWENTY FIRST CENTURY COLONY

I read an obituary in the Economist today about Filiberto Ojeda Ríos. He was a Puerto Rican nationalist and fugative who was shot to death by the F.B.I. One of the things the Economist did was compare Puerto Rico today to Ireland before Irish independence.

I have to say that I was shocked by this. As far as I know, the United States has never tried to destroy the Spanish language in Puerto Rico (as opposed to the British policies against spoken Irish), has never disenfranchised the overwhelming majority of Puerto Ricans on the basis of their faith (as opposed to the British policies against Catholics in Ireland), or triggered a famine in Puerto Rico and continued to ship Puerto Rican food to the United States while Puerto Ricans ate grass and died (as opposed to the British during the Famine). Other than that, I guess the experiences were pretty much identical.

I'm not sure if anyone is really all that satisfied with the status quo in Puerto Rico. It is fundamentally inappropriate for the United States to maintain a commonwealth over three million people. It is contrary to our own ideology, as well as inherently negative for the people of Puerto Rico. That being said, having a British publication, even the Economist, compare it to British rule in Ireland is just offensive.