Near the end of a Thursday morning interview with Democracy Now!, Oscar López Rivera share his views about the current political situation in Puerto Rico, which is holding another status plebiscite on June 11. This is what he said:
I think that Puerto Rico should be seen as a place where decolonization can take place. I see Puerto Rico at a moment when the United States government has finally admitted the Puerto Rico is a colony. So, for us, it’s not the problem that we had before. For us, decolonization is possible. One of the things that I have talked about is that the common denominator among Puerto Ricans who love Puerto Rico is the love for Puerto Rico, and that decolonization could bring all Puerto Ricans, from the diaspora and from Puerto Rico, together to decolonize Puerto Rico, just based on the fact that we love Puerto Rico, that Puerto Rico is our promised land, that we need Puerto Rico to be decolonized. Colonialism is a crime. We should erase that. We should erase that and allow Puerto Ricans to exercise their self-determination and to make Puerto Rico the nation that it has the potential of being.
Before this part of the interview, López Rivera also talked about the National Puerto Rican Day Parade and who should have a voice in what the parade should be.
“But the prerogative of the Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York City to choose whoever or whomever it wants to choose to participate in the parade, it should not be—should not be determined by corporations,” López Rivera said at one point. “We cannot accept that. Let’s let the Puerto Rican community, let the Puerto Rican committee, make its decision, not to be imposed by anyone, not to be accepted, because if we accept impositions, we will never move. We will never feel empowered to do the things that we need to do for our communities and for our people. It’s a question of empowerment. That’s fundamental in this issue.”
You can watch the interview here:
For more segments from Thursday’s show, go here.
