attempt at removing graffiti…

more from Southern Poverty Law Center…

Prejudice in Paradise
Hawaii Has a Racism Problem

by Larry Keller
Fall 2009

	http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=1081
	Celia Padron went on a Hawaiian vacation last year, lured by the prospect of beautiful beaches and friendly people. She, her husband and two teenage daughters enjoyed the black sand beach at Makena State Park on Maui. But a Hawaiian girl accosted her two teenage daughters, saying, “Go back to the mainland” and “Take your white ass off our beaches,” says Padron, a pediatric gastroenterologist in New Jersey.When her husband, 68 at the time, stepped between the girls, three young Hawaiian men slammed him against a vehicle, cutting his ear, and choked and punched him, Padron says. Police officers persuaded the Padrons not to press charges, saying it would be expensive for them to return for court appearances and a Hawaiian judge would side with the Hawaiian assailants, the doctor contends. Professor Haunani-Kay Trask believes Native Hawaiians have every right to feel hostile toward whites. “There is no doubt in my mind [the attack] was racially motivated,” she adds. With no known hate groups and a much-trumpeted spirit of aloha or tolerance, few people outside Hawaii realize the state has a racism issue. One reason: The tourism-dependent state barely acknowledges hate crimes. That makes it hard to know how often racial violence is directed at Caucasians, who comprise about 25% of the ethnically diverse state’s 1.3 million residents. Those who identify themselves as Native Hawaiian — most residents are of mixed race — account for nearly 20%. Hawaii has collected hate crimes data since 2002 (most states began doing so a decade earlier). In the first six years, the state reported only 12 hate crimes, and half of those were in 2006. (All other things being equal, the state would be expected to have more than 800 such crimes annually, given the size of its population, according to a federal government study of hate crimes.) There was anti-white bias in eight of those incidents. But that doesn’t begin to reflect the extent of racial rancor directed at non-Native Hawaiians in the Aloha State, especially in schools. For example: The last day of school has long been unofficially designated “Beat Haole Day,” with white students singled out for harassment and violence. (Haole — pronounced how-lee — is slang for a foreigner, usually white, and sometimes is used as a racial slur.) A non-Native Hawaiian student who challenged the Hawaiian-preference admission policy at a wealthy private school received a $7 million settlement this year. A 12-year-old white girl new to Hawaii from New York City needed 10 surgical staples to close a gash in her head incurred when she was beaten in 2007 by a Native Hawaiian girl who called her a “fucking haole.” A vocal segment of Native Hawaiians is pushing for independence to end the “prolonged occupation” by the United States and governance by natives. Demonstrators shouting racial epithets at whites disrupted a statehood celebration in 2006. Anti-white sentiments such as these have been more than 200 years in the making. The pivotal event occurred when American and European businessmen, backed by U.S. military forces, overthrew Hawaii’s monarch in 1893 and placed her under house arrest two years later. The United States annexed the islands as a territory in 1898, and they became a state in 1959. Little wonder then that as Hawaii prepares to observe the 50th anniversary of becoming the 50th state on Aug. 21, it will a muted celebration, devoid of parades or fireworks. Classroom Warfare Tina Mohr has lived in Hawaii for 25 years. She has Native Hawaiian friends. But in the 2003-04 school year, her twin blond-haired daughters, aged 11 at the time, began getting harassed by Native Hawaiian kids at their school on the Big Island. “Our daughters would come home with bruises and cuts,” she tells the Intelligence Report.One of her girls was assaulted twice in the same day. In one scuffle, she had her head slammed into a wall, and her attacker continued to threaten her. Her daughter suffered a dislocated jaw and had headaches for five weeks, Mohr says. The torment continued in the summer between 5th and 6th grades. Native Hawaiian girls stalked and threatened her daughters and yelled “fucking haole” at them. Midway through the 6th grade, Mohr began to home-school her daughters. She filed a complaint with the civil rights division of the U.S. Department of Education in 2004. It was only recently, on Dec. 31, 2008, that the division finally released its report. The report concluded there was “substantial evidence that students experienced racially and sexually derogatory name-calling on nearly a daily basis on school buses, at school bus stops, in school hallways and other areas of the school” that Mohr’s children attended. The epithets included names such as “f*****g haole,” “haole c**t” and “haole whore,” according to the report. Students were told “go home” and “you don’t belong here.” Most of the slurs were directed by “local” or non-white students at Caucasians, especially those who were younger, smaller, light-skinned and blond. The report also concluded that school officials responded inadequately or not at all when students complained of racial harassment. Students who did complain were retaliated against by their antagonists. “They learned not to report this stuff,” Mohr says of her own daughters. The Hawaii Department of Education settled Mohr’s complaint with a lengthy agreement in which educators promised to take various steps to improve the reporting, investigating and eliminating of student harassment in the future. Today, Mohr’s daughters are again attending the school where they used to have trouble. They haven’t been assaulted, but one was threatened on a school bus earlier this year. Racial Legacies The resentment some Native Hawaiians feels toward whites today can be chalked up in part to “ancestral memory,” says Jon Matsuoka, dean of the School of Social Work at the University of Hawaii. “That trauma is qualitatively different than other ethnic groups in America. It’s more akin to American Indians” because Hawaiians had their homeland invaded, were exposed to diseases for which they had no immunity, and had an alien culture forced upon them, he says. Stories about the theft of their lands and culture have been passed down from one generation to the next, Matsuoka adds. (One difference now, of course, is that Native Hawaiians in Hawaii are far more numerous than American Indians are in their own ancestral regions, where the Indians remain politically weak and largely marginalized by the far larger white population.)Racial violence directed at whites in Hawaii, while deplorable, is minor compared to the larger issues underlying it, Matsuoka says. The Hawaiian spirit of aloha “is pervasive, but you have to earn aloha. You don’t necessarily trust outsiders, because outsiders [historically] come and have taken what you have. It’s an incredibly giving and warm and generous place, but you have to earn it,” he says. Further fueling the resentment that some Native Hawaiians feel for outsiders are attempts by the latter to usurp entitlement programs given the former to redress previous wrongs. In recent years, non-native residents have used the courts to try and rescind these entitlements on grounds that they are racially discriminatory and violate the U.S. Constitution. Retired professor and “anti-sovereign” white activist Kenneth Conklin and others prevailed in a lawsuit in 2000 that challenged a requirement that trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs — OHA — be of Native Hawaiian descent. OHA oversees huge tracts of lands that the United States took from Hawaii when it annexed the islands as a territory, and collects revenues from them for programs that benefit Native Hawaiians. The state government was going to sell 1.2 million acres of these lands to developers for two state-sponsored affordable housing projects when OHA and four Native Hawaiian plaintiffs sued to stop the deal. A state court sided with the government, but the Hawaii Supreme Court reversed in favor of the plaintiffs. This March 31, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the Hawaii high court erred and sent the case back for further action. There also was an unsuccessful legal challenge to the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act, passed by Congress in 1921. The act allows a Hawaiian agency to make 99-year leases at $1 per year to Native Hawaiians (but not other residents) for authorized uses on lands ceded to the United States when it annexed Hawaii. More than 200,000 acres of land were designated for uses such as homes and ranches. One of the more protracted legal battles involved a lawsuit filed in 2003 by a non-Native Hawaiian student against the hugely wealthy and influential private Kamehameha Schools. Kamehameha operates three campuses for the benefit of children of Hawaiian ancestry. The student’s attorneys contended that violates civil rights laws. As the U.S. Supreme Court was about to announce last year whether it would hear the case, Kamehameha paid $7 million to settle it out of court. ‘A Hateful Place’ A violent incident with racial overtones in 2007 near Pearl Harbor prompted a good deal of soul searching about race in Hawaii. A Native Hawaiian man and his teenage son brutally pummeled and kicked a Caucasian soldier and his wife near Pearl Harbor after the soldier’s SUV struck the other man’s parked car. The son shouted “fucking haole” while attacking the soldier. The husband and wife suffered broken noses, facial fractures and concussions. A prosecutor said the assault was a road-rage incident, not a hate crime. But it generated much debate on newspaper websites and blogs about the use of the word haole and whether whites are the targets of racism in Hawaii.”It is a hateful place to live if you are white,” wrote a woman on one Hawaii website’s comments section. A Hawaii native who is white wrote, “Racism exists in Hawaii. My whole life I’ve never really felt welcome here.” A sailor stationed at Pearl Harbor added that “this island is the most racist place I have ever been in my life.” Other white residents, however, wrote that they had had no such experiences. And many people maintained that arrogant mainlanders are the most likely to incur natives’ wrath. It’s their “cultural inability to be humble [that] is a huge contributing factor in a lot of violence against them,” one person wrote. “There is a high degree of arrogance and lack of respect that mainlanders exhibit,” added another. A Hawaiian Studies professor at the University of Hawaii, Haunani-Kay Trask, is one of the most caustic critics of whites in the islands. In her 1999 book, From A Native Daughter, Trask wrote: “Just as … all exploited peoples are justified in feeling hostile and resentful toward those who exploit them, so we Hawaiians are justified in such feelings toward the haole. This is the legacy of racism, of colonialism.” In a poem titled, “Racist White Woman,” Trask wrote: “I could kick/Your face, puncture/Both eyes./You deserve this kind/Of violence./No more vicious/Tongues, obscene/Lies./Just a knife/Slitting your tight/Little heart.” Trask’s opposite number is Conklin, the “anti-sovereignty” white activist who has lived on Oahu for 17 years and says he loves Hawaii’s culture, spirituality and history, but is labeled a racist by some of his detractors. He wrote a book entitled Hawaiian Apartheid: Racial Separatism and Ethnic Nationalism in the Aloha State. “Here in Hawaii, there is no compulsion to speak out on racist attacks. There are all these hate crimes and violent things happening to white people and you don’t hear sovereignty activists speaking out against it,” says Conklin, who manages a massive website on Hawaiian issues. “The violence has been going on for years and it’s always been hush-hush.” State and Race It’s against this backdrop that Hawaii approaches its 50th anniversary of statehood. The non-celebration will consist largely of educational events at various venues. Iolani Palace won’t be one of them. Once home to Hawaii’s monarchy and where the last monarch was imprisoned after her government was overthrown, the palace is a potent symbol of anti-statehood — and anti-white — sentiment.Republican state Sen. Sam Slom learned that the hard way. Although Statehood Day is a holiday in Hawaii, there were no celebrations for about 10 years, until he organized one in 2006 at the palace. He and others were confronted by demonstrators shouting racial epithets. Slom, who is Caucasian and has lived in Hawaii since 1960, said the 30 to 40 “hard-core” protesters intimidated a high school band, which left early, as well as some spectators. The 50-year anniversary events figure to be “soft celebrations” aimed at defusing sovereignty passions, Slom says. “It is a divisive wedge that some people have exploited,” he says. “There are people who have made it a racial thing. [But] the vast, overwhelming majority are proud to be United States citizens.” Still, a statehood commission planning commemorative events opted not to re-enact the phone call to the Territorial House of Representatives meeting at Iolani Palace in 1959 informing representatives that Congress had voted in favor of Hawaiian statehood. Commission member Donald Cataluna strongly opposed a reenactment, according to the Honolulu Advertiser, saying he “didn’t want any blood to spill.” That won’t completely mollify sovereignty activists, Slom predicts. “There will be protests, there’s no question about it.”

not exactly historically accurate, but interesting nonetheless… 

 

	Roots of Resentment Go Way Back Fall 2009
	Conflicts between the Polynesians who settled in Hawaii and whites began as early as 1779, when the locals clashed with English explorer Capt. James Cook and his crew. Cook became the first European to set foot on the islands the previous year, naming them the Sandwich Islands. On a return voyage, he and his men got into a dispute with the Hawaiians, who stabbed Cook to death in the surf.In 1810, Kamehameha I became Hawaii’s first king, and 10 years later missionaries from New England arrived. This time, white people came to stay, although Hawaii remained mostly autonomous in the ensuing decades. When Queen Liliuokalani ascended to the throne in 1891, she drafted a new constitution that would strengthen the monarchy’s authority.American and European businessmen then formed something called the Committee of Safety and sought U.S. military assistance to deal with a purported “imminent threat to American lives and property.” U.S. Marines and sailors were deployed and the queen relinquished her throne. President Grover Cleveland ordered an investigation. A report by former congressman James Henderson Blount concluded that the United States had abused its authority. Cleveland ordered the queen’s reinstatement, but provisional government president Sanford Dole, older cousin of the pineapple magnate James Dole, refused. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee conducted its own probe and came to the opposite conclusion as Blount. The Republic of Hawaii was then established in 1894, with Dole as president. An attempt the following year to overthrow the republic was quashed, and Queen Liliuokalani was convicted and imprisoned for a year in Iolani Palace. In 1898, the United States annexed the islands. Hawaii became a territory. Six decades later, President Dwight Eisenhower signed a bill allowing Hawaiian statehood, and 94% of residents voted on Aug. 21, 1959, in favor of it. Even so, there are today many sovereignty groups in Hawaii. One of them, the Hawaiian Kingdom Government, maintains that Hawaii has been “under prolonged occupation” by the United States and even filed an unsuccessful complaint with the United Nations Security Council in 2001. On the 100th anniversary of the overthrow of Hawaii’s monarchy in 1993, Congress passed what became known as “The Apology Resolution,” expressing regret for the “suppression of the inherent sovereignty of the Native Hawaiian people.” President Bill Clinton signed the measure. It was about that time that “we started seeing more [Native Hawaiian] activism,” says state Sen. Sam Slom. Hawaii Sen. Daniel Akaka later began regularly introducing a controversial bill that would recognize people of Native Hawaiian ancestry as a sovereign group, similar to Native American tribes. If passed, the bill would create a native-run government that would negotiate with the U.S. government for things like the transfer of lands. The legislation is pending before Congress. Even pro-sovereignty advocates are divided over the bill, with opponents contending it would leave Hawaii still beholden to the U.S. government and hamper their efforts to restore the islands as an independent nation controlled by natives. Others, however, see the establishment of an independent Native Hawaiian government as a first step toward eventual independence. — Larry Keller Intelligence Report Fall 2009

http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?sid=449

 

www.starbulletin.com > News >

YOU ASKED

Sugar planters led monarchy overthrow

By Associated Press 

POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Aug 30, 2009

(Single Page View) | Return to Paginated View

QUESTION: A recent AP article about Hawaii’s 50th anniversary as a state said the Hawaiian monarchy was overthrown in 1893 by a group of white businessmen. What kind of business were these men in?

HAWAII STATE ARCHIVE

A reader from New Mexico asked about the businessmen who toppled Hawaii’s last reigning monarch, Queen Liliuokalani.

Rebecca Moeller
Socorro, N.M.

ANSWER: The overthrow was organized by a group called the Committee of Safety, whose 13 members were businessmen seeking annexation of Hawaii by the United States. The members included sugar planters, Pacific shippers, a newspaper editor, lumber salesmen and a grocer.

The businessmen wanted Hawaii to become a U.S. territory so they could make more money selling their goods — mainly sugar — to the United States.

An 1890 law called the McKinley Act had imposed steep tariffs on imports to the United States to protect American manufacturers. If Hawaii joined the U.S., businesses there could regain some of the profits they had previously enjoyed under an 1875 treaty allowing goods such as sugar and rice to be imported into the U.S. tax-free.

Mark Niesse
Associated Press writer, Honolulu

Send your own news-related questions to newsquestions@ap.org, with “Ask AP” in the subject line. Please include your full name and hometown.

These are fabulous!  Mahalo to David Ma for sharing.

More photos are available here:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/17374186@N00/

Mahalo to Janos for posting photos of the Kauai rally.  Check them out at http://news.webshots.com/album/574248543JRKfet?vhost=news

This is neat–the edited version of “FAKE STATE”…

Shelly Muneoka, left, Kaleo Farias, Curtis Peahi and Jean Stavrue burn the the 50th star that was cut from the American flag in protest of Hawai’i statehood.  Kealaula Cockett uses tongs to hold the star.

This photo, along with a letter to the editor, was posted in today’s Honolulu Advertiser:

Burning of star was tasteless protesting

I was completely disgusted by what I saw from some of the protesters of the statehood conference outside the Convention Center. I know my history and understand the hurt and anger felt by many Native Hawaiians regarding statehood, particularly the way in which Hawai’i was overthrown.

What I can’t sympathize with is radical, disrespectful and tasteless protests like what was witnessed on this occasion. To cut the 50th star out of the American flag and burn it is simply unacceptable. What kind of reaction would someone get if he or she defaced the Hawaiian flag and burnt part of it?

To beat an Uncle Sam figure with sticks is mere brutality. If radical Hawaiian groups such as these want to be heard, listened to and given the least bit of respect, they should carry out their protests with a bit more tact and peacefulness. 

Hawaiian culture and recognition is on the upswing. Use your minds and your education to guide you in your efforts. Be proud of your heritage and history; don’t disgrace it and perpetuate shameful stereotypes.

Kevin Dias

Editor’s comment:  Yesterday’s posting carried a response by Poka Laenui to someone who wrote a similar letter.  These complaints have something in common:  unfamiliarity with both Hawaiian and American history, and the role America played in the disenfranchisement of Hawaiian citizens at the time of the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom and the subsequent taking of Hawaii using U.S. military forces against the will of the Hawaiian people.  These were illegal actions, “radical, disrespectful, and tasteless”, not to mention “brutal.” 

Below is the response from Poka Laenui (posted for the second time) to the same rant by another person, Bob.  This one is for Kevin Dias.  It won’t hurt for all of us to read this over and over and over again until it becomes crytal clear that everyone should get their facts straight before they write things that may come back to bite them:

Aloha Bob:

    “I support self-governance for the indigenous Hawaiian people.  This position is the result of my respect for the Hawaiian culture, my disrespect for how the lands of Hawaii have been raped since I came here in 1965, and because it’s the right thing to do.  . . .  I believe many of your followers in the sovereignty movement have done irreparable harm to your cause by burning the U.S. flag and stabbing an effigy of Uncle Sam during the demonstration.  These images are an insult to the country I love and have served and are  indelibly burned into my mind.  This is not Iran. “  Bob

    First, mahalo for taking the time and pain to write to me of your deep feelings over our demonstration for Hawaiian independence.  Your writing is directly in line with my understanding of two principle points set forth by Mahatma Gandhi who encouraged dialogue, even with the one who may be most opposite your position, for it is only in such dialogue that resolutions may come about.  A second principle he also taught was to choose conflict over complacency, thus respecting the commonality rather than the irrelevance of one another. 

    I am glad you can say you support self-governance of the indigenous Hawaiian people, a result of your respect for Hawaiian culture and of how the lands of Hawaii have been raped since your arrival here in 1965.  Further, you recognize that its the right thing to do!

    This is a good starting point from which a little clarity may be called for.  We who have marched and rallied on Friday were generally indigenous Hawaiians, and many of us support self-governance to a degree, among indigenous peoples.  But it is even more important to recognize that what we are saying in the Friday event, that the right of self-governance from the point of view of an independent nation-state has been taken away from us, a nation-state which stretches its hands across people of Hawaii beyond merely its indigenous people.  It was that multi-racial, multi-cultural nation-state which had its independence stolen by the invasion of the U.S. and their tactic of “regime change” from our Queen to an oligarchy calling themselves the “Provisional Government”.  That “government” received its only claim to power from the military forces of the United States — not by the “consent of the governed” in accordance with the principles which emit from that great document indeed, the American Declaration of Independence.

    I want you to fully appreciate the gravity of the above paragraph.  The question of Hawaiian self-determination is not merely a claim for autonomy as a self-governing indigenous group within the United States of America.  It is for the full-fledged claim of disengagement from the United States as an Independent Nation-State, as we had been before the American invasion.  In other words, we are indeed AN INVADED NATION-STATE! 

    The U.S. has not only committed the crime of invasion and occupation, but it has stayed and continues to commit the crime of colonization.  It, and its citizens continue, brashly, brazenly, defiantly, to fly their symbol of superiority, their American flag, over our country.  The U.S., with the continued presences of its citizens, have gone so far as sewn another star on its flag, to indicate its intention to remain here permanently, pulling Hawaii into its union of States.  In doing so, they threw legal obligation out, and proceeded to cheat in their claiming Hawaii as a “State” of their union - another “shotgun marital arrangement!”

    Your government has used its flag as a symbol of oppression here in Hawaii as well as wherever it goes in its expansion of the U.S. empire.  We have been forced to pledge our allegiance to that flag from our elementary school days through adulthood.  We find this symbol along our streets, in our public buildings, throughout the judicial systems which are supposed to met out justice, but ends up only supporting continued U.S. domination throughout these islands.  What good is an American confession and apology a hundred years too late, while the American presence only continues and expands in Hawaii!  What good is an American Flag when it stands for nothing but to be flown over the graves of fallen soldiers who had thought they were fighting for American Principles while more often, they were merely dying for American Interests?

    Once in awhile, the Congress may throw a bone of appeasement to the native Hawaiians for stealing our country.  They passed a domestic law back in 1921 providing for some “Hawaiian Homes lands” (which was part of the bag of goodies they got in that national theft).  They allowed us to have our own Office of Hawaiian Affairs in 1980, but the U.S. Supreme Court said only if everybody else could have a say in who would run that office.  Now they are talking about giving us official recognition as an Indian, Native American, First Nation, or whatever term a particular audience may feel comfortable with.  All of this amounts to nothing in comparison with our right to have the U.S. out of our country.

    Sick and tired of this continued practice of appeasement by the U.S. government and of complacency by its citizens, I and a small number of others decided to take this occasion of the “Statehood anniversary” to demonstrate our frustration and anger over continued presence of the U.S. and the do-nothing approach of the good hearted and loyal citizens of the U.S. who love their flag.
In our planning meetings, we had decided to remove the 50th star from the flag, the star which represents the lie of Hawaii Statehood.  Others had suggested that we simply burn the American flag, but we decided that would not communicate the message we had.

    We had also decided to mail the star back to the U.S. via President Obama.  On the morning of the march, I learned that at a final meeting the decision was that the only appropriate disposal of the star was to set it afire.  This does make some sense for it stood for Hawaii and it would make no sense sending it off to the U.S.  It is an appropriate disposal as our statement of the symbol of statehood.  The fact that the American flag had to be cut was inevitable.  The star should not have been sewn on in the first place.

    As to the effigy of Uncle Sam, we had constructed a likeness of Uncle Sam with special attention to his hat and the “Yankee Doodle Dandy” feathers which read, Guam, Puerto Rico, Philippines, Cuba.  These feathers were to stand for symbols of imperialism, the conduct of the U.S. empire building after the regime change forced upon Hawaii.  The program called for the knocking off of the hat, the pulling out of the feathers, the removal of the American flag from the hat and the removal of the star from that flag.  We would subsequently place a large one-way airline ticket around Sam’s neck to send him off, as we sang “Hit the road Jack!  Don’t you come back no more . . . ”

    Those who also joined us in the rally who subsequently took the time to stab at the effigy was not acting in accordance with our earlier decision.  However, this is all part of the reality of holding demonstrations in the streets where others may also join and sometimes have their own personal expressions. 

    I hope this explanation will help you to understand the actions which took place on the street and in our march ceremony on the 21st of August.  I am writing not to attempt to alleviate you of the pain which you feel over the treatment of the flag and the effigy, but in the hope that you would be willing to consider the importance of those national symbols in contrast to the national and international principles for which we are standing.  Such national symbols as a flag and as a caricature of Uncle Sam are supposed to stand for democracy, equality, justice for all and partiality to none.  They should stand for liberation of all people held against their will, governed without their consent, and removed from their language, culture, natural resources, etc.  When a nation’s actions are contrary to its national symbols, when its national deeds simply ignore and contradict its national creed, the symbols no longer have any value and every step necessary to call this to the attention of its people is appropriate. 

    May I suggest that a moment of reflection, self examination, and mutual commitment be made, not to “loyalty to country” or to the continued elevation of symbols, but to principles of right dealings, regardless of one’s nation’s interest - or as we say in Hawaii, just be Pono. 

    I welcome your sharing your continued reflections on this matter with me.

Aloha a hui hou.  Poka Laenui

8/25/09, Geneva

Congratulations to HIAA and all on the tremendous success of the Fake State resistance action. You have provided the visible affirmation of our conviction and commitment to free our nation.

I am in Geneva again (after “side trips” to Brussels, the Hague, Amsterdam, Washington DC).

Today is game day. This is what many have sacrificially laid the groundwork for over many years. Today we give our presentation directly to the members of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) at 1:45 PM. Our objective is to get the the CERD to refer the unsettled cases of Hawaii and Alaska to the Decolonization Committee to address the violations by the U.S. of depriving us of our right to self determination.

This is the result of the Shadow Report filed in 2006. Certain members of the CERD have been dodging this for three years now. Finally the door has opened, so if we succeed, it will set in motion international mechanisms that will ultimately require the U.S. to explain how the Hawaiian Kingdom became a “state” of the U.S. This would signal the beginning of the end of U.S. occupation of both Hawaii and Alaska.

I will send an update later today of how things have gone with the presentation.

Malama pono,
Leon

Kai’s blog also has some photos of the August 21 march and rally…

You can check out his blog at http://kaiana.blogspot.com/

More photos of the Maui Free Hawaii action are available here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/17374186@N00/

8/25/09

At a meeting tonight of the Hawaiian Independence Action Alliance, Poka Laenui shared with us the story of a letter he received following our August 21 action.  The writer, Bob, was so upset he waited three days before writing to Poka with his complaint.  We asked, at the meeting, that this letter and Poka’s response be shared with the rest of us.  Below I’ve posted their dialogue.  It is our hope that as we move along our path to independence (or the recognition of it), we will have numerous opportunities for dialogue with those who are NOT of like mind, but who are open to discussion. 

Aloha Bob:

    “I support self-governance for the indigenous Hawaiian people.  This position is the result of my respect for the Hawaiian culture, my disrespect for how the lands of Hawaii have been raped since I came here in 1965, and because it’s the right thing to do.  . . .  I believe many of your followers in the sovereignty movement have done irreparable harm to your cause by burning the U.S. flag and stabbing an effigy of Uncle Sam during the demonstration.  These images are an insult to the country I love and have served and are  indelibly burned into my mind.  This is not Iran. “  Bob

    First, mahalo for taking the time and pain to write to me of your deep feelings over our demonstration for Hawaiian independence.  Your writing is directly in line with my understanding of two principle points set forth by Mahatma Gandhi who encouraged dialogue, even with the one who may be most opposite your position, for it is only in such dialogue that resolutions may come about.  A second principle he also taught was to choose conflict over complacency, thus respecting the commonality rather than the irrelevance of one another. 

    I am glad you can say you support self-governance of the indigenous Hawaiian people, a result of your respect for Hawaiian culture and of how the lands of Hawaii have been raped since your arrival here in 1965.  Further, you recognize that its the right thing to do!

    This is a good starting point from which a little clarity may be called for.  We who have marched and rallied on Friday were generally indigenous Hawaiians, and many of us support self-governance to a degree, among indigenous peoples.  But it is even more important to recognize that what we are saying in the Friday event, that the right of self-governance from the point of view of an independent nation-state has been taken away from us, a nation-state which stretches its hands across people of Hawaii beyond merely its indigenous people.  It was that multi-racial, multi-cultural nation-state which had its independence stolen by the invasion of the U.S. and their tactic of “regime change” from our Queen to an oligarchy calling themselves the “Provisional Government”.  That “government” received its only claim to power from the military forces of the United States — not by the “consent of the governed” in accordance with the principles which emit from that great document indeed, the American Declaration of Independence.

    I want you to fully appreciate the gravity of the above paragraph.  The question of Hawaiian self-determination is not merely a claim for autonomy as a self-governing indigenous group within the United States of America.  It is for the full-fledged claim of disengagement from the United States as an Independent Nation-State, as we had been before the American invasion.  In other words, we are indeed AN INVADED NATION-STATE! 

    The U.S. has not only committed the crime of invasion and occupation, but it has stayed and continues to commit the crime of colonization.  It, and its citizens continue, brashly, brazenly, defiantly, to fly their symbol of superiority, their American flag, over our country.  The U.S., with the continued presences of its citizens, have gone so far as sewn another star on its flag, to indicate its intention to remain here permanently, pulling Hawaii into its union of States.  In doing so, they threw legal obligation out, and proceeded to cheat in their claiming Hawaii as a “State” of their union - another “shotgun marital arrangement!”

    Your government has used its flag as a symbol of oppression here in Hawaii as well as wherever it goes in its expansion of the U.S. empire.  We have been forced to pledge our allegiance to that flag from our elementary school days through adulthood.  We find this symbol along our streets, in our public buildings, throughout the judicial systems which are supposed to met out justice, but ends up only supporting continued U.S. domination throughout these islands.  What good is an American confession and apology a hundred years too late, while the American presence only continues and expands in Hawaii!  What good is an American Flag when it stands for nothing but to be flown over the graves of fallen soldiers who had thought they were fighting for American Principles while more often, they were merely dying for American Interests?

    Once in awhile, the Congress may throw a bone of appeasement to the native Hawaiians for stealing our country.  They passed a domestic law back in 1921 providing for some “Hawaiian Homes lands” (which was part of the bag of goodies they got in that national theft).  They allowed us to have our own Office of Hawaiian Affairs in 1980, but the U.S. Supreme Court said only if everybody else could have a say in who would run that office.  Now they are talking about giving us official recognition as an Indian, Native American, First Nation, or whatever term a particular audience may feel comfortable with.  All of this amounts to nothing in comparison with our right to have the U.S. out of our country.

    Sick and tired of this continued practice of appeasement by the U.S. government and of complacency by its citizens, I and a small number of others decided to take this occasion of the “Statehood anniversary” to demonstrate our frustration and anger over continued presence of the U.S. and the do-nothing approach of the good hearted and loyal citizens of the U.S. who love their flag.
In our planning meetings, we had decided to remove the 50th star from the flag, the star which represents the lie of Hawaii Statehood.  Others had suggested that we simply burn the American flag, but we decided that would not communicate the message we had.

    We had also decided to mail the star back to the U.S. via President Obama.  On the morning of the march, I learned that at a final meeting the decision was that the only appropriate disposal of the star was to set it afire.  This does make some sense for it stood for Hawaii and it would make no sense sending it off to the U.S.  It is an appropriate disposal as our statement of the symbol of statehood.  The fact that the American flag had to be cut was inevitable.  The star should not have been sewn on in the first place.

    As to the effigy of Uncle Sam, we had constructed a likeness of Uncle Sam with special attention to his hat and the “Yankee Doodle Dandy” feathers which read, Guam, Puerto Rico, Philippines, Cuba.  These feathers were to stand for symbols of imperialism, the conduct of the U.S. empire building after the regime change forced upon Hawaii.  The program called for the knocking off of the hat, the pulling out of the feathers, the removal of the American flag from the hat and the removal of the star from that flag.  We would subsequently place a large one-way airline ticket around Sam’s neck to send him off, as we sang “Hit the road Jack!  Don’t you come back no more . . . ”

    Those who also joined us in the rally who subsequently took the time to stab at the effigy was not acting in accordance with our earlier decision.  However, this is all part of the reality of holding demonstrations in the streets where others may also join and sometimes have their own personal expressions. 

    I hope this explanation will help you to understand the actions which took place on the street and in our march ceremony on the 21st of August.  I am writing not to attempt to alleviate you of the pain which you feel over the treatment of the flag and the effigy, but in the hope that you would be willing to consider the importance of those national symbols in contrast to the national and international principles for which we are standing.  Such national symbols as a flag and as a caricature of Uncle Sam are supposed to stand for democracy, equality, justice for all and partiality to none.  They should stand for liberation of all people held against their will, governed without their consent, and removed from their language, culture, natural resources, etc.  When a nation’s actions are contrary to its national symbols, when its national deeds simply ignore and contradict its national creed, the symbols no longer have any value and every step necessary to call this to the attention of its people is appropriate. 

    May I suggest that a moment of reflection, self examination, and mutual commitment be made, not to “loyalty to country” or to the continued elevation of symbols, but to principles of right dealings, regardless of one’s nation’s interest - or as we say in Hawaii, just be Pono. 

    I welcome your sharing your continued reflections on this matter with me.

Aloha a hui hou.  Poka Laenui

More photos of Aug.  21 march and rally for Hawaiian independence:

More photos from the march and rally for Hawaiian independence:

You are invited to view J.K.’s photo album: 50th Anniversary of Fake Statehood

Holidays, Anniversaries, and Celebrations:

Hawaii at the 50^th year of U.S. Statehood

            1959 “Statehood” was a time of excitement in Hawai`i over the notion of this territory and the people within it becoming “Equal American Citizens” with all others.  Bon fires lit the night along with firecrackers, blaring music, and all forms of celebration.  20 years and a new generation later, the conversation began to change, asking, “what happened to the option of returning Hawai`i to its status as an independent nation-state, as we had been prior to the U.S. military invasion in 1893.”  37 years since Statehood, a television dialogue was held, including the last Hawai`i Territorial governor (U.S. Presidential appointment), William Quinn.  When asked why the options for Hawaiian Independence and Free Association was not also included in the plebiscite question for the Hawai`i voters, the former governor laughed at the idea, saying he had never heard of such a requirement until that very moment. [i]

            Today, 50 years later, the international standard of affording a people under colonial like conditions the choices of independence, free association, or integration with the colonial (administering or metropolitan) state is a matter of wide knowledge.[ii]  That Hawai`i’s plebiscite question in 1959 failed to present those options are also widely known. [iii]  A growing number of people are demanding the full and proper exercise of self-determination, making no secret that their definite preference is for an Independent Hawai`i.  The State of Hawai`i, recognizing the change in awareness and mood of the people recently switched from a celebration to an observance of the 50<sup>th</sup> anniversary with a conference and a dance, while protesters outside the convention center cut the last star out of the U.S. flag. [iv]   One of Hawai`i’s foremost jurist, Walter Heen, on the 50^th Anniversary, says, today there is no question in his mind that the Statehood vote was unfair. [v]

            A people’s rally of over 300 supporters was kept outside the convention center, watched by security officers to assure the numbers would not overflow & disturb the conferees.  Rally organizer, Pōkā Laenui said, “we call upon the United States & the international community, to bring about our full exercise of self-determination, following legal mechanisms already established by the United Nations.” 

           “We call upon the people who are now the residents of these islands, to become engaged in the liberation of these islands from U.S. colonialism,” he concluded. 

          When asked what is this engagement of the people, Pōkā replied, “it is the engagement of community dreaming, of community conversation, of reconsidering and restructuring a foundational platform, upon which we can build anew our nation containing all of the highest and finest principles of humanity we can create!”

             “Proper decolonization among a colonized society should follow five phases, 1) recovery & rediscovery, 2) mourning, 3) dreaming, 4) consensus, and 5) execution.[vi]  If we depend on decolonization being merely the departure of the colonial authority, leaving us the colonial structures and patterns of behavior, we will not have become decolonized.  We will merely replicate what we are today, a people pretending we are the colonizers, perhaps even looking for others to colonize!  If we do not take the time to “dream” and build among ourselves the values we aspire to live by, and rethink how to formulate our social, economic, environmental, political, and national security structures upon those values, we will fail ourselves in the full promise of decolonization.” 

            “Hawai`i today,” he said, “is much like many large cities and towns in the rest of the world, operating its formal structures, its rules of economic, social, political, environmental, educational, religious and national security, on the basis of three principles - Domination, Individualism and Exclusion (D.I.E.).  This is a selfish, mean, and dehumanizing set of values, and there is no reason why we need to continue these principles.  It has set all of our formal structures into a downward spiral, killing the humanity in these structures.”

            “Are our principles of `Oluolu (non-confrontational, pleasant), Lokahi (group mindfulness) and Aloha (loving, caring, inclusive) (O.L.A.) not able to operate in the formal as well as in our informal systems?  Why can we not build new ways of interacting along these principles, whether it is in our religious approaches, our environmental approaches, yes, even in our national security system,” he asked?

            “’Dreaming’, in our decolonization process, is just as important as how we separate politically and militarily from U.S. colonization.  Hawaiian Independence is not only our human right as a consequence of historical events and principles of decolonization, but it is our sacred challenge to lift our society to a higher order of social and spiritual development,” he concluded.

Photos from the march and rally for Hawaiian independence, with a couple of samples:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hawaiimuse/

Hawaii marks 50 years of US statehood

Hawaii became the 50th State of the United States of America 50 years ago on August 21. While some have been commemorating the occasion, others are commiserating. Hawaii Public Radio has been producing a series of special reports.

Presenter: Geraldine Coutts
Speaker: Kayla Rosenfeld, director of news, Hawaii Public Radio

ROSENFELD: That’s correct, there is a strong faction of native Hawaiians here and not only native Hawaiians but sympathisers who believe that Hawaii illegally became a state and that is the debate.

COUTTS: And who’s winning, and what are the points on either side that are being debated?

ROSENFELD: Well, I think you could say the American government is winning in that Hawaii is the 50th state, that Hawaii has a strong military presence and that the Hawaiians themselves are still fighting for acknowledgment of their place here in the islands. So I would say the American government is winning.

ROSENFELD: Now Kayla, we’re just going to play a little grab, because you have been doing quite an extensive series on this issue. So we’ll just hear a part of what you’ve been doing.

REPORTER: By the time, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Admissions act on March 18th, 1959, celebrations were already underway. As the popular story goes, when the actual vote was held in June, there was overwhelming support for statehood. But who exactly voted?

COUTTS: Kayla, can you explain that and the context for that grab?

ROSENFELD: I can. There is a discussion going on and again it’s not just Hawaiians themselves, but people who are studying the issue of statehood and have been for decades. There is an approach that says those who voted for statehood were those who were properly informed, those who were in the government, the upper echelon of Hawaiians themselves, not the native Hawaiians, not the local people. So that is the question, who actually voted? History says 90% of people who voted for Hawaii supported statehood, but that 90% of the population were those who knew about the issue and were in a position to leave work that day to vote and recognised that it would make a difference in their lives. Other folks, mostly local people, would probably have said okay, it’s going to happen anyway. It doesn’t matter what my vote is so why bother.

COUTTS: Now, how strong is the movement still that the monarchy should be reinstalled in Hawaii? Are there many people still pushing for that or is it saying it’s gone to far, progress is progress?

ROSENFELD: You have both sides of that argument. You’ve got the Hawaiian sovereignty movement who are - they call themselves - nationalists and they are still fighting. In fact on Friday, for statehood commemoration they were protesting a conference that the government put on in the centre of Honolulu. They also have been protesting in kind of a subtle way, more artistically at the Iolani Palace which was the seat of government here in Hawaii for many, many years. They held reenactments of the annexation, the Queen, Queen Lili`uokalani, had been imprisoned in her own bedroom in the palace, so there were reenactments of that, walking towards those kinds of things and then which I think probably made national headlines, and international for that matter is the fact that during the protest on Friday, the native Hawaiian group that is probably the most vocal about statehood, against statehood was pretty loud at their protest at the Convention Centre and they cut the 50th star out of the flag, the American flag and burned it. So just to talk about the level of opposition to statehood by burning that star, that is a big statement in itself.

COUTTS: That would not have been received very well, because the flag in America is sacrosanct.

ROSENFELD: Exactly, exactly. I was reading some of the comments and people were not happy about that. People are very tolerant here about diversity in issues and things like that, but when you start walking on sacred ground, you’re right, people protest.

COUTTS: We’re going to have another little grab from your programming it is on this issue.

REPORTER: It was very clear to me as a child that the Hawaiian side of me was despondent, depressed, sad over statehood and the immigrant side of me saw themselves as Americans and happy and elated over it.

COUTTS: That was Arnelle Armoral, native Hawaiian liaison to the garrison commander of the US Army. Now how did she come to step forward to talk about and again what is the wider context for that?

ROSENFELD: Okay, well, Arnelle Armoral is a former state senator; I would say about ten years ago, when she was involved in Hawaiian issues. She obviously is a native Hawaiian with some I believe Portuguese background as she mentioned in that clip. That clip came from a talk show that we held as part of the series of statehood that we have been doing. She and several other prominent native Hawaiians were invited to discuss the issues from the native Hawaiian perspective, because much of the discussion coming out Hawaii is from the government’s perspective, rah rah. Hawaii was great, statehood was great for Hawaii. Look how much money we have made, look at tourism, look at military, all those things.

But native Hawaiians themselves have been struggling with this. On one hand, their quality of life has improved because of statehood, yet native Hawaiians as a population themselves remains at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder here in Hawaii. So those who are willing to make the effort to become more part of society itself, more of Hawaii do a little bit better than those who are opposed to statehood itself. So that is where she is coming from. She sees it from both sides. She was able to step outside the native Hawaiian anger I guess is the only way I really know how to put it and do something with it. She is an activist, she talks, as opposed to others who are just mad.

COUTTS: And you can hear more special reports on 50 years of statehood at http://www.hawaiipublicradio.org/statehood

Monday, August 24, 2009

*FakeStatehood Address on United States Imperialism
Honolulu, August 21, 2009
Tony Castana

*******

Aloha kakou. In regard to U.S. imperialism in Hawai’i and the Pacific, I am
here today to say that the origins of the American Republic and its foreign
policy have always been based on lies and contradictions. The United States
has always said one thing on the one hand, and done something different on
the other. The U.S. has always talked about freedom, democracy and equality
on the one hand, yet perpetuated genocide, slavery and imperial policies
on the other.

The first big lie, and many of which we continue to teach our children
in the schools, is that “America” was somehow “discovered” by European
explorers, and thus Native Americans were not human beings because they
were not Christians. Nevertheless, in the beginning, the U.S. entered into
treaty relations with American Indian nations because it viewed them as
formidable foreign powers and sovereign and independent nations. The first
treaty signed with the Delaware in 1778 allowed American troops to cross
Delaware lands in order to fight the British. However, things began to
change at the turn of the century as the American population began to grow
and lands and resources increasingly coveted. Some key U.S. Supreme Court
decisions came to brand Indian nations as “domestic dependent nations.”
This is not what Native Americans had asked for or wanted. They had always
seen themselves as sovereign and independent with their own lands, cultures,
and spiritual values and traditions.

This led to the infamous “Trail of Tears” in the late 1830s, which was the
terroristic relocation of numerous native nations from the eastern coast
of the United States to Oklahoma. Thousands perished in the process. The
U.S. continued its westward expansion and Indian wars culminating in the
massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890. Throughout this process, at a bare
minimum, 10-12 million Native Americans were killed off. The U.S. violated
the over 370 formally ratified treaties it had entered into with Amerindian
nations. Many of you have probably heard the quotation, “The only good
Indian is a dead Indian.” This signifies the intentional motivation to
wipe out a people. This is genocide, and this is what American foreign
policy is based on.

In the 1890s, U.S. imperial policies of course continued into the Pacific
and Caribbean. In Boriken (Puerto Rico), the Jibaro or Boricua people had
resisted and led the battles against the Spanish for 400 years, ultimately
gaining their autonomy from Spain in 1898. The next step for Puerto Rico
would have been independence. This was not to be as the U.S. moved in
and plucked the pear there as it had done here. This was a premeditated
strategic decision. As U.S. Secretary of State James Blaine wrote to
President Harrison in 1891, “I believe that there are only three places
of sufficient value TO BE TAKEN: One is Hawai’i, and the others are Puerto
Rico and Cuba.”

The U.S. military then cracked down in Puerto Rico and began an era of
repression. I recently spoke with a native elder there (who was 106 by
his account), who told me he witnessed American troops going into homes
and raping the women and killing the children. They would wait until the
men came home. They would then kill them and often take the women and the
land. These American atrocities were the same ones taking place in the
Philippines at this time. This is well documented. That was a bloody war
taking place there! Thousands were killed. That native elder said, “The
gringos came to take the land from the people.”

Finally, I was in Guanica in 1998 to observe the commemoration of the U.S.
invasion a hundred years earlier. The independence supporters would shout,
“Jibaro, Si, Yankee, No!” The Jibaro refer to the Indian people who have
survived 500 years of colonialism. Many came here to Hawai’i as sugar
plantation laborers. This has been a popular saying for decades. So
in Puerto Rico, it is an indigenist nationalist struggle for self-
determination and decolonization that continues today, which has
been clearly seen in the battle against the military in Vieques.

U.S. imperial policies continue to be perpetuated today through the over
800 military installations around the world - in the Middle East, South
America, Asia, etc., and of course right here in Ka Pae’aina. This must
end. Mahalo.

                                *******

Muted Commemoration as

HawaiiTurns 50 as a State

Hawaii marks 50 years as nation’s youngest state; pro-independence protests

By MARK NIESSE

8/21/09

The Associated Press

HONOLULU

Hawaii welcomed its entry as the 50th state with a new postage stamp Friday but independence supporters marked the day with passionate protest — including an effigy of Uncle Sam being beaten and Hawaii’s star cut out from the U.S. flag.

State leaders called Friday’s events a “commemoration” of Hawaii’s 50 years of statehood rather than a “celebration” out of respect to Native Hawaiians and their unresolved claims since the 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom.

A few hundred Native Hawaiians marched through the street of downtown Honolulu with an effigy of a 15-foot Uncle Sam holding machine guns and riding in a tank made of cardboard. They chanted in Hawaiian, blew on conch shells, waved ti leaves, carried upside-down Hawaii state flags and yelled, “We are not Americans! We want our country back!”

“Genocide” and “imperialist” were written across the cardboard machine guns.

At the end of the march, protesters knocked off Uncle Sam’s hat, which contained a U.S. flag from which they cut out a star that represented Hawaii. They lit the star on fire and held it up to a crowd yelling “freedom.”

“We were never the 50th state,” said Kaleo Farias, one of protesters that cut the U.S. flag. “It was an illusion, fabrication, something that was told to us that never happened. … We’re not part of the United States.”

The events commemorating Hawaii’s 1959 admission into the union have been light on flag-waving and parades. Instead, they have focused on the state’s economic future with panel discussions on tourism, alternative energy and Hawaiian rights.

Elsewhere in the nation, however, Hawaii statehood was being marked as a cause for celebration with one of the more elaborate displays taking place Friday in New York City’s Times Square, where dancers dressed in traditional Hawaiian costumes and taught people how to Hula dance.

Outside the Hawaii Convention Center, the protesters argued that Hawaii’s statehood was never legal and that the islands should return to its status as a sovereign nation.

Lynette Cruz, an organizer of the march, said the demonstration was recognizing that, “the United States has engaged in imperialism forever. The idea of building a state on top of a wrong doesn’t make sense.”

Inside the convention center, the official statehood events highlighted Hawaii as a model for diversity while attempting to dispel misconceptions of the islands as an exotic location separate from the rest of the country.

Hawaii’s Bryan Clay, who claimed the title of “world’s greatest athlete” after winning gold in the decathlon in Beijing last year, said many Americans still think of the islands as a place with grass huts that requires a passport to visit.

“Hawaii is far more than just a beautiful vacation spot,” Clay told a packed audience of more than 2,100. “In the case of Hawaii, more so than in other states, perception is different from reality.”

Others spoke about how the rest of the country should look to Hawaii as a model for how people of different backgrounds can get along, preserve their natural resources and develop renewable power.

“The mere mention of Hawaii draws recognition that overcomes language and geographic barriers,” said Gov. Linda Lingle. “We are regarded as a true island paradise where the unique hospitality of our people, abundant natural resources, diverse heritage and host culture sets us apart.”

President Barack Obama, who was born in the state, signed a proclamation marking the anniversary and said that in his youth he learned from Hawaii’s diversity and how different cultures, blended together into one population, were made stronger by their shared sense of community.

The proclamation said: “The Aloha Spirit of Hawaii offers hope and opportunity for all Americans.”

The postage stamp, available nationwide Friday, shows a painting of a longboard surfer and two paddlers in an outrigger canoe.

Hawaiian Group Protests Statehood Conference

People Attend Conference Focusing On Hawaii’s Future

HONOLULU — About 2000 people marched on the Hawaii Convention Center on Friday morning, where others attended a conference marking the 50th anniversary of Hawaii’s statehood. 

 The group carried an effigy of Uncle Sam in its “fake state celebration.”

Native Hawaiian protestors march with an effigy of Uncle Sam.

The protestors promised to hold a peaceful march from Ala Moana Beach Park to the convention center.

 

The “New Horizons” conference is the main event hosted by the Hawaii Statehood Commission. There are workshops on the future of the islands in education, economy, military, media, energy and more. 

In the evening, there is a reception for the attendees. 

More than 1,500 people attended the conference
another view…

Carolyn Norman, left, and Ka’anohi Kaleikini prepare for the march to the Convention Center today.

At Ala Moana Beach Park this morning, 9-year-old Makoa Caceres prepares for the march. Several of the protesters were carrying upside-down Hawaiian flags.

Protesters participating in a Native Hawaiian march to the Convention Center today arrive chanting “We are still a nation under U.S. occupation” and “Shame on America.”

Not quite certain of the year, as it was not posted on the article, but here’s more from the New York Times, circa mid-1890s.

Our control in Hawaii - Demand for Knowledge of the Whole Situation There

January 30

A discussion of annexation to be precipitated by Senator Chandler - a proposition advocating it (be) submitted to the Senate - Precedents in American history

“…a few democrats are beginning to wonder whether it was really opposition to the proposed new constitution, or a desire to share in our sugar bounty, that led to the request of some of the Hawaiians for annexation to the United States…”

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=980CEFDF103BEF33A25752C3A9679C94629ED7CF

The earlier New York Times article makes reference to this one from 1893 re the “annexation” of Hawaii:

Feeling on the Islands, Washington, Feb.  15

“The detailed dispatches received at the State Dept. as to the affairs in Honolulu, though adding nothing to the details of the revolution, give an interesting picture of the condition of affairs in the islands and as to what is expected…”

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9B03E7D91F31E033A25755C1A9649C94629ED7CF

“As to liquidation of all political claims of the fallen Queen and the 
Crown Princess, I suggest that, if a liquidation of this kind be now 
under consideration, $150,000 should be allowed as the total sum for 
this purpose; $70,000 should go to the fallen Queen Liliuokalani, and 
$70,000 should go to the Crown Princess Kaiulani and $5,000 to each of 
the two young Princes…”

 Well, at least folks in New York now know that there’s something going on here…

 

August 18, 2009

Editorial Notebook

The Big Five-O

The following are documents shared by Dean Saranillio, which he found in researching how Hawaii became the (so-called) 50th state:

This is from the Internet Archives website:

In counterpoint to the State of Hawai’i organizing contests and special events to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Hawai’i’s becoming a U.S. state, the Kaua’i Alliance for Peace and Social Justice furthered its public education mission by presenting an event titled Hawai’i: Statehood Unmasked on Saturday, August 1, 3:30 to 8:00 p.m. at the Lihue Neighborhood Center, (new hall).

Dean Itsuji Saranillio, Ph D., presented a talk based on his doctoral dissertation, “Seeing Conquest: Colliding Histories and the Cultural Politics of Hawai’i Statehood”. Maui born, Saranillio recently completed his dissertation at the University of Michigan.

The taping of this talk is available for viewing here http://www.archive.org/details/HawaiiStatehoodUnmasked.

After 50 years of being misled, Hawaiians are challenging a long history of misinformation leading to the creation of the State of Hawaii and the commemoration of 50 years of its existence.  Join us in challenging U.S. propaganda by calling attention to the ‘real story’ and asserting Hawaiian independence.

When:        August 21, 10 am – 1 pm

Where:        Ala Moana Park (Diamond Head side) and marching to Waikiki Convention Center

Why:         To tell the truth of Hawaiian sovereignty and U.S. imperialism

· The REAL story is outside, not in the convention center

· The state of Hawaii is the result of U.S. imperialism

•Carry or wear a ti leaf as a cultural symbol to cleanse the wrong from this land.

For more information, call 697-3045 or 284-3460.  This event is spearheaded by Hawaiian Independence Action Alliance and the Institute for the Advancement of Hawaiian Affairs, with support from Hawaii People’s Fund and Ka Lei Maile Alii Hawaiian Civic Club.

Who should vote in such a decision?  One group suggests voters should be restricted by race whereby only those of the native Hawaiian blood should participate.  Such advocates generally support a position of integration in which the native Hawaiians are provided a special position within the “American” society.  A second suggestion is that the “Hawaiians at heart” should all be able to participate, that is, all those who practice the culture, hula, plant taro, who claim to be “Hawaiian”.  This approach, however, faces the obvious difficulties of verification.  A third and popular position is to follow the historical and cultural legacy of the Hawaiian nation, that is, Hawaiian citizens under the nation were multi-racial, multi-cultural, but whose national allegiance were dedicated to Hawai`i.  Under this approach, there would be a wide range of people becoming “eligible” but the real test would be to choose to undertake Hawaiian citizenship, thus disavowing any other citizenship.  Hawaiian independence is the favored position of advocates for this third position.

The Sovereignty and Native Rights movements are providing fertile ground for reexamining Hawaiian Statehood, the Hawaiian “self”, and the multiple possibilities in Hawai`i’s future.  This reexamination raises issues stretching far beyond these islands’ shores and into international political arenas:

1) Are claims of self-determination ever closed by events later discovered to have been fraudulent?  Is there a statute of limitation against fraud?

2) Who are the people to vote in the process of decolonization, citizens of the colonial government or the colonized people themselves?  How is that determination to be made – by the colonial power, by the people under colonization, or by a neutral party?

3) What or who does decolonization apply to, a territory, a people, or a people within their traditional territory subsequently colonized?

4) To what extent do basic Human Rights as set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights apply to a people who remain in a state of colonial uncertainty? 

5) In a case such as Hawai`i’s in which an indigenous nation-state was overthrown at the hands of the current administering power - the United States of America, followed by passage of domestic legislation attempting to change that non-self governing territorial status to one of “Statehood,” to what extent should the process of decolonization continue to persist?  To what extent should the new principles of Indigenous rights be applied to the territory?  To what extent should the domestic laws of the United States of America hold sway over the people of this territory?

The experience Hawai`i is now undergoing and those questions now under examination are shared by many other territories which remain under colonization under one or another name.  The commonality of that American imperialist sweep in the 1898 U.S. war against Spain now serves to draw the people of those territories to important comparisons and considerations of their continuing human rights and fundamental freedoms.

One leading spokesman of this movement is Dean Saranillio, a Maui native now at the University of Michigan whose dissertation is entitled Seeing Conquest: Colliding Histories and the Cultural Politics of Hawaii Statehood. He has been speaking in venues around the Islands this summer in an attempt to drum up discussion of competing narratives.

In a recent “Unmasking Statehood” event held on Kauai, Saranillio detailed the ways Lorrin Thurston, a major force in the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy, capitalized on the prevailing attitude of white supremacy to make a case for both the coup and the Islands’ subsequent annexation.

Thurston traveled to the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair with an exhibit on volcanoes that played up the notion of Pele as a dark, brutal, superstitious force that destroyed men, and the Islands as the place where American civilization triumphed over Hawaiian savagery. The fair, Saranillio recounted, included exhibits from around the world that portrayed the darkest races–including Hawaiians–as “primitives” that needed to catch up to the more advanced white race, with Asian races falling somewhere between the two extremes.

Saranillio said that Thurston hyped the notion that deposed Queen Liliuokalani was a “dangerous woman of savage temperment” who had planned to behead and him and others for treason. This prompted an indignant reply from the Queen that beheading had never been a common practice in Hawaii. Thurston also began advancing the notion, which still prevails today, that the question wasn’t whether Hawaii would be dominated by a foreign power, but when, and by which one.

With the foundation thus laid, Saranillio went on to discuss how Hollywood made the 1951 film Go for Broke! intentionally to soften Americans’ attitudes toward the Japanese in preparation for Hawaii’s statehood. He also showed a clip of Territorial Gov. William F. Quinn, who went on to become the first governor of the new state, saying statehood “will allow us to sell Hawaii like never before.”

During the 1950s, big banks and insurance companies wanted to invest in the Islands, but were nervous about putting serious money into a Territory. Other statehood supporters believed that the fledgling tourist industry would get a big boost if folks could travel someplace exotic without leaving the safety of the United States.

Saranillio said that “the Big Five”–Castle & Cooke, Alexander & Baldwin, C. Brewer & Co., Amfac and Theo H. Davies & Co. –also strongly supported statehood, which they saw as increasing their profits.

The notion that Native Hawaiians failed to resist statehood “is bogus,” Saranillio said, noting that the economic power of the Big Five, the Islands’ major employers, worked to suppress public opposition to statehood. When residents of Papakolea Homesteads told a visiting Congressional delegation that they didn’t want statehood, Saranillio said, a member of the Hawaii Statehood Commission came and told them they would suffer repercussions if they continued to speak out.

Saranillio went on to talk about the opposition to statehood by Territorial Senator Alice Kamokila Campbell, who successfully sued the Commission because statehood foes couldn’t access any of the $475,000 in public monies allocated to lobby voters on the issue.

“Colonization or occupation isn’t just about dominating another people,” Saranillio said. “You dominate those people by not letting them tell their history, not letting them speak their experiences, not letting them express themselves as a people. Colonization tries to interrupt and block that and speak on behalf of those people.”

Statehood Hawaii has been posting key primary documents aimed at challenging the traditional statehood story on its website at [www.statehoodhawaii.org, fifdififdi.com]. The postings began Aug. 1 as part of a 21-day countdown to statehood and include many documents that were previously classified and have not been publicly seen.

Hawaiian Independence Action Alliance members and supporters will be gathering on Friday, August 21, at Ala Moana Park, Diamond Head end, for a march and rally to Hawaii Convention Center to call attention to how U.S. imperialism has resulted in the creation of the State of Hawaii, and the commemoration of 50 years of a ’statehood’ built on theft and lies.

Stay tuned for more details.