"I can't wait to see what you write about the Office of Hawaiian Affairs," this guy wrote via e-mail the other day. He thought it was crazy the way OHA trustees were bickering and deadlocked about who to choose to replace trustee Billy Beamer, who recently passed away. Spirit of aloha
sorely lacking in OHAThe fact is, OHA has reached that lofty plateau in the public eye that makes it nearly satire-proof. It is like watching a multi-million-dollar-trust-fund baby with Tourette syndrome: visually riveting and yet sadly depressing. It has become a parody of itself, sort of like the last episodes of "Seinfeld."
At one time I might have said that the machinations of OHA trustees resemble some weird comic opera, but that is being too kind. As a professional journalist for more than 20 years, OHA has forced me to consider supporting closed meetings. I'm beginning to think that the public would be much better off if OHA just did all of its business behind closed doors so we wouldn't have to watch the foolishness. I mean it. Close the doors. You win. Anything the trustees do in private can't be any more destructive and embarrassing than what they do in public.
OHA is supposed to represent the highest expectations of Hawaiians. It is supposed to be the Hawaiians' chance at self-determination. And with the amount of money OHA has -- more than $150 million in the bank and untold millions in the pipeline -- that's a hell of a lot of self-determination. But what do the trustees do? They ignore all of their culturally and historically recognized, tried-and-proven methods of negotiation, reconciliation and just plain getting along. Aloha has been booted out the door and replaced with vindictiveness, back-biting and shabby power plays that would be more at home at some spiritually depleted backwater Third World dictatorship.
AS a haole, I have no right to judge what happens within the glass walls of OHA. And I don't. I wouldn't care if the trustees went at each other with baseball bats, which at times, seems to be a real possibility. But as an outside observer, I think I can act as a mirror so at least the trustees can see how haggard and ragged they appear to the general population. And I can feel sympathy for the vast majority of Hawaiians who have been ill-served by the two most heavily financed bastions of alleged Hawaiian sovereignty: OHA and the Bishop Estate.
Both are fine organizations that have become corrupted by the personality cults that comprise their boards of trustees. Sad-ly, money and power seem to be the fuel that fires gross mismanagement of both organizations.
Lawyers have a term for family members who begin to do battle for assets after a rich family member dies. They are called the "grubby group." In the wake of Beamer's passing, the grubby group of OHA trustees have begun a shameful yanking and tearing at the corpus delicti of what should be the premiere Hawaiian institution. They are perfectly split along self-created power lines: four trustees on the side of ousted head Clayton Hee and four on the side of current head Frenchy DeSoto. Their only duty at this point is to name a trustee to replace Beamer but the infighting has taken on Shakespearean overtones. The balance of power is in the hands of Beamer's replacement.
If they could step back, though, and see the matter through the eyes of their typical constituent, they would see that what they are doing is destructive. It undermines the credibility of the people who are supposed to be looking out for the best interests of all Hawaiians. It makes people wonder if OHA is the best vehicle Hawaiians have in their quest for sovereignty.
So, what do I have say about OHA. I say NMP. Not my problem.