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INCONGRUOUS, ill-fitting and duplicitous is how Senate Bill 2899 is regarded by many kanaka maoli who have attended recent community meetings. Akaka’s bill will
help HawaiiansThey are convinced it will rob them of future options to pursue self-determination under international law, in spite of repeated reassurances by Sen. Daniel Akaka and explicit language in the bill that it will not. They believe the bill is a conspiratorial attempt by the U.S. government to co-opt the sovereignty movement.
This reaction is a symptom of an increasingly inexpressible alienation that many Hawaiians feel.
Added to their social, economic and political troubles, the hostile Rice vs. Cayetano decision, and the actions taken by those emboldened by that decision, only make matters worse.
But those who believe the bill will further divide our community fail to understand that a great chasm already exists, one that is becoming difficult to bridge for the U.S. failure to reconcile historic wrongs.
SB 2899 has forced healthy, if discomfiting, public discourse that would otherwise be taking place exclusively among kanaka maoli.
If the U.S. truly seeks reconciliation with kanaka maoli called for in the apology resolution, it must not delay in providing the necessary support, as required under international law, for kanaka maoli to explore, without duress, all available political options.
Kanaka maoli have not forgotten that their nation was taken and their lands stolen in contravention of America's own laws. Can anything be more divisive than the shared knowledge of a great wrong committed, over a century ago, which has caused untold and disproportionate suffering to one segment of a population, and which has yet to be rectified?
Kanaka maoli are increasingly bitter at those who continue to deny the truth of their history and who insist that nothing wrong happened. As their anger increases, the likelihood of reconciliation becomes even more remote.
Many have stated at public meetings that they "would rather 'ai pohaku, eat stones, than accept America's proposal," echoing a well-known sentiment attributed to Queen Liliuokalani. Some have suggested that a call to armed resistence is imminent.
SB 2899 is the Hawaii congressional delegation's response, ostensibly to the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Rice vs. Cayetano, which struck down OHA's native-only voting.
RICE paves the way for elimination of all kanaka maoli programs, public and private alike, including but not limited to language immersion, community-based health centers, Hawaiian Home Lands and the infrastructure and housing on those trust lands, Kamehameha Schools, Queen Liliuokalani Trust and Lunalilo Trust.
As a countermeasure, SB 2899 proposes a mechanism for re-establishing native Hawaiian governance under federal law. Protection would issue from federal recognition, affirming the existence of a political relationship that would operate to defeat race-based challenges under the U.S. Constitution.
I support the bill because it will protect Hawaiian programs, result in formal recognition of Hawaiians as a body politic, and does not foreclose future options to pursue sovereignty and self-determination. I support the bill because I am unwilling to abide the suffering that is here today, and for which the long-term goal of independence offers no promise of relief.
Mahealani Kamauu is executive director of the
Native Hawaiian Legal Corp. and a member of the Native Hawaiian
Community Working Group, which recently held a series of
community informational meetings on the Akaka bill.