The Naked Truth/Jamala Rogers
Fires in Hawai’i Pull Scab off Cancerous Sore of Colonization
The media coverage of the devastating Maui fires in Hawai’i begs the history of the islands to be told. Those who know parts or all of that history have not been surprised when the mainstream media focuses on the losses of white inhabitants and their recovery. We hear statements from white elected officials like Josh Green, the governor. It is as if there are no non-white residents on the islands. The annihilating fire and its lethal damage are the worst in the island’s history and has laid bare the white settler occupation which has been a righteous source of resistance by the indigenous people.
The struggle to reclaim the land and the authority has been a simmering ember since the overthrow of Queen Liliʻuokalani. Yes, I said queen. Before the invasion of Hawai’i, the indigenous people were governed by a monarchy.
The sovereign country was subjected to a U.S. coup in 1893 led by Sanford Dole, who then went on to make himself president of the Republic of Hawai’i. The queen was placed under house arrest and eventually forced to give up her reign to a pack of greedy white politicians, businessmen and developers, supported by the U.S. military.
The Dole name may sound familiar; the family owns Dole Pineapple. The pineapple industry was one of the major exploiters of Hawaiian land and labor in its early colonization. The plantation is now a tourist attraction, and Dole took their enterprise globally.
The colonization of the islands can basically be reduced to one major reason that splits into two: the land — land for corporate exploitation and land for military use. The brutality of capitalist oppression has decimated the population of natives. The U.S. military controls the highest percentage of the Hawai’ian lands than in any other state. Hawaiian advocates for sovereignty agree that these two factors played a role in the vulnerability of Hawai’i to the fires and to other consequences of global warming.
The Hawai’ian islands were illegally annexed in 1898 but the territory didn’t become a state until 1959. Since then, the native peoples have seen their country overrun by haole (white or non-indigenous people). The destruction of the land, culture and rights of the native people happened in a very short time. But the natives’ fight for their self-determination and dignity is a protracted one.
In 2014, with nudging from then President Obama who was born in Hawai’i, the Department of Interior advanced a proposal to establish some official government relationship. A series of public meetings conducted to get feedback on the proposal revealed a wholesale rejection of the plan by a majority of natives. The meetings were met with hostility by the people who asserted their land and sovereignty was stolen and that no hollow admission of the crime could repair the harm. No more alohas for foreigners! Hawai’I for Hawai’ians.
Too much of Hawai’ian culture, sacred lands and institutions have been destroyed or desecrated by foreign invaders. Since 2015, protesters have been successful at stalling the $1.5 billion construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) to be built on Mauna Kea. Promoted as the largest telescope in the Northern Hemisphere is no consolation if the construction destroys their sacred mountaintop.
The indigenous people have become second-class citizens in their own land. They are underpaid workers in the tourist industry. They have been pushed into homelessness as wealthy invaders have driven up costs of real estate. Accessible healthcare is out of reach. When disasters happen, they are the last to receive relief. Even during the height of the pandemic, they had to endure wealthy or white residents receiving COVID-19 vaccinations ahead of them.
Those of us on the so-called mainland must support the rights of Hawai’ians to independence and self-governance. As we have done many times before when the U.S. government invades sovereign territories, we must call it out and hold it accountable. The Hawaiian people are pulling back on their aloha greeting. We should know why.