07-02-2010, 05:08 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Mauka
To the poster who would say that Hawaii, especially the Big Island is not any more special than anyplace else, I would have to disagree. We should all consider ourselves guests here and treat the Island accordingly. DHHL is something like the native American reservation system on the mainland. The lands were originally "given" to Hawaiians as part of a complex scheme to secure votes in an election. The lands given were generally what were considered low quality at the time. The missionaries and plantation owners co-opted an innocent people and in time "stole" the islands.
I being that poster, let me respond: the DHHL was given the task of administering the Hawaiian Homelands Trust in 1920. That would be 27 years after the plantation owners dismantled the monarchy, and 22 years after the US agreed to take the then Republic of Hawaii in as a territory, during the McKinley Administration. So it has absolutely nothing to do with the original monarchy, nor the original missionaries, nor does it have any resemblance to the reservation system on the mainland. All DHHL beneficiaries are lessees, not property owners or semi-sovereign entities. They pay $1 per yer rent for periods that typically reach 99 years. That is how the law reads. As for your assertion that TBI is more special than other places, I will allow that you feel this way, since you live here. But yours is a decidedly provincial point of view. Surely you can see how a 5th generation rancher in Belle Fourche, South Dakota, might disagree with you, arguing that, in fact, the Black Hills and its environs are really more special, because... well, because of his own bias and prejudice, and love of his own land. Or the youngster from the outskirts of Kabul, who waxes poetically about how Afghanistan is really quite a remarkable place... do you start to see the pattern I'm weaving? Of course you love the Big Island. Please keep loving it. But allow all the other people in the world the same right to love the place where they live. For whatever specific reasons they might offer. The entire planet is precious, and all the people living in it are equally capable of loving their own aina.