TMT Work to Resume Says Ige!

[opihikao]

FYI: Excellent article. Represents a lot of the discussion here on PW, especially the majority, yet with an understanding of the total picture.

Some get it, some never will.

JMO.

*Note - Fischer retired from the University of Hawaii-Manoa in 2009 after 40 years as a professor in the School of Social Work.


(*Snipped - More at link)

http://www.civilbeat.com/connections/spe...mauna-kea/

With only a few — very few — exceptions, commenters have told us some variation of the following:
•How much respect we should have for the protectors as we build TMT?
•We should have mediation with the protectors as we build TMT.
•It would be “tragic” if we were not to build TMT.
•Wondrous scientific advancements would result from constructing TMT.
•Constructing TMT honors the great Polynesian explorers.
•TMT would create many really cool jobs for Hawaii.
•And bring really cool money, too.
•Plus really cool educational opportunities, especially on the Big Island.

And so on, ad nauseum. And all of these are the “nice” comments. Many letter writers, sadly, were hostile and rude to the protectors and to the many indigenous and non-indigenous supporters of the protectors.


How can the rest of us respond to such strikingly different points of view?

Here is my response, as a haole settler whose 40 years of academic work at UH was focused always on using scientifically-derived evidence to advance my field: The world desperately needs a thirty meter telescope. It promises us incredible scientific advancements. But the world also needs to understand the long history of treatment of indigenous people by settlers and colonists.

Here in Hawaii, it means the overthrow of the legitimate kanaka maoli government; the continuing military occupation; the untold number of desecrations committed by the occupiers and settlers, both culturally and environmentally; and the place of this struggle in the context of similar struggles all over the world.