11-16-2015, 08:30 AM
http://www.bronsonkaahui.com/2015/04/08/tmt/
Opposition to the TMT is based upon new age anti-science activism
I'm with this Hawaiian.
Quote from
Michael Kealoha Stevens :
I am kanaka oiwi. My genealogy descends from the Pili line of Maui and from the Keawe line of Hawai’i. I live on the Big Island. I see with great sadness the division between my brothers and sisters. Once again we fight each other. One side claims legitimacy from respect of their kupuna, and deigns to invoke, in their names, what they sincerely believe their kupuna would want them to do. The other side questions the presumption of the first side for claiming they know what the kupuna would actually have wanted, as if they had a special insight that is somehow unknowable by their equally Hawaiian brethren because of contamination with haole culture.
I don’t think there is any way to know what our kupuna thought, and I do know that the traditions being ‘protected’ by the opposition to the TMT have been skewed and wrenched and cherry-picked to the point that traditions that are not even Hawaiian at all are being touted over and over and over without any voices of reason telling them, “Hey, wait… that’s not what the Hawaiian tradition is at all!”
The fact that we have been oppressed, misled, taken advantage of, misused… all of that is uncontested. The heart that needs to cry out against the injustice beats in me, too…. makes my koko boil with rage. Makes me want to obtain restitution and restoration. makes me want to be in control of my own life. I understand these basic feelings shared by many Hawaiians.
I also agree with Bronson, that a romanticized longing for a fictionalized Hawai’i motivates many in the general population. I agree that the ali’i, from whom I descend, were not the benign ‘noble savages’ that paternalistic Colonials viewed with avarice and greed in their hearts, because they were controllable savages with commercially marketable goods and a primitive world view that was fundamentally different from a Western view, and therefore manipulatable. I know there was brutal treatment of makaainana and kauwe, and an unsubstantiable claim of descent from the gods. The ancients did indeed live under fear and suppression. Everything was not ‘aloha’.
I agree that the alarming swell in the ranks of TMT opponents stems directly from social networking, and the almost automatic, reflexive need for Hawaiians to feel united in a cause… and this has been carefully orchestrated by a hui that has lost every single suit, every single appeal, every single contested hearing, not just against TMT, but against Keck, and NASA, and Gemini, and Subaru, and UH Hilo, too. It is easy to reduce complex issues into simplified memes, and to make statements like, “They didn’t follow the conservation plan!”, and “They didn’t allow public comment!:” and “It will destroy your drinking water” And, “It is a desecration of our sacred land!”
None of these memes or tropes is true, but on Facebook it is so easy to click a ‘like’ button, or to post a selfie with a piece of cardboard that has “Protect the Mauna” scribbled on it with a sharpie. People will not check the facts, will not read the dry scientific EIR themselves… they look to the hui to provide them with hyperlinks to hui sponsored propaganda, and they believe, without any critical thinking or independent research involved whatsoever, the tropes they are fed by the hui.
I have read all of the suits, court summaries, EIRs, the conflicting statements from the Order of Kamehameha, the changed position of OHA, and the conservation and summit management plans. TMT bent over backwards to accommodate every single demand, and exceeded the demands. Only one demand remains unfulfilled, on on this the opposition refuses to budge… no construction at all, period.
I find it hard to understand, for example, why Wakea was never invoked prior to the current TMT protests, despite it being the exact same people involved in the previous contested cases. I research the traditions and I find that Wakea as a sky god is a Maori and Tahitian construct, not part of the Hawaiian tradition at all. Previously the cultural objections were all about harming Poliahu or poisoning the sacred waters of lake Waiau. These positioned gained zero traction. Taking on the post-contact revisions to the Kumulipo where ‘figuatively speaking’, Wakea and Papa gave birth to the islands was interpreted by Kamakau as classic Hawaiian riddling wordplay which no one would take seriously. The current opposition has made great headway exploiting this myth and mis-applying the Maori traditions. I read Malo, Kamakau, Fornander, Beckwith, Pukui, Cordy… when I cite these sources to my brethren in the opposition, they say that I don’t understand, or that I am not Hawaiian, or that I need to ask my ‘na’au’ in order to really understand.
What they are really saying to me is, that since my gut feeling, my na;au, doesn’t agree with their gut feeling (which they are either unable to articulate or unwilling to discuss), …that MY gut feeling is somehow ‘wrong’. I reject this condescending, faith-based position.
My ‘na’au’ tells me to search for the truth, not some sterilized romanticized version of pan-Polynesian truth, but the actual, objective truth. After carefully ruminating over this for years, and after exhaustive research of both camps… and after remaining silent… I am now ready to make my position known:
O Kealoha ko’u inoa. No Hawai’i mai au.
I support the TMT.
Opposition to the TMT is based upon new age anti-science activism
I'm with this Hawaiian.
Quote from
Michael Kealoha Stevens :
I am kanaka oiwi. My genealogy descends from the Pili line of Maui and from the Keawe line of Hawai’i. I live on the Big Island. I see with great sadness the division between my brothers and sisters. Once again we fight each other. One side claims legitimacy from respect of their kupuna, and deigns to invoke, in their names, what they sincerely believe their kupuna would want them to do. The other side questions the presumption of the first side for claiming they know what the kupuna would actually have wanted, as if they had a special insight that is somehow unknowable by their equally Hawaiian brethren because of contamination with haole culture.
I don’t think there is any way to know what our kupuna thought, and I do know that the traditions being ‘protected’ by the opposition to the TMT have been skewed and wrenched and cherry-picked to the point that traditions that are not even Hawaiian at all are being touted over and over and over without any voices of reason telling them, “Hey, wait… that’s not what the Hawaiian tradition is at all!”
The fact that we have been oppressed, misled, taken advantage of, misused… all of that is uncontested. The heart that needs to cry out against the injustice beats in me, too…. makes my koko boil with rage. Makes me want to obtain restitution and restoration. makes me want to be in control of my own life. I understand these basic feelings shared by many Hawaiians.
I also agree with Bronson, that a romanticized longing for a fictionalized Hawai’i motivates many in the general population. I agree that the ali’i, from whom I descend, were not the benign ‘noble savages’ that paternalistic Colonials viewed with avarice and greed in their hearts, because they were controllable savages with commercially marketable goods and a primitive world view that was fundamentally different from a Western view, and therefore manipulatable. I know there was brutal treatment of makaainana and kauwe, and an unsubstantiable claim of descent from the gods. The ancients did indeed live under fear and suppression. Everything was not ‘aloha’.
I agree that the alarming swell in the ranks of TMT opponents stems directly from social networking, and the almost automatic, reflexive need for Hawaiians to feel united in a cause… and this has been carefully orchestrated by a hui that has lost every single suit, every single appeal, every single contested hearing, not just against TMT, but against Keck, and NASA, and Gemini, and Subaru, and UH Hilo, too. It is easy to reduce complex issues into simplified memes, and to make statements like, “They didn’t follow the conservation plan!”, and “They didn’t allow public comment!:” and “It will destroy your drinking water” And, “It is a desecration of our sacred land!”
None of these memes or tropes is true, but on Facebook it is so easy to click a ‘like’ button, or to post a selfie with a piece of cardboard that has “Protect the Mauna” scribbled on it with a sharpie. People will not check the facts, will not read the dry scientific EIR themselves… they look to the hui to provide them with hyperlinks to hui sponsored propaganda, and they believe, without any critical thinking or independent research involved whatsoever, the tropes they are fed by the hui.
I have read all of the suits, court summaries, EIRs, the conflicting statements from the Order of Kamehameha, the changed position of OHA, and the conservation and summit management plans. TMT bent over backwards to accommodate every single demand, and exceeded the demands. Only one demand remains unfulfilled, on on this the opposition refuses to budge… no construction at all, period.
I find it hard to understand, for example, why Wakea was never invoked prior to the current TMT protests, despite it being the exact same people involved in the previous contested cases. I research the traditions and I find that Wakea as a sky god is a Maori and Tahitian construct, not part of the Hawaiian tradition at all. Previously the cultural objections were all about harming Poliahu or poisoning the sacred waters of lake Waiau. These positioned gained zero traction. Taking on the post-contact revisions to the Kumulipo where ‘figuatively speaking’, Wakea and Papa gave birth to the islands was interpreted by Kamakau as classic Hawaiian riddling wordplay which no one would take seriously. The current opposition has made great headway exploiting this myth and mis-applying the Maori traditions. I read Malo, Kamakau, Fornander, Beckwith, Pukui, Cordy… when I cite these sources to my brethren in the opposition, they say that I don’t understand, or that I am not Hawaiian, or that I need to ask my ‘na’au’ in order to really understand.
What they are really saying to me is, that since my gut feeling, my na;au, doesn’t agree with their gut feeling (which they are either unable to articulate or unwilling to discuss), …that MY gut feeling is somehow ‘wrong’. I reject this condescending, faith-based position.
My ‘na’au’ tells me to search for the truth, not some sterilized romanticized version of pan-Polynesian truth, but the actual, objective truth. After carefully ruminating over this for years, and after exhaustive research of both camps… and after remaining silent… I am now ready to make my position known:
O Kealoha ko’u inoa. No Hawai’i mai au.
I support the TMT.
One Thing I can always be sure of is that things will never go as expected.