Posted on: Friday, August 10, 2001
Island Voices
Racial-based sovereignty is unjust
By Paul M. de Silva
The people who were invited to live in Hawai'i prior to the overthrow of the monarchy should not be forgotten.
It is not convincing that rights of sovereignty and self-determination belong only to Native Hawaiians.
The overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawai'i in 1893 did not deprive exclusively native Hawaiians of the right of self-determination because the kingdom had assured that this right also belonged to others who had been invited to immigrate to Hawai'i. It, therefore, is a right of the people of Hawai'i as they were at the time of the revolution, not the exclusive right of the people of Hawai'i who had Hawaiian blood.
The Declaration of the United Nations of the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples states: "All peoples have the right to self-determination; by virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development."
It is obvious from the declaration that it does not refer to "peoples" by race or indigence. The "self" in "self-determination" does not refer to Native Hawaiian people, but rather the colonized people, or all of the people of the Kingdom of Hawai'i.
The predominant sovereignty movement does not seek a restoration of sovereignty to the people of Hawai'i at the time of the overthrow. It does not urge that the new sovereignty be a government of particular form, but rather that the nature of the new entity be determined on a racial/indigenous basis — i.e. Ha-waiians of any blood quantum have the right to determine its new form, excluding all others who were subjects of the Kingdom of Hawai'i.
On the contrary, that right should belong, if it belongs at all, to the people of Hawai'i at the time of the revolution and all of their descendants.
The Constitution of the Kingdom of Hawai'i of 1840, promulgated during the reign of Kamehameha III, the first of four successive constitutions, declared: "God hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on the earth, in unity and blessedness. God has also bestowed certain rights alike on all men and all chiefs, and all people of all lands.
"These are some of the rights which He has given alike to every man and every chief of correct deportment; life, limb, liberty, freedom from oppression; the earnings of his hands and the productions of his mind, not however to those who act in violation of laws."
The constitutions of 1852, 1864 and 1887 contained similar language, making it clear that people of all races were protected by rights to life, liberty, happiness and the ownership of property. What purports to be Queen Lili'uokalani's controversial draft of the constitution, which had sought to strengthen the monarchy and abrogate the Constitution of 1887, also contained the same racially inclusive, universal-rights language.
Many who advocate Native Hawaiian sovereignty seek the return of rights and benefits that did not inure to Native Hawaiians exclusively, but rather belonged to everyone of every race.
In 1893, the United States, to some debatable extent, aided in the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawai'i. At that time, approximately three-fourths of the population protected by the kingdom were not Native Hawaiians. Both Hawaiians and non-Hawaiians lost their rights to participate in the government and to determine their destiny under it, a destiny protected by the four constitutions under which the kingdom had existed. No one suggests that Queen Lili'uokalani was seeking to establish a racial sovereignty preserving the right of self-determination to Native Hawaiians alone.
Nevertheless, there is a movement afoot to allow those with any Hawaiian blood quantum to participate in the establishment of some form of sovereignty. Hawai'i's congressional delegation has given support to proposed federal legislation, the so-called Hawaiian Recognition bill, which seeks to establish a trust relationship between the United States and Native Hawaiians to preserve racially oriented programs (the future of which has been cast in doubt by Rice v. Cayetano) and to prepare the way for sovereignty.
Some claim that the ceded lands derived from government and crown lands were stolen from the Hawaiian people and should be returned to people with Hawaiian blood. If these lands were wrongfully obtained by the United States and if they should be returned, why is it that they should be returned only to people with Hawaiian blood?
Before the revolution, they unmistakably belonged to a kingdom with multiracial subjects protected by a constitution. From the very early years after discovery, Hawaiians welcomed foreigners, and it had been so before the overthrow for more than a hundred years.
Many of our ancestors came to labor in the Kingdom of Hawai'i. Many married Native Hawaiians. Despite respect for Native Hawaiians and admiration of their culture, given the historical development of Hawai'i, the injustice of a racial view of self-determination strikes me as terribly wrong.
Paul M. de Silva is a retired Circuit Court judge and former prosecutor, and is a practicing attorney.
