ISLAND VOICES
Real reconciliation vs. the Akaka bill

By Ekolu Wale No

The nation of Hawai'i was:

• Recognized as an independent sovereign state.
• Recognized as a member of the world family of nations.
• Recognized as an equal party to more than 25 treaties, including treaties with the United States.
• Recognized as an independent nation with over 90 consulates worldwide.

Apologies can be very powerful, and within the Native Hawaiian culture they are treated with great respect and promise. It has been a decade since the United Church of Christ and the United States apologized to the Native Hawaiian people for complicity in the overthrow of the nation of Hawai'i.

The potential for genuine reconciliation between Native Hawaiians and the United States exists. The importance of Native Hawaiians achieving economic independence cannot be underestimated as an essential aspect of reconciliation.

Reconciliation is a process. The process that we have been using in thinking about reconciliation involves at least four levels or stages: recognition, responsibility, reconstruction and reparation.

The first, recognition, requires that the apologizer "recognize, and empathize with, the anger and hope of those wounded, to acknowledge the disabling constraints imposed by one group on another. . ."

The U.S. apology in 1993 is about "recognition." After 10 years, the process of reconciliation between Hawaiians and the United States has not moved beyond this point.

By comparison, after the United Church of Christ apologized to Native Hawaiians (recognition), the church moved a little bit further and struggled with redress. As a result, some lands and monetary reparations were made.

However, the church continues to maintain control and influence over those resources, preventing "meaningful reconciliation" with those whom it was intended to benefit.

The second level or stage, responsibility, demands that the perpetrator "when appropriate, accept ... responsibility for healing the resulting wounds." The church accepted responsibility for harms inflicted and for its complicity in allowing the wounds to fester.

Although current members of society may not be personally responsible for committing historical crimes against the Native Hawaiian people, the breach in the relationship between our peoples can only be healed through the acceptance of responsibility for the past and for improving the present and future.

Those who make Hawai'i their home today benefit daily from the wrongdoings inflicted upon Hawaiians almost 110 years ago.

One of the greatest impacts resulting from the overthrow is the economic disenfranchisement and disempowerment of a people and their nation. Not only did the queen lose her throne, she also lost the key to the treasury. Not only did the people lose a government, they also lost the ability to control their own economic destiny.

The United States must accept responsibility for its role in this diminishment of the Hawaiian Kingdom's economic power. After 110 years of occupation, we still do not have the economic means or institutions to lift our people up from despair.

The same historical institutions and structures created to dispossess us continue to prevent our emancipation and economic liberation.

The next step, reconstruction, "entails active steps (or performance) toward healing the spiritual, social, political and psychological wounds resulting from" the injustice. Reconstructive healing demands economic justice, which can only be achieved by transforming old institutions and infrastructure that were created and designed to disenfranchise Hawaiians.

We need more hospitable and less hostile environments for the incubation of Hawaiian economic development, for the nurturing of the soil and soul of healthy economic growth, for the founding of a deeply rooted model of economic independence.

Reparation, which begins to close the reconciliation process, "seeks to repair the damage to the material conditions of the ... life (harmed by the injustice) in order to attenuate one group's power over the other."

Economic reparations may include restoration of the national treasury and financial systems that were dismantled by the illegal overthrow.

Reparations also include compensation for damage to and suffering of our greatest economic assets — the people and the land.

In the process of reconciliation, recognition is important, responsibility is essential, reconstruction must take place and reparations are visible.

For many Hawaiian people, our political status as a "people" is an issue that is always being controlled by a few whose interests are more representative of the state and federal governments than of the maka'ainana.

Our future is at stake, and it seems that the U.S. government is going to get away with a fraudulent piece of legislation, the Akaka bill, that pretends to help Hawaiians. However well-meant, the Akaka bill will not lead us to responsibility, reconstruction and reparation.

If the federal government is serious about reconciling its abuse of the Hawaiian people, a commitment they made in the 1993 Apology Resolution, efforts to achieve a "meaningful" reconciliation should be implemented.

In Washington today, a powerful group of local officials, from Gov. Linda Lingle to Robin Danner, CEO of the umbrella group Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement, will be lobbying for the Akaka bill.

It is fair that government resources are being used so that one side can express its opinion, but not the other?

And what is the relationship between Hawaiian support for the Akaka bill and the relative silence of the Hawaiian community about plans to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve?

As you know, Hawai'i Sens. Akaka and Inouye are among the few Democrats who support this project.

The Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement has received at least $100,000 in financial support from the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, the Inupiat-owned oil industry group that favors oil drilling.

The corporation's lobbying arm, Artic Power, has spent millions trying to get the Wilderness Refuge opened for drilling.

As part of that effort, Robin Danner's sister, Jade, through a family company, Danner and Associates, had an agreement with Arctic Power to lobby Hawaiian groups and others in the Islands on behalf of the oil drilling proposal. Shouldn't we know more about the relationship between the Akaka bill, our delegation's support for the Arctic drilling and the influence of Big Oil"

Meantime, the United States should start investigating the exertion of undue influence and the use of public funds to lobby for one side of an issue and not the other by congressional and politically "tied" organizations.

Ho'oipokalaena'auao Nakea Pa, Kunani Nihipali and Pu'uhonua "Bumpy" Kanahele joined forces as Ekolu Wale No to pool their resources and support each other in their mutual endeavors.