Activists mark history with sovereignty event
By Vicki Viotti
Advertiser Staff Writer
History symbolically repeated itself at Thomas Square yesterday, in a replication of a 160-year-old flag ceremony that a group of Hawaiian sovereignty activists wants to witness for real someday.
Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser
And in a week when a bill has stalled in Congress that would recognize Hawaiians as a "nation within a nation," this group again took took the occasion of the annual Sovereignty Restoration Day observance to call for Hawaiian independence and the defeat of the Akaka bill for federal recognition.
From left, Napua Keko'olani (aka Terri Raymond), Kawika Liu, Ikaika Hussey and Baron Ching ceremoniously lowered the American flag and replaced it with a Hawaiian flag during a Sovereignty Restoration Day ceremony yesterday at Thomas Square.
And, as there often are at sovereignty events, there were exhortations supporting Hawaiian unity and opposing various elements of U.S. government control here: military training in Makua Valley, for example, and missile testing at Barking Sands.
"So it's 'a'ole (no), Akaka bill; 'a'ole, military occupation of Hawai'i," said Pua Rogers, one of the Kaua'i participants in the event. "And let's stop the divisiveness among Hawaiians."
Coconut hulls containing the drink 'awa were offered to the 100 or so who had gathered around a temporary flagpole to watch the American flag descend and the Hawaiian flag raised in its place.
The observance, also called Ka La Ho'iho'i Ea, was a national holiday before the Hawaiian kingdom was overthrown in 1893. It took place on the same spot where, on July 31, 1843, British Adm. Richard Thomas lowered the Union Jack and raised the Hawaiian flag in its place, marking the end of five months of forced British rule in Hawai'i.
Later, after the U.S., French and British governments officially recognized the sovereign Hawaiian Kingdom, Kamehameha III declared Nov. 28 the nation's Independence Day.
Yesterday's event was small but drew some far-flung speakers, including J. Kehaulani Kauanui, an assistant professor of American studies and anthropology at Wesleyan University who has testified against the Akaka bill.
Federal recognition, Kauanui said, would close off avenues leading toward Hawaiian independence without federal supervision.
"We need to make sure (supporters of federal recognition) understand that when we talk about our rights of sovereignty, we're talking about deoccupation," she said.
Another speaker was Maivan Clech Lam, who earned her law degree in Hawai'i and is an indigenous-rights scholar at the City University Graduate Center in New York.
Lam said that, although the Akaka bill has been cited as a defense against lawsuits seeking to strip Hawaiians of entitlements, those lawsuits are unlikely to succeed. It's especially unlikely, she said, where Hawaiians' long-established use of homelands and revenues from former kingdom lands are concerned.
"The Supreme Court doesn't lightly disturb laws of long duration," Lam said. "And if the Akaka bill passes, this would be the first time Hawaiians would be agreeing to subjugation by the United States."
Most of the participants argue that the United States never legally took control of Hawai'i, an independent state recognized in the international arena. Those who lobbied in 1843 to win that recognition were the heroes of history, activist Keanu Sai said.
"It's because of them that Hawai'i is able to make this claim that it's an independent state — not that it seeks independence," he said. "It is a nation."
