COMMENTARY
Memorial wall for annexation protesters fits OHA's mission
By Kunani Nihipali and Ho'oipokalaena'auao Nakea Pa
A key mission of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs is: "To malama Hawai'i's people and environmental resources, and OHA's assets toward ensuring the perpetuation of the culture, the enhancement of lifestyle and the protection of entitlements of Native Hawaiians, while enabling the building of a strong and healthy Hawaiian people and nation, recognized nationally and internationally."
We enjoy a unique interdependency with our kupuna and the natural environment.
Nana I Ke Kumu.
Our kupuna, past and present, are the source of an invaluable traditional knowledge, conferred by way of mo'oku'auhau, genealogy and past history.
The Ku'e Memorial Wall will serve as a reminder and symbol honoring the acts of our kupuna. It will re-generate pride in those of us who live today, especially encouraging our youth to pursue a greater understanding of our heroes of yesterday, with an accurate account of history. We will move forward in our nation-building efforts armed with this confidence and knowledge.
A recent Advertiser editorial implies that Ku'e memorial walls are not practical and should not be financed with beneficiary monies. Perhaps because they feel we should continue to suppress knowledge of this key "chicken-skin" part of our history, and accept the dispossession and disempowerment that are part of being "colonized."
Culture and politics are linked in Hawai'i today, and therefore everything we do may be considered a "political statement."
Perhaps the editorialist would prefer that we join the conspiracy of silence that has perpetuated the historical injustice done to our people? Lack of knowledge and awareness of this significant event among us allows co-opted politicians to cloud the air with misconceptions and avoid accountability for their compromises!
Memorials have been created for every purpose, honoring ethnic groups and those who have served in various wars. There are memorials for the Revolutionary War, Civil War, World War I, World War II, Korean War and the Vietnam War. here is the Punchbowl memorial and the Arizona memorials, both of which honor World War II heroes.
In this same tradition of honoring those who have made a significant contribution and demonstrated courage for their beliefs, we believe a Ku'e Memorial Wall is long overdue. To this end, we requested money from OHA to assist in the effort to memorialize the memory of our kupuna (ancestors).
We feel OHA should finance the Ku'e Memorial Wall Project as it will bring both significant tangible and immeasurable intangible benefits, providing us a memorial and wahipana, serving as a rallying point, pleasing our ancestors, continuing tradition, as well as helping them to address the following strategic plan goals OHA had enumerated:
• Nationhood: By 2007, OHA shall have assisted, coordinated and enabled the creation of a unified Hawaiian nation.
• Culture: By 2004, OHA shall have drafted a plan that identifies and provides solutions to safeguard endangered traditions, practices and rights, and subsequently put into practice steps that will protect, re-establish and enhance Hawaiian cultural assets by 2007.
• Advocacy-native rights: By 2007, OHA shall have devised and implemented strategies to protect rights and entitlements.
Institutionalized racism and oppression in this state is so internalized and entrenched that these paternal notions of "good faith" may be considered reasonable, leaving us to be considered impractical!
It is by heeding the voices of our ancestors that we will restore our nation and bring "peace, power and righteousness" back into the hearts and minds of our people.
We are who we are and who we were and continue to be kanaka Hawai'i maoli.
Ku'e! Ku'e! Ku'e FOREVER!
Kunani Nihipali and Ho'o'ipokalaena'auao Nakea Pa are members of the board of directors of Ke Kia'i on the Ku'e Memorial Wall Project.
