by DGR Colorado Plateau | Jul 9, 2015 | Colonialism & Conquest, White Supremacy
By Will Falk / Deep Green Resistance
I write these words from the floor of a warm corner of the men’s restroom at the Mauna Kea visitor center. The temperature outside is too cold for my laptop battery to take a charge and the restroom houses the only active plug, so I huddle in this corner to combat the words used by those who seek to destroy what I love.
I’ve been on Mauna Kea for the last 24 nights standing in solidarity with Kanaka Maoli as they protect their sacred mountain from the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) project that would dynamite an eight acre patch two stories deep at the pristine summit of Mauna Kea.
When I was asked to come to Mauna Kea, I was asked to write in a way that connects the complex forces informing a destructive project like the TMT to the systems currently murdering the beautiful islands of Hawai’i. More specifically, I was asked to write to America about the genocidal context the TMT springs from.
The occupation on Mauna Kea exists for two reasons. First, the Mauna Kea protectors will stop the TMT construction equipment when they finally seek to force their way to the summit again. As I write this, it has been 79 days since the TMT construction was stopped on the Mauna Kea access road the first time. Second, the Mauna Kea protectors serve as public education ambassadors. Each day hundreds of tourists come to Mauna Kea and each day dozens stop by our tent to ask us what we’re doing.
These conversations, reactions to some of my previous essays, and discussions with other protectors lead me to believe that a vocabulary lesson for haoles is due. As haoles who want to support Hawaiian sovereignty, we must learn to use the appropriate words.
The terms I define in this essay—haole, racism, white supremacy and genocide—are experienced in a very real way by oppressed peoples around the world. It is not my place to explain these terms to people experiencing genocide in the most vivid ways, so I write to those privileged enough to be free from these realities. The first step to acting in true solidarity is accepting the truth and to accept the truth we must communicate with the most honest words.
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Haole is the Hawaiian word for “white person.” The first time I used the term in my piece “Protecting Mauna Kea: History for Haoles,” I received a wide variety of comments and messages.
Some of the comments were from native Hawaiians thanking me for being a haole willing to describe the true Hawaiian history to other haoles. Some of the comments were from people offended by my use of the term. Some of the comments were from people telling me I was wrong, that haole has no racial connotation and means simply “without breath.” Finally, and most disturbingly, some haoles accused me of spreading division within the movement by using the term and demanded that the term never be used again.
Usually, disputes over definitions can be resolved simply turning to a dictionary. So, I’ll start there. Here is the definition of “haole” from the “Hawaiian Dictionary” compiled by the famous native Hawaiian language scholar Mary Kawena Pukui: “White person, American, Englishman, Caucasian; American, English; formerly, any foreigner; foreign, introduced, of foreign origin, as plants, pigs, chickens; entirely white, of pigs. To act like a white person, to ape the white people, or assume airs of superiority (often said disparagingly, especially of half-whites). Americanized, Europeanized; to have become like a white person or have adopted the ways of a white man.”
Now, I understand that haole can become a derogatory term if words like “fucking” or “stupid” precede it, but Pukui’s definition makes it clear that the most common use of the word haole is to describe a white person. And, I was careful in my essay to use haole only to refer to white people. So, why did some haoles object to being called haoles? Why did some white people get angry for being called white people?
One thing I’ve noticed in my attempts to work in solidarity with people of color is that many white people hate being reminded of their whiteness. When I was a public defender bemoaning statistical realities like the fact that there are more black men in prison today than were enslaved in 1850 to a roomful of white judges, prosecutors and cops, I was shouted down and told we live today in a colorblind society. When I was at the Unist’ot’en Camp pipeline blockade in so-called British Columbia and our Unist’ot’en hosts explained the need for separate indigenous and settler camps due to the reality that many indigenous peoples felt more safe expressing their opinions away from settlers, there was always a white person who tried to set up in the indigenous camp with the logic that we’re all one human family.
So, the question becomes: Why do white people hate being reminded of their whiteness?
The answer, I think, is white people know they benefit both from a brutal history and an on-going reality of genocide and imperialism.White people have visited unspeakable violence on ourselves and on peoples and lands around the world. This is uncomfortable for some white people. But, the truth is the truth however uncomfortable.
Haunani-Kay Trask
I am writing about Hawai’i so I turn to the brilliant Hawaiian thinker Haunani-Kay Trask. Trask also used the term haole to describe white people and Trask was also forced to defend herself from angry white people. She explains the uncomfortable history confronting haoles, “In Hawai’i, it is the haole who stole our land, took our government, destroyed our nationhood, and suppressed our culture. It is white people who created laws to divide Hawaiians by blood quantum; it is white people who brought capitalism to Hawai’i. In other words, it is white people who, for their own benefit, have exploited and oppressed Hawaiians.”
When Hawaiians use the term “haole” – a word that means simply “white person” – they use an original word from their original language. Haoles have taken too much from Hawai’i already. When white people demand that Hawaiians give up their original words those white people seek participation in an inexcusable dominance that extends to something as sacred as original language.
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What about claims that I (and by extension anyone else who uses the term) spread division in the movement when I write “haole”? What about claims that the term haole is an expression of reverse racism?
These claims are based on an ignorance of social reality. In a world free of racism and white supremacy, differences in skin color would not matter. Humans, indeed, would be one big family. This is not the world we live in, though.
At this point, I must define racism. Again, I’ll turn to Trask who defines racism as, “A historically created system of power in which one racial/ethnic group dominates another racial/ethnic group for the benefit of the dominating group.” In a racist system, “economic and cultural domination as well as political power are included in the systemic dominance of the exploiting group.” Finally, “a monopoly of the means of violence is also held by those in the dominating group.” Racism in Hawai’i has taken the form of white supremacy where white people form the the dominating group.
Notice that Trask’s definition opposes the typical, liberal notion that racism is an emotional state existing in the minds of individuals. By this definition, then, it should be clear that haole as a Hawaiian word cannot be racist because Hawaiians are presently incapable of holding the requisite power in Hawaii to engage in racism. As long as Hawaiians remain a dominated racial group, they cannot be racist. They can discriminate against haoles, perhaps, or express prejudice, but they cannot practice racism.
To say that I am, in fact, enforcing racism by pointing out that racism exists is to buy into the erroneous idea that racism is just a belief held in the mind and as such can be overcome merely by holding love for all people. White supremacy and racism, though, are enforced by physical power and violence. To truly undermine racism requires physically dismantling the means by which racism is perpetuated. If we cannot point out that haoles are white people directly benefitting from a specific arrangement of power, then we will never effectively dismantle white supremacy—and what’s left of Hawai’i will be annihilated.
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Another word many haoles roll their eyes at is “genocide.” The truth is Hawai’i has suffered from over two hundred years of on-going genocide and the TMT project, regardless of its stated goals, is another attempted act in a long list of genocide.
Too many limit their view of genocide to ditches full of corpses or black and white photographs of gas chambers. These are certainly images of genocide, but Article II of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide (the international authority) contemplates a much broader definition.
Article II says genocide is “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group as such: killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group, or forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
Raphael Lemkin invented the term “genocide” and informed much of the 1948 Convention’s rationale with his masterpiece written in 1943 titled “Axis Rule in Occupied Europe.” He wrote, “Genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation.” Genocide can also be “a coordinated plan of actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups.”
Captain Cook on the coast of New South Wales (Joseph BACKLER/Wikimedia)
Viewed through this lens, we can see the countless, obvious acts of genocide that comprise recent Hawaiian history. First, there was Captain Cook landing on Hawai’i’s shores with sailors he knew full-well carried communicable and terminal diseases for native Hawaiians. The numbers are devastating. The population of Hawaii was estimated at well-over 1 million when Cook landed in the late 1770s. By 1898, at the time of the Ku’e Petitions, only 40,000 Kanaka Maoli existed in the whole world. This loss of human life in such a relatively short time reflects the “immediate destruction of a nation” Lemkin describes.
The illegal overthrow in 1893 involved all-white conspirators forcing Queen Liliuokalani to abdicate her throne as regent of the Kingdom of Hawai’i under threats of violence. The Kingdom of Hawai’i was formed to protect Hawai’i from European powers. So, the overthrow deliberately inflicted conditions calculated to bring about the physical destruction of the Hawaiian people. The objective of the overthrow was the disintegration of Hawaiian political and social institutions.
The banning of Hawaiian language in schools by the illegal Republic of Hawaii in 1896 was a move that was unquestionably designed to alienate Hawaiian children from their native culture, language, and religion.
And now we stand on Mauna Kea to stop genocide again. Make no mistake, the TMT project is classically genocidal aiming to desecrate the most sacred mountain in the traditional Hawaiian spirituality. Mauna Kea is the genesis site for Kanaka Maoli and is referred to as the piko, the navel of the world, connecting Sky Father to Earth Mother. The people are genealogically (read: literally) related to the Mountain making Mauna Kea an essential place of worship.
It is easy for many to see that blowing up places of worship like a synagogue or a mosque would be genocidal for causing serious mental harm to Jews or Muslims. It is easier still to see the way steamrolling places essential to world religions like Bethlehem or Mt. Sinai would be genocidal as well. Dynamiting Mauna Kea undermines Kanaka Maoli culture, spirituality, and society destroying a place of worship that is perhaps, the most symbolically significant place to the traditional Hawaiian spirituality.
Of course, the crime of genocide requires two elements – intent and action. A shrewd reader might object to accusations of genocide the same way the TMT organizers do, arguing that the TMT project does not intend to harm Hawaiians but instead is an effort to foster human understanding of astronomy. According to Gregory H. Stanton, President of Genocide Watch, “Intentional means purposeful. Intent can be proven directly from statements or orders. But more often, it must be inferred from a systematic pattern of coordinated acts.”
What happens when we view the TMT project through the totality of the haole presence in Hawai’i? Can we infer a systematic pattern of coordinated acts that would rise to the requisite level of intention needed to prove genocide?
As I demonstrated earlier, we see that the last two hundred years in Hawai’i—marked by the arrival of haoles—are dominated by genocide. Captain Cook came to the Pacific specifically to open the region to British colonization. Missionaries followed Cook to destroy Hawaiian spirituality and replace it with Christianity. Americans overthrew the Kingdom of Hawai’i to push the genocidal legacy of Manifest Destiny ever farther west. The Hawaiian language was suppressed in Hawaiian schools to program children in the Hawaiian version of “Kill the Indian, save the man.”
Now, the TMT project attempts to blow up the piko of the world, the heart of the Hawaiian people, in an act of desecration Cook, the Missionaries, and the haole plantation owners could only dream of. This is racism. This is genocide. The TMT must be stopped.
Find an index of Will Falk’s “Protecting Mauna Kea” essays, plus other resources, at:
Deep Green Resistance Hawai’i: Protect Mauna Kea from the Thirty Meter Telescope
From San Diego Free Press: http://sandiegofreepress.org/2015/06/protecting-mauna-kea-vocabulary-for-haoles/
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | May 17, 2015 | Colonialism & Conquest, Pornography
By Will Falk / Deep Green Resistance
Trigger warning: This piece contains graphic descriptions of sexual and colonial violence.
Hatred is one of the most misunderstood processes at work in the world today. Cops are killing young people of color while simultaneously maintaining they’re not racists and do not hate the people they’re killing. A growing number of men watch pornography claiming they do not hate women. Millions of tourists visit Hawai’i annually – despite pleas from native Hawaiians to stop – and feel they are so far from hating Hawai’i, it’s their favorite place to visit.
While the real, physical world is burning at an ever faster pace, I could care less what those responsible feel in their hearts while they destroy. Maybe it’s true that a cop holds no hatred in his heart as he releases a flurry of bullets into another unarmed black person’s body. Maybe it’s true that a man feels no contempt as he orgasms to images of women being beaten in simulated rape scenes. Despite boarding giant fossil-fuel burning jets to see Hawai’i, despite supporting an invasive government responsible for genocide in order to keep Hawai’i’s borders open, despite paying money to industries that desecrate Hawaiian ancestors, maybe tourists to Hawai’i really do think they love the land they’re helping to destroy.
Then, again, maybe individual members of the dominant culture are more like the Nazi Eichmann who claimed no personal hatred for the Jews he was responsible for loading on cattle cars before they were exterminated in gas chambers.
Make no mistake, the dominant culture hates Hawai’i. If it didn’t, why is it killing species at a faster rate in Hawai’i than anywhere else in the world? If it didn’t, why is it dropping bombs on her islands? If it didn’t, why does it maintain an illegal occupation over the objections of her people?
What counts isn’t how a person feels, it’s what a person does. Settlers may feel an affinity for Hawaii, but when Hawaii is under attack as it has been for a century and a half, what counts is the material reality actions produce. When the planet’s life support systems are under attack, when, in other words, life itself is threatened to within inches of existence, material consequences are much more important than an emotional state.
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In this Protecting Mauna Kea series, I want to encourage tangible support for native Hawaiian sovereignty in settler communities. In order to do that, I think it is necessary to understand the hatred expressed towards Hawai’i by the dominant American culture.
Before arriving in Hawai’i, I read and heard from several native Hawaiian scholars about the pornification of Hawaiian culture. I’ve learned right away how true this is. Just like men are conditioned to overlook hatred of women early in their lives through pornography’s propaganda, settlers are conditioned to hate Hawai’i through the pornification of Hawaiian culture.
I flew Hawaiian Airlines to Hawai’i, for example, and the complimentary in-flight snack included a candy called “Aloha-macs.” This product, by a company called “Hawaiian Host,” is self-labelled as “creamy milk chocolate covered macadamias – the original gift of aloha.” Hawaiian Host and the dominant culture seek to transform an ancient indigenous wisdom – aloha – into a candy, sugary trash, something to consume.
As soon as we boarded the plane, I noticed the video monitors displaying clips of beautiful, dancing Hawaiian women. I thought immediately of Haunani-Kay Trask’s brilliant essay “‘Lovely Hula Hands’: Corporate Tourism and the Prostitution of Hawaiian Culture” where she explains how tourism converts cultural attributes into pure profit.
Trask writes, “…a woman must be transformed to look like a prostitute – that is someone who is complicitous in her own commodification. Thus hula dancers wear clownlike makeup, don costumes from a mix of Polynesian cultures, and behave in a manner that is smutty and salacious rather than powerfully erotic. The distance between the smutty and the erotic is precisely the difference between Western culture and Hawaiian culture.”
Of course, before the pornification of Hawaiian culture the hula dance was a sacred expression. Again, Trask is enlightening, “In the hotel version of the hula, the sacredness of the dance has completely evaporated, while the athleticism and sexual expression have been packaged like ornaments. The purpose is entertainment for profit rather than a joyful and truly Hawaiian celebration of human and divine nature. The point, of course, is that everything in Hawai’i can be yours, that is, you the tourists’, the Non-Natives’, the visitors’.”
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Pornography is an expression of hatred. A simple search of any popular porn website shows women being labelled “bitch,” “slut,” “cunt,” and “pussy.” Videos and images are arranged into categories like “blonde,” “brunette,” “Asian” on one end all the way down to “teens” “gang bangs” and “fisting” on the other end. “Fisting” involves inserting a fist or fists into vaginas and anal cavities. The production of pornography destroys the bodies of women, poisons truly mutual sexuality, and adds to a toxic masculinity that is killing the planet.
I know that many men will be angry with me for trashing their favorite pastime. I know, too, that many tourists will be angry with me for trashing their favorite fantasy. The truth is porn is killing our (men’s) sexuality and the tourist industry is killing the possibility that visitors will ever have a mutual relationship – free from oppression and subordination – with Hawaiians. Worse than this, however, pornography and the pornification of Hawaiian culture normalizes hatred and contributes to a violation imperative that is destroying Hawai’i along with indigenous lands around the world.
There are those who argue that porn is empowering for women, just like there are those who argue the tourism industry is empowering for Hawaiians. I do not believe this is true. This logic is the same logic that placed the phrase “Work will make you free” to greet prisoners over the gate at Auschwitz. No one – besides capitalists and coal mine owners – argues that coal mining is empowering to the miners. No one – besides capitalists and factory owners – argues that sweat shops empower sweat shop workers.
Proponents of porn and the tourism industry will say, “If porn and tourism are so bad, why do so many work in these industries?” But, when the war against women rages on, when native Hawaiians are still systematically dispossessed of their own homeland, survival often demands they take whatever work they can find. I can hold this position and hold no contempt for individuals working in the porn or tourist industry. I’m not interested in blaming individuals, but identifying root processes at work, so we can better work for the liberation of all.
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I remember the first time I was shown pornography. I was ten. An older, male distant family member was flipping through the channels and stopped on an adult film. It was the first time I saw a naked adult female body – or, I guess I should say, mostly naked body. I remember clearly that she was dressed in a strange belt-like garment that wrapped around her breasts and opened over her vagina. Looking back, I understand the garment was clearly designed to highlight the only body parts valued in pornography.
My relative looked over and said, “Don’t tell your parents about this,” and continued watching.
The next time I was shown pornography was only a year or so later. I was at a family friend’s house and this time the person showing me porn was a boy only a few years older than me. Where in the first instance, all my ten-year-old eyes had seen was a highly sexualized representation of a woman’s body, in the second instance I saw the entire act of penetration. This was the first time I had ever seen or imagined sexual intercourse.
Speaking of hatred, I hate that my first experience with sexual intercourse of any kind was through a camera lens, showing a woman who couldn’t possibly have consented to my personal viewing of her, in a voyeuristic experience mediated by a patriarchal perspective. Even now, 17 years later, I remember the way the actor’s bodies were arranged. The woman was pushed over the armrest of a couch, splayed out, open for display while the man withheld every part of his body for contact except for his penis which was thrust forward. There was no love, no passion in the physical contact. The man never reached to embrace his partner. The two never kissed, never caressed each other, never even looked at each other.
The camera lens zoomed in to feature penetration. This, of course, was the whole point – penetration, invasion, domination. Or, to recycle Trask’s line and to apply it to porn, everything in a woman could be mine, a viewer’s, a man’s.
In those moments, my sexuality was poisoned. In each case, older males I knew and respected, showed me pornography. The question,”What does it mean to be a man?” was being answered with porn scenes. In sexual education classes in junior high school, these were the only references I had. In fact, pornography was shown to me a full ten years before I first had sex. Fantasy was imprinted in my mind well before reality ever had a chance.
This is happening to Hawai’i, too. Americans are bombarded with propaganda encouraging an entitlement to Hawai’i. Postcards with picturesque Hawaiian beaches are on refrigerators around the country while Americans fail to remember the atrocities committed to cripple Hawaiian resistance. Movies are made about Pearl Harbor glorifying the doomed bravery of white sailors while Americans forget the native Hawaiian dead who never consented to an American naval presence in the first place. Resorts are filled with American tourists while these tourists fail to consider the Hawaiian homeless those resorts created.
And now, in the latest effort to humiliate Hawaiian culture, corporations want to build a massive telescope on Mauna Kea. The connections to pornography are too clear to be overlooked. Mauna Kea – the most sacred place in Hawaii – is being penetrated, invaded, desecrated by the Thirty Meter Telescope project. The only way for proponents of the TMT to complete this project over the resistance in Hawai’i is to believe in the propaganda spread through the pornification of Hawai’i. To invade Mauna Kea is to demonstrate the belief that everything in Hawai’i is theirs, the scientists, the Non-Natives, the invaders.
The TMT is an expression of a hateful fantasy. They want to build a means to watch other planets far, far away while this planet is burning. They want to fantasize about homes light years away, when the home we love is being destroyed.
Of course, that’s really the point, isn’t it? They don’t love their home. They hate it. That’s why they want to build this telescope.
From San Diego Free Press
Find an index of Will Falk’s “Protecting Mauna Kea” essays, plus other resources, at:
Deep Green Resistance Hawai’i: Protect Mauna Kea from the Thirty Meter Telescope
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Apr 29, 2015 | Colonialism & Conquest
By Will Falk / Deep Green Resistance
In the first essay of my Protecting Mauna Kea series, I made a mistake. I wrongfully described the ongoing, illegal American occupation of Hawai’i as an “annexation.”
Hawaiian friends of mine pointed this out to me and gave me a thorough history lesson. I was referred to documents, books, and websites that tell the truth. For the last several days, I’ve been reading everything I can on the subject.
The more I read, the more convinced I become not only that the Thirty Meter Telescope project lacks any legal right to build on Mauna Kea, but that international law, indeed American law itself, demands that the United States end its occupation of Hawai’i.
I have two hopes for this piece. First, I want to give a history lesson for haoles. “Haole” is the Hawaiian word for white person. I am specifically directing this lesson at white settlers – at haoles – because the first thing haoles can do is understand the history of violence we benefit from.
This history lesson will demonstrate that the current regime controlling Hawai’i is illegitimate and as such has no authority to enforce the construction of the TMT on Mauna Kea.
Second, I want to relieve Hawaiians from the responsibility of educating haoles. Hawaiians have no responsibility to educate us. As a white settler hoping to stand in true solidarity with Hawaiians, I am upset with myself for the mistake. I have seen how frustrating it can be for a movement when valuable time must be spent coaching well-meaning settlers along.
I want to be clear: I am not advocating for a “call-out” culture on the front lines of resistance where resisters perpetually attack each other for their choice of words. Many of us must go through our personal experiences unlearning the lies we are taught and this takes time. The dominant culture, of course, does an excellent job lying. That’s why it’s the dominant culture.
But, I am saying that settlers need to take responsibility for educating other settlers. Leaving education to oppressed classes, forcing them to do the work of spreading consciousness, is a form of oppression in itself.
Before I begin, it is necessary to explain that this essay represents my opinions and my personal perspective of Hawaiian history stemming from the research I’ve done and been directed to. I am not a spokesperson for the Hawaiian people, neither am I spokesperson for the Mauna Kea protectors. I understand that there is no One True History, but I refuse to abide by the relativism I see perpetuating around me.
The complexity of a situation does not signify a lack of meaning. Rather, the complexity of a situation – especially ones with real, physical consequences – demands that we grapple with information to take a stand. As the world disintegrates before our eyes, I see too many people mired in the neutrality their belief in the relative nature of reality produces.
Make no mistake, if the construction of the TMT project results in the spill of hazardous chemicals in the largest freshwater aquifer on the Island of Hawai’i – a very real possibility – there will be very real consequences for life on the Island.
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Milan Kundera famously stated the “struggle against oppression is the struggle of memory against forgetting.” I have found this to be shockingly true learning the history of Hawai’i. It is my belief that haoles have forgotten – or never knew – the history of Hawai’i. If we did not forget, there would be more of us supporting the Mauna Kea protectors and supporting true Hawaiian sovereignty.
What have we forgotten?
It starts centuries ago when Hawaiians first arrived in Hawai’i. Over the centuries, Hawaiians developed a culture based on ecological balance that included communal land tenure. I am very self-conscious that my attempts to explain a complex culture that existed for centuries before the arrival of Europeans would amount to so much generalization. I cannot possibly do the Hawaiian culture justice in a short essay, but so many discussions of Hawaiian history begin with the arrival of Captain Cook in 1778 erasing Hawaiian history pre-European contact.
There are always those that will accuse me of romanticizing Hawaiian culture, who will say “all human cultures are inherently destructive.” I do not mean to romanticize Hawaiian culture and it simply is not true that all human cultures are inherently destructive. We know the Hawaiian culture before 1778 had it’s own problems, but wide-scale ecological collapse was not one of them. In this era of total environmental destruction, we would do well to empower cultures who lived in balance with theirland base.
From 1826 until 1893, the United States government recognized the independent Kingdom of Hawai’i including full, complete diplomatic relations with the Hawaiian government. For all intents and purposes, the United States viewed Hawai’i as a nation just like Mexico, Canada, or Great Britain. In fact, the United States entered into treaties involving navigation and commerce with Hawai’i in 1826, 1842, 1849, 1875, and 1887.
Then, in January, 1893, John L. Stevens, an American agent in Hawaii (his official title was United States Minister), conspired with non-Hawaiians and members of the U.S. Navy to overthrow the Hawaiian government. On January 16, 1893, Stevens and armed US naval personnel invaded Hawai’i and positioned themselves next to Hawaiian governmental buildings including Iolani Palace to intimidate Queen Liliuokalani. Queen Liliuokalani, under threats of bloodshed, yielded her authority to the government of the United States – NOT Stevens’ provisional government – until the time the United States would undo the actions of its representatives in Hawai’i.
Grover Cleveland was the president in 1893 and he initiated an investigation into the actions of Stevens and his cronies while calling for the restoration of the Hawaiian monarchy. The investigation concluded that Stevens and other US officials in Hawaii had abused their authority and had engaged in “an act of war.”
Still, the provisional government sought annexation in Congress, but was unable to rally the support of 2/3 of the Senate needed for annexation. So, on July 4, 1894, the provisional government that had forcibly invaded and overthrown the Kingdom of Hawai’i, declared itself the Republic of Hawai’i.
In 1896, William McKinley replaced Grover Cleveland as president. Using the excuse of the Spanish-American war and the need for a naval base in the Pacific, McKinley and the Senate began to entertain the notion of annexing Hawai’i, again.
In 1897, the Hawaiian people delivered a massive petition where nearly 90% of Hawaiians alive at the time declared their desire not to become part of the United States of America. Unable to secure a treaty of annexation, Congress passed a joint resolution titled “the Newlands Resolution” on July 7, 1898.
The illegality of this joint resolution is one of the most important things to understand about Hawaiian history. This resolution had no legal basis, had no validity, and was possible simply because of the armed might of the United States.
The resolution has no legitimate basis because laws passed by Congress have no authority internationally. Congress can only pass laws that apply within the United States.
Hawaiian legal scholar Dr. Keanu Sai explains it better than I can in his blog-article “International Law Prevents Construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope” when he writes, “The underlying problem that Congressmen at the time knew was that no law of Congress can have any force and effect beyond the borders of the United States. In other words, the United States could no more annex the Hawaiian Islands by passing a domestic law, than it could annex Canada today by passing a law.”
As part of the Newlands Resolution, the Republic of Hawai’i passed 1,800,000 acres of what had been crown, government, and public lands of the Kingdom of Hawai’i to the control of the United States. Included in this land is Mauna Kea. Through the acquisition of Mauna Kea in this way, the State of Hawai’i has leased land on Mauna Kea for the TMT’s construction. But, an illegal state giving land acquired illegally can only give – you guessed it – an illegal lease.
Of course, you don’t have to take my word for this history, because all of these facts were already admitted and apologized for by Congress on November 23, 1993. You can read their apology here.
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So, can you see why we cannot call the occupation of Hawai’i an annexation? No treaty of annexation was ever signed. “Annexation” implies consent on the part of those annexed and clearly the Hawaiian people never consented.
To take this even deeper, the term “annexation” hides the truth, softens the reality that Hawai’i was invaded while the invaders still seek to assert dominance over Hawai’i. To use the term “annexation” is to forget and forgetting clears the wayfor oppression.
There’s something, though, that bothers me about all this. How can the American government and the American people after learning this history, after admitting the wrongs done to Hawai’i still allow something like the TMT project to happen? I think the answer is that learning the history is only the first small step. Knowing the history, we must act.
One of the intentions behind my writing is to try to understand how so many people can recognize problems in the world and then fail to act to solve those problems. I am a haole, so I can only speak as a haole, and I believe too many haoles settle for pointing out their privilege while the more important work involves undermining the forces that grants them that privilege over others in the first place. The history is clear. Hawaiians are being wronged. Now, we need to act.
From San Diego Free Press
Find an index of Will Falk’s “Protecting Mauna Kea” essays, plus other resources, at:
Deep Green Resistance Hawai’i: Protect Mauna Kea from the Thirty Meter Telescope
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Apr 23, 2015 | Colonialism & Conquest, Rape Culture
By Will Falk / Deep Green Resistance
I am preparing to leave for Hawai’i to offer myself in support of resistance to the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) project that would place a large telescope and stadium-sized structure on the peak of native Hawaiians’ most sacred place – Mauna Kea.
The project, funded by a partnership including the University of California, the California Institute of Technology, and the Association of Canadian Universities for Research in Astronomy among others, would also place a 5,000 gallon chemical waste container above the largest freshwater aquifer on Hawai’i Island.
I first heard about this struggle from the brilliant documentary film-maker Anne Keala Kelly when she spoke at the Earth at Risk conference in San Francisco organized by the Fertile Ground Environmental Institute last fall. I was beyond excited when a friend recently put me in touch with Keala explaining that the Mauna Kea protectors seek more support from the mainland.
It’s been over a year, since I gave up on the possibility that – as a white settler – I will ever truly be able to call stolen native land “home.” Instead of settling into one place, I believe I can be more effective traveling in support of indigenous sovereignty. So, after a wonderfully encouraging conversation with Keala, I am resolved to go.
The first practical step towards getting to Hawai’i is finding the funding. After some donations from friends and a generous offer from the organization that originally introduced me to the struggle at Mauna Kea – Fertile Ground – it looks like I will be set to leave in the next couple weeks.
Before I go, however, it is important to articulate exactly why I am going. Why is stopping the construction of a telescope on top of a mountain thousands of miles away so important? Why, with all the social ills in the world, are you headed to Hawai’i, Will? Or, to borrow the phrase forming the title of Keala’s current documentary film project, “Why the Mountain?”
One essay is insufficient to articulate why, but I will start with this:
The dominant culture currently threatens the ability of the planet to support life itself. No where else is this more apparent, perhaps, than in Hawai’i. Hawai’i is widely known in ecological circles as the extinction and endangered species capital of the world for the staggering rate of extinction decimating Hawai’i’s largely endemic plant and animal populations. Bird populations are the famous example.
According to Dr. Les Beletsky, a wildlife biologist formerly of the University of Washington and now a full-time writer, at the first arrival of Europeans in Hawai’i 200 years ago, 59 known bird species existed in Hawai’i. 21 currently survive and more than half of those are endangered. One of the important connections to make here is that colonization – the theft of indigenous land and destruction of indigenous peoples – precedes ecological collapse. It is a pattern that has played out around the world for centuries. With every species wiped off the face of the planet, every indigenous culture destroyed, every acre of old-growth forest lost, we move closer to total annihilation.
I’ve spent the last year traveling in support of indigenous sovereignty and environmental protection. Before that, I spent a year as a public defender and three years as a law student volunteering in prisons trying to use the system to fight institutional racism. My experiences lead me to believe we will never see a mass movement to save the world. If we’re going to save the world, we’ll have to do it ourselves. And, because we must do it ourselves, we need to be armed with an analysis that allows us to strategically maximize our effectiveness. To maximize our effectiveness we need to recognize the root processes fueling the destruction of the world. Then, we must attack and defeat those processes.
Over the next few weeks, my essays will attempt to point out the processes at work in Hawai’i that even make the desecration of a place as sacred as Mauna Kea possible.
***
I want to back up, though, and get back to answering why I personally feel so strongly about protecting Mauna Kea. One of the first reasons, I am going to Hawai’i is because I am sick of those in power – whether they are men, astronomers, or the American government – refusing to take no for an answer.
My experiences that follow are an attempt to show just how deeply this refusal to take no for an answer runs. I share these experiences because I want the attacks on those I love to stop. And, the first step involves all of us recognizing that these attacks are happening.
In the last few months, I’ve sat with four different women – all of them close friends – as they’ve told me they’ve been raped or severely beaten by men. I have heard similar stories from other women, but never at this rate. Of course, this will come as no shock to women, but the conversations have become commonplace. Writing the word “commonplace” to describe conversations about the rape and battery of my friends makes me feel physically ill.
Sometimes, I know the man who did it. Sometimes, I can only picture him and then feel disturbed by how easy it is to imagine a man doing this. Sometimes, I watch as pain pools in a friend’s eyes. Sometimes, I want to reach out as a distance seems to open in a friend’s mind.
Sometimes, she seems to be struggling with a presence I only vaguely detect. Sometimes, there are tears. Sometimes, there is only an icy determination to recite the story. Every time, though, I feel an overwhelming desire to take the pain away. And, in those moments listening, I know I can’t. I know I can’t stop violence that’s already happened.
With each successive story, I find myself wondering how these almost unspeakable horrors continue to be possible. I cannot call the stories “unspeakable” because these women have been so brave speaking about what has happened to them. They have shown incredible courage revisiting traumatic memories to name the abuse they’ve suffered. My pain, simply listening to their stories, is nothing compared to the pain they’ve felt and continue to feel.
I know I cannot take their pain away, but I can work to make sure this shit stops happening.
***
Abuse is essentially a refusal to take no for an answer. Rape happens when a woman tells a man no and he refuses to respect that. The degradation of natural communities happens when humans refuse to respect boundaries set by other beings.
Mauna Kea and the Hawaiian people are being abused by the TMT project. It started in 1898 when Hawaiians wrote to Congress after they were forcibly annexed to the United States explaining that they did not want to be Americans. It continues as Hawaiians say no to the desecration of Mauna Kea.
What allows men to decide that rape is acceptable? What is it about the American government that allows it to decide that the occupation of a land that does not want it is acceptable? What is it about the TMT project that allows them to decide they can desecrate Mauna Kea?
In each case, it’s a culture of entitlement. I’ve heard culture defined simply as the stories we tell ourselves. Men are told through the media, through pornography, and through centuries of institutionalized hatred towards women that women are objects to be used. Hearing these stories, men feel entitled to take from women what they want.
The American people are told that the American government is the best possible government in this scary world and as such the government is entitled to take the land and lives of other peoples. Meanwhile, a steady rain of American bombs falls around the world.
The scientists, astronomers, and corporations backing the TMT are told that science is going to save the world, that spending billions of dollars to make sense of planets lightyears away while the planet we’re on burns is justified because science is the highest form of knowledge the universe has ever seen. As a result, one of the world’s most sacred places is under attack.
I, for one, am ready for some new stories.
Comparing abuse of all kinds to the TMT project at Mauna Kea is more than just a passing connection. When we allow violations to occur over a whole culture’s protests, we normalize the abuse. We give the dominant culture another story of entitlement to add to a bloody list that’s already grown much, much too long.
So, why am I going to Mauna Kea? I am going because a people have clearly said no and I am sick of this violation imperative harming those I love while destroying the world.
From San Diego Free Press
Find an index of Will Falk’s “Protecting Mauna Kea” essays, plus other resources, at:
Deep Green Resistance Hawai’i: Protect Mauna Kea from the Thirty Meter Telescope
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Feb 7, 2015 | Colonialism & Conquest, Indigenous Autonomy
By Stephen Corry / Survival International
Twenty years ago, fundraising publicity for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) posed a very odd question: whether to send in the army or an anthropologist to stop indigenous people destroying the Amazon rainforest. Equally bizarre, it claimed that the media was “inundated with appeals to save native peoples” and asked, “Do they really deserve our support?” The world’s leading conservation organization went on by saying that tribes had learned many things from outsiders, including “greed and corruption.” WWF’s answer to this apparent dilemma was thankfully not the army, but for concerned people to give it more money (its daily income is now $2 million) so it could “work with native peoples to develop conservation techniques.”
At Survival International, we were dismayed, and so were tribal organizations when we showed them the advertisement. For WWF to blame “duped” tribespeople for deforestation was serious enough (giving the impression they trumped conservationists in attracting more funding was laughable), but even mentioning soldiers in the same sentence as conservationists uncomfortably echoed the latter’s dubious roots in colonialist ideology.
However, WWF’s assertions are likely to have raised more eyebrows with its supporters than with many tribal people, for whom big conservation organizations have long been considered in the same bracket as development banks, road and dam builders, miners and loggers. All, they would say, are outsiders bent on stealing tribal lands.
Over the last 20 years, some conservation groups have at least cleaned up their language: Their policies now make claims about working in partnership with local tribal communities, about consulting them and about how much they apparently support UN standards on indigenous rights. There are undoubtedly many in the conservation industry who believe all this, and who realize that tribal peoples are – as a broad principle – just as good conservationists as anyone else, if not considerably better.
Even those who disagree do at least recognize that alienating local people – whether tribal or not – eventually leads to protected areas being opposed and attacked. It’s one reason why the conservation industry makes much, at least on paper, of bringing local communities on board. But apart from written policies, how much have things really changed in the last 20 years? Tragically for many, the answer is “not much”; in some places, they’re getting worse.
“Voluntary Relocation” From Tiger Reserves
For example, the WWF-inspired tiger reserves in India are increasingly used to expel tribes from their forests so they can be opened up to tourism. The people are bribed with a fistful of rupees to give up the land, which has sustained their families for countless generations. More often than not, promises are broken and they’re left with empty pockets and a few plastic sheets for shelter. Whether any financial incentives materialize or not, they are backed up with threats and intimidation: Tribes are repeatedly told that if they don’t get out, their homes and crops will be destroyed and they’ll get nothing. When they finally cave in to this pressure, the conservationists call it “voluntary relocation.” Needless to say, it’s illegal.
It might surprise people to know there’s evidence that tigers thrive in the zones where tribal villages remain – the people’s small open fields encourage more tiger prey than in the enclosed forest. When they’re kicked out, their old clearings give way to roads, hotels and truckfuls of gawping tourists. Studies show animal stress behavior increases with tourism. In other words, if you want happy tigers, then it’s much better to leave the tribal people where they’ve always been. They are surely the best eyes and ears to report any poaching activity anyway; Baiga villagers from the famous Kanha reserve respect the big cats as their “little brothers.”
Hunters or Poachers?
Guards in tiger reserves intimidate and beat tribespeople found on land that was once their ancestral forests. But at least they stop short of the torture to which the Baka “Pygmy” people in Cameroon are subjected by anti-poaching forces. To return to the advertisement: Conservation is sending in soldiers, just as it always has. Heavily armed, government paramilitary squads accompany “ecoguards,” which are equipped using WWF funds. They beat those thought to have entered the protected areas, which are in fact Baka ancestral homelands. Tribespeople are assaulted even if they’re merely suspected of knowing those who have gone in. Meanwhile, their land is logged and mined, including by WWF partners. A Baka man told us, “They beat us at the WWF base. I nearly died.” WWF seems incapable of stopping these abuses. It has known about them for years, but is scathing about those who denounce them: Survival’s “absurd” campaign to draw attention to them would, it claimed, help the “real” criminals.
Tribal victims are invariably accused of “poaching,” a term which now means any sort of hunting, including for food, with which conservationists disagree. That certainly doesn’t encompass all hunting. Many conservation organizations, including WWF, don’t oppose fee-paying big game hunting. On the contrary, they profit from it, even quietly whispering that it’s a vital ingredient in conservation.
Senior environmentalists are not averse to having a shot themselves. The former president of WWF-Spain – the previous king of Spain – was recently photographed in Botswana with his elephant kill. The resulting scandal forced him to step down, but only because the picture was leaked. Kings can hunt elephants, which we’re told are threatened, but Bushmen can’t hunt to eat, not a single one of the plentiful antelope they’ve lived off sustainably since time immemorial. If they’re even suspected of it, they’ll be beaten and tortured like the Baka. This has been going on for decades, as the president of Botswana, Ian Khama, has tried to force all Bushmen out of their Central Kalahari region. In 2014, he banned hunting throughout the country – except for paid safari hunting of course. It was another illegal act in the guise of conservation.
Conservation and Diamond Mining
An avid environmentalist himself, and board member of Conservation International (CI) no less, General Khama claims he wants to clear the zone so that the wildlife will be undisturbed. This is decidedly odd because the fauna has been much disturbed over the last 20 years, but not by the remaining tribespeople: Mining exploration continues apace and you will soon be able to buy a diamond mined from inside the so-called game reserve. Due to go on sale around Valentine’s Day, these expensive love tokens now play a part in the destruction of the last hunting Bushmen in Africa.
In March, Khama is due to host the second United for Wildlife meeting – a consortium of the world’s major conservation organizations, including WWF and CI. A British royal will doubtless turn up and join the cry against “illegal poaching.” The assembly of conservationists, who routinely violate the law in their treatment of tribal peoples, will be hosted by a president guilty of trying to eradicate Bushmen hunters. No doubt the hypocrisy will be lost in the sanctimoniousness with which the press will accord the photo ops. The first United for Wildlife meeting, in London, was also hosted by Princes William and Harry – both had returned the previous day from hunting in Spain.
A couple of years ago, to the southwest of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve diamond mine, another Bushmen community was going to be thrown off their land because they had the temerity to remain where CI had tried to establish a new “wildlife corridor.” CI apparently has good policies, including having to consult the locals, so Survival International asked how it went about consulting with the Bushmen of Ranyane during its long, expensive Botswana study. Although the village is an easy four-hour drive from the nearest big town, CI admitted there had been no attempt to consult at all.
Conservation as a Feel-Good Commodity
If this handful of examples surprises anyone, it’s because the industry has poured enormous resources into gaining a place among the world’s most trusted brands. This long PR exercise has involved blurring and hiding (rather than honestly confronting) conservation’s colonial, indeed racist, past. Conservation has become a commodity, raising enormous sums of money, and rewarding supporters with an equally large feel-good factor, one that is nowhere near as straightforwardly apolitical as we are led to believe. Those who suggest “conservation” might not really be as holy as some claim are routinely denigrated as blasphemers and apostates.
If the movement is to have any chance of achieving its stated objectives – which I, for one, pray it will – it’s vital that it’s scrutinized, questioned and exposed: For conservation casts an ideological opposition of nature versus people that is profoundly damaging to our real relationship with our environment. By doing so, it harms both people and ultimately the environment, too; conservation destroys those who’ve nurtured their surroundings for timeless generations – people who have actually fashioned what we now mistake as natural. It works too often in direct opposition to its own goals.
When experts and researchers point this out, and criticize the industry, its common reaction is to try and silence them. For example, when award-winning German filmmaker and journalist, Wilfried Huismann, conducted a two-year investigation into the WWF, the film he produced, The Silence of the Pandas, was initially blocked through legal injunctions. You can read his book, PandaLeaks, though you won’t find it in mainstream bookstores. WWF’s legal team is very quick off the mark.
But many critics are committed environmentalists themselves. They too want to prevent the world’s most beautiful and diverse regions from being overrun by the industrialization that has destroyed so much and reduced so many people to poverty and dependency. The problem is that the conservation industry is not only failing to achieve this; it can be working in the opposite direction. According to Huismann, WWF is turning a blind eye to the destruction of huge areas in Southeast Asia and South America for biofuel cultivation, requiring millions of gallons of toxic pesticides and herbicides.
Tribal Peoples Are the Best Conservationists
If the conservation conglomerates really are to start preventing the further industrialization of these vital ecosystems, they surely must first remove giant polluters like Monsanto and BP from their own boards. Conservation has to stop the illegal eviction of tribal peoples from their ancestral homelands. It has to stop claiming tribal lands are wildernesses when they’ve been managed and shaped by tribal communities for millennia. It has to stop accusing tribespeople of poaching when they hunt to feed their families. It has to stop the hypocrisy in which tribal people face arrest and beatings, torture and death, while fee-paying big game hunters are actively encouraged.
The WWF publicity concluded, “Enough is enough” – I agree; it’s time for change. It’s obviously too late for those peoples whom conservation has killed, but what’s still going on today is illegal, immoral and does not deserve public support. Conservation has to wake up to the fact that tribal peoples are better at looking after their environment than anyone else.
Despite the millions pouring into the conservation industry daily, the environment remains in deepening crisis. It’s time to realize that there is a better way. Firstly, tribal rights have to be acknowledged and respected – are they not people too? Secondly, they have to be treated as the best experts at defending their own land. Thirdly, conservationists must realize it’s they, themselves, who are the junior partners here, not the tribespeople.
The real creators of the world’s national parks are not the ideologues and evangelists of the environmental movement, but the tribal peoples who fashioned their landscapes with knowledge and understanding accumulated over countless generations.
From TruthOut: http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/28888-wildlife-conservation-efforts-are-violating-tribal-peoples-rights
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jan 24, 2015 | Colonialism & Conquest, Mining & Drilling
Image Credit: Ryan Martinez Lewis
Deep Green Resistance (DGR) is dedicated to the fight against industrial civilization and its legacy of racism, patriarchy, and colonialism. For this reason, DGR would like to publicly state its support of the San Carlos Apache tribe and the residents of Superior, AZ in the fight to protect Oak Flat from the destructive and unethical practices of foreign mining giant Rio Tinto.
Background
For over a decade the San Carlos Apache tribe and supporters have been fighting against profit-driven attacks on their land by the Superior, AZ based company Resolution Copper (RC), a subsidiary of the international mining conglomerate Rio Tinto. The foreign Rio Tinto is an Anglo-Australian mining company with a shameful history of environmental degradation, human rights abuses, and consorting with oppressive regimes around the globe.
Resolution Copper plans a massive deep underground copper mine in the Oak Flat area using a technique called block caving, in which a shaft is drilled more than a mile deep into the earth and the material is excavated without any reinforcement of the extraction area. Block caving leaves the land above vulnerable to collapse.
Despite this, Resolution Copper is set to acquire 2,400 acres of the federally protected public land in the Tonto National Forest in southeast Arizona in exchange for 5,000 acres in parcels scattered around the state. The 2,400-acre land, part of San Carlos Apache’s aboriginal territory, includes Oak Flat, Devil’s Canyon, and nearby Apache Leap – a cliff where Apaches jumped to their death to avoid being killed by settlers in the late 19th century. The San Carlos Apaches and other Native people hold this land as sacred, where they conduct ceremonies, gather medicinal plants and foods, and continue to build connections with the land. The now public land is held in trust by the federal government and is also used by non-Native nature lovers for hiking, camping, bird watching and rock climbing, and is used for field trips by Boy Scout groups.
Recent Activity
On December 4, 2014 the House passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which included the Oak Flat Land exchange as an attachment to the annual must-pass defense bill. This particular version of the land exchange included in the NDAA (the “Southeast Arizona Land Exchange and Conservation Act of 2013”) is the 13th version since the bill was first introduced in Congress in 2005 by former Congressman, Rick Renzi (later convicted in 2013 of multiple counts of corruption, including extortion, racketeering and other federal charges). AZ Senators McCain and Flake, responsible for sneaking this unrelated attachment into the NDAA, subverted the will not only of Native American Tribes, conservation organizations, the Superior Town Council, and others, but the will of the United States Congress which has forcefully rejected the land exchange for nearly 10 years. Flake, who previously worked for Rio Tinto at their uranium mine (co-owned by the Iranian government) in Namibia, acknowledged the bill could not pass the US Congress on its own merits.
Shortly after passing through the House, the NDAA was signed into law by President Obama on December 19, 2014, exactly 5 years after he signed the “Native American Apology Resolution,” a little-noticed expression of regret over how the U.S. had abused its power in the past.
The Southeast Arizona Land Exchange and Conservation Act demonstrates a total disregard for Native American concerns. Resolution Copper has also openly admitted to the fact that their process of mining would create significant land cracking and eventually subsidence. Another grave concern is the permanent damage to surface and groundwater. This mine will deplete enormous quantities of water and pollute it, which will devastate local communities.
Oak Flat is also a rare desert riparian area. Less than 10% of this type of habitat remains in Arizona. The land exchange would allow mining companies to avoid following our nation’s environmental and cultural laws and would bypass the permitting process all other mines in the country have followed. Since this mining would, by design, lead to the complete destruction of the Oak Flat area and potentially impact both Apache Leap and Gaan Canyon, the San Carlos Apache Tribe (along with over 500 other tribes across the country) strongly opposes it and the illegal land exchange.
Call for Solidarity
Indigenous peoples have always been at the forefront of the struggle against the dominant culture’s ecocidal violence. Beneath the violations of US law lies the glaring threat of sacred Apache land being further harmed and colonized. If RC is allowed to follow through with its mining plan, not only would this land be stolen from the Apaches, but it would be rendered unrecognizable.
There is a monumental need for solidarity work to save Oak Flat. The only acceptable action on the part of Resolution Copper is immediate cessation of any and all plans to mine in the ancestral home of the Apache people; anything else will be met with resistance, and DGR will lend whatever support it can to those on the front lines. The time to act is now!
For more information or to lend support, please visit the Arizona Mining Reform Coalition.
**DGR recognizes that members of settler culture are living on stolen land in the midst of a current and ongoing genocide of indigenous people and culture. We encourage those who wish to be effective allies to indigenous people to read our Indigenous Solidarity Guidelines.
References
