This episode of The Green Flame focuses on colonization and has three interviews: the first with Anne Keala Kelly, a native Hawaiian organizer, journalist, and award-winning filmmaker; the second with Mari Boine, a world-reknowned Sami indigenous musician; and the third with a river.
We discuss colonization, history, tourism, the TMT telescope project on Mauna Kea, indigenous peoples of Europe, music, and how to connect with the land. Three of Mari Boine’s songs are used in this episode, with permission: Gula Gula, Goaskinvielija (Eagle Brother), and Vilges Suola.
The Green Flame is a Deep Green Resistance podcast offering revolutionary analysis, skill sharing, and inspiration for the movement to save the planet by any means necessary. Our hosts are Max Wilbert and Jennifer Murnan.
Bios
Anne Keala Kelly is a journalist and filmmaker. Keala’s published articles and Op-Eds have appeared in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, The Nation, Indian Country Today, Honolulu Weekly, Honolulu Civil Beat, Hana Hou! Magazine, Big Island Journal, and other publications. Her broadcast journalism has aired on Free Speech Radio News, Independent Native News, Al Jazeera English, The Newshour with Jim Lehrer, Democracy Now!, The Environment Report, and more. She is a frequent guest commentator on First Voices Indigenous Radio, and has been interviewed on numerous nationally syndicated radio programs, from KPFK Los Angeles’ Rise-Up to Native America Calling in Anchorage to the Australia Broadcast Corporation’s Pacific Beat. Her reporting on Hawaiian poverty and homelessness garnered her Native American Journalism Awards. And her documentary, Noho Hewa: The Wrongful Occupation of Hawai’i, has received international film festival awards, and is widely taught in university courses focusing on Indigenous Peoples, colonization, Hawaiian sovereignty, and militarism. Keala is an outspoken Native advocate for Indigenous representation in media, and has been a guest speaker at universities in Hawai’i, the U.S., and Aotearoa-New Zealand. She has delivered conference keynotes and participated in conference and community panels and roundtables. She has an MFA in production from the UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television. To learn more about her film, go to www.nohohewa.com.
Mari Boine: Imagine the ice and snow of the Arctic landscape, the bitter cold of the Northern wind, the hint of compelling blue under a crystallized lake. Close your eyes. Then listen. Really listen. You’ll feel a voice before you even hear it. It’s like none other. It’s a voice that brings the landscape alive with a mesmerizing purity; a voice that represents a thousand years of ancestral connection to an unyielding frozen space. This is Mari Boine. Musician. Songwriter. Singer. A genre-bending trailblazer with a taste for jazz, folk, rock, and world. An artist whose music is inspired by and infused with her Sámi roots. A woman who knows who she is, where she’s come from and what she stands for. A music icon who has inspired indigenous artists the world over.
At the base of Mauna Kea, the world’s tallest mountain and the first point on earth where raindrops touch the earth, the largest land defense action in modern Hawaiian history is currently in taking place and the entire movement is being guided by love.
For Indigenous Hawaiians, it could not be any other way. In Hawaiian cosmology, Mauna Kea is the origin place of the Hawaiian people. The Hawaiian genealogy teaches that the summit of the mountain is the meeting place of Earth Mother, Papahānaumoku, and Sky Father, Wākea and that the Hawaiian people are directly descended from this union. Therefore, Mauna Kea is utmost sacred ground; it is the piko (umbilical cord) of Native Hawaiian existence.
The mountain is home to innumerable lepa (altars), akua (gods and goddesses) burials and ceremonial sites that have been in use since the existence of the Hawaiian people. Holidays and ceremonial traditions are carried out on the mountain, with families maintaining and visiting their specific lepa generation after generation. For some families, newborn babies umbilical cords are brought to the aquifer at the summit of the mountain, to ground them in their homelands just as their ancestors had done.
Like Christians in church or Muslims in a mosque, being on the Mauna necessitates acting in one’s highest state of being. In the Native Hawaiian language, this is referred to as “kapu aloha” or state of love. Although there are currently innumerable Indigenous land rights and sovereignty frontlines around the world, Mauna Kea is distinct in that every action being taken for the protection of the mountain is being guided entirely by love for the land, for the community and for all of creation.
Understanding the TMT
Although Mauna Kea is both crown land (lands belonging to the former king of the Hawaiian Kingdom, Kamehameha) and is zoned as a conservation area, there are already 13 telescopes constructed on the summit of the mountain dating back to 1968. Many of these were built without proper permits and against the wishes of the local community. While some remain in use, others have been abandoned and left dormant. In fact, the Thirty Metre Telescope (TMT) was initially slated to be built in 2015 but following island-wide protests, 31 arrests and global pressure was forced back into the Hawaiian courts.
The mountain is not only spiritually significant but also ecologically fragile, with unique biogeoclimatic zones and a freshwater aquifer that is the source of freshwater for the Big Island. For decades there has been concern over mismanagement of the observatories; including waste management and mercury spills. Despite these issues remaining unaddressed, the proposal to build the world’s largest telescope – led by the University of California and partner institutions from Canada, China, India, and Japan, as well as the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation – it was approved in the Hawaiian courts. The granting of the building permits came despite years of oppositional testimony from Native Hawaiian elders, knowledge keepers, professors, legal scholars, and local residents.
Plans for the Thirty Meter Telescope would see it constructed 18 stories high, 9 stories down and 5 acres wide. The design for the 1.4 billion dollar project was created in Port Coquitlam by Guy Nelson, CEO of Empire Industries which owns Dynamic Structures. Although there has been an environmental impact statement carried out by the University of Hawai’i at Hilo (one of the invested parties for the TMT), there is deep mistrust amongst the Mauna Protectors about the depth and accuracy of the report relating to previous mismanagement of telescopes in the area as well as potential ulterior economic motives driving the construction of the TMT from politicians.
While the TMT project manager has stated that they would be happy to build the project at an alternative location in the Canary Islands, Hawaiian politicians have taken desperate action to push it through, including declaring a state of emergency in order to bring in the National Guard. In addition to the cultural impact of the TMT, there remain many questions regarding the environmental impacts a structure of this size would have in a time of extreme climate change. Mauna Kea is a storm barrier for the rest of the Hawaiian archipelago that has repeatedly shielded the other islands from storm systems, as well as provided an essential freshwater source for the Big Island.
An occupied kingdom
In order to understand the uprising of land and cultural defense that is currently unfolding on Mauna Kea, a certain level of historical context is necessary.
Although many outsiders have been programmed to see Hawai’i as an American State, the majority of Indigenous Hawaiians understand themselves to be living under the occupation of the US government and military, as Hawai’i was a sovereign kingdom and internationally recognized as an independent nation. On January 16, 1893 the nation was invaded by United States marines which led to an illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian government the following day. Nearly a year later in his message to Congress, President Grover Cleveland acknowledged that this was an unlawful act and advised it’s a reversal. Although this advice was never heeded, in 1993 – one hundred years later- President Bill Clinton signed legislation apologizing for the U.S. role in the 1893 overthrow but the apology did not provide federal recognition to Native Hawaiians like the federal laws provided to Native American tribes.
Although much of the world does not know this history, the Native Hawaiian people have never forgotten the injustice. And like most other Indigenous nations whose lands are being occupied by colonial states, the grievance of land theft and unlawful occupation was just the first in an endless list of human rights breaches and transgressions. In Hawai’i, this includes the military occupation on many of the islands, where land is often used for target practice for uncontained bombing. The Disney-fication and gentrification of the Islands have also led to Native Hawaiians being pushed out of their original communities and away from traditional ways of life. The rising cost of housing and economic incentive to develop land for vacation and retirement housing has meant that homelessness is a significant issue for the Original Peoples of the Islands. Additionally, the overdevelopment, ecological mismanagement and use of the territory as a military testing sacrifice zone have created species and habitat endangerment that has led to the Department of Lands and Resources policing Native Hawaiian peoples from being able to carry out traditional forms of sustenance such as fishing and trapping. After 126 years of fighting for basic rights and recognition as Indigenous people, Mauna Kea has become a turning point and united Native Hawaiians to come together in aloha ‘aina (love of the land) and say – no more.
Pu’uhonua o Pu’uhuluhulu: A new kind of frontline
Following the July 10th, 2019 announcement that construction would begin the following week, a small group of 33 Native Hawaiian kupuna (elders), kumu (knowledge keepers), and kia’i (land protectors) drove to the base of Mauna Kea to set up camp. When they arrived on the evening of July 12th, there were just 13 cars.
Camille Kalama, a lawyer who is part of HULI (Hawaiian Unity and Liberation Institute) and one of the first to arrive at the mountain, shared that upon their arrival there was no formal plan or sense of whether others would join them. But by the end of that first weekend, the group had grown to 500.
Under the authority of the Royal Order of Kamehameha (an order of knighthood established by King Kamehameha V that dates back to 1865) and guided by Native Hawaiian ceremonial protocol the camp at the base of Mauna was deemed a Pu’u Honua (sanctuary) wherein kapu aloha (a state of love and respect) was put into effect. Under kapu aloha protocols, everyone is welcome as long as they act with aloha ‘aina (love of the land), treat others with kindness and respect, refrain from swearing and do not bring in drugs, alcohol or cigarettes. As one of the leaders of the movement, Pua Case repeatedly stated, “We shall not leave one grain of rice on this land”.
Early in the week, in anticipation for the arrival of construction trucks and state police, a frontline was established under the guidance of the kupuna who insisted they be the first line of defense. Behind them, a group of protectors chained themselves to the road on a cattle grate. From the inception of this frontline, kupuna have remained day after day blocking the main access road.
On Wednesday, July 17th, construction vehicles arrived escorted by local police. Within hours, 35 kupuna in their 70s and 80s were arrested. Many of whom needed walkers to make it to the police vans and others who had to be pushed in their wheelchairs; their younger counterparts wept, sang and prayed as they walked behind each individual who was escorted away by law enforcement. By the middle of the day the police had retreated, while the footage and images of elderly Mauna protectors streamed around the world. By mid-week, thousands were on the mountain and a small self-sustaining community had been created, named Pu’uhonua o Pu’uhuluhulu (roughly translated to Fuzzy Mountain Sanctuary after the hill facing Mauna Kea). Dozens of solidarity actions began popping up across the Hawaiian Islands, as well as in mainland USA, Canada, Aotearoa, and Japan, among others.
Why We Should All Be Paying Attention
While Mauna Kea has certainly been receiving ample international media attention, what many of the news reports are not describing how kapu aloha has remained the guiding principle of everything that is occurring from the Mauna protectors.
What has been created at Pu’u Honua o Pu’uhuluhulu in a few short weeks is nothing short of extraordinary. Every morning begins with prayer, oli (chanting), mo`olelo (story) and cultural activities including hula; kupuna set the tone for the day with reminders of what it means to be in a state of kapu aloha and provide necessary information for all those staying at the pu’uhonua. Every evening ends in much the same way.
All-day long, rain or shine, storytellers, dancers or musicians perform for the kupuna and anyone else who wants to witness and learn. The Pu’uhonua feeds three warms meals to anywhere from hundreds to thousands of people a day. There are dozens of latrines set up that are regularly cleaned, pumped out and fully stocked. There is a medical station, childcare, legal advisors and an area where masseurs and healers provide bodywork to anyone who seeks it. A free university has been set-up that runs four sessions a day, with five distinct classes in each session from 9:30 am to 3:30 pm; as one of my instructors there said, “its a place where tuition is free, everyone is welcome and the bathrooms are gender inclusive”. There is daily non-violent direct action training, which is mandatory for anyone planning to stay on the mountain. There is even a designated team of crossing guards who ensure the safe crossing of pedestrians, highway traffic, and delivery vehicles all day every day. While crossing, it is common for both pedestrians and crossing guards to be calling mahalo (thank you), aloha (love) and ku kia’i mauna (guardians of the mountain).
All of this is being run entirely by layers of volunteer leadership. The people who have come to protect the mountain have also begun to embody the principle of carrying deeply for one another, and it is working. Other than love and service, there is no currency on the mountain and yet everyone from small children, teens, families, and elders are fully cared for. As soon as you enter the pu’uhonua you can feel this shift, as though a doorway to another way of being has been created at the base of the world’s tallest mountain.
Although I was not present for the arrests, while I was on the Mauna I was told that as the kupuna where being taken away by police, they were praying for them, telling them they were not angry with them, that they understood. As is stated in Mathew 5:44, “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”, what the kapu aloha embodied at Mauna Kea is so powerful that not even those who have come to destroy the mountain itself can break that way of being.
I wish the world could understand that the Mauna is a church; and what is taking place there now is sacred, people are living in harmony and ceremony with one another and the land, and showing us all that another world is possible.
Global Significance
In the three weeks, Pu’uhonua o Pu’uhuluhulu has become a beacon for Indigenous land-based direct action and cultural revitalization. It is reframing a narrative from one in which Indigenous land defense and human rights struggles vie amongst one another for external support to one in which each action exists in solidarity with and strengthens one another. It is refuting the notion that scientific progress is inherently antithetical to Indigenous knowledge paradigms and offering alternative, decolonized ways forward. In an interview with Democracy Now, Mauna protector Pua Case explained, “We are making a stand as not just Native people and not just the local community, but really a worldwide community, because there are so many similarities… there are Native people everywhere around the world standing for their mountaintops, for their waters, for their land bases, their oceans, and their lifeways. We are no different than them.” Mauna Kea is proving not only to other Indigenous frontline communities, but to all of us that another world is possible, another way of being with one another and the earth grounded in love and the wisdom of our ancestors is viable and attainable not only in our lifetimes, but in this moment. The kia’i on the Mauna are living, breathing, thriving examples of this everyday.
During my time there not only did delegations of support arrive from Aotearoa, Tahiti, and Tonga, but so did high profile visitors such as The Rock, Damien Marley and Jason Mamoa. One of these visitors was the founder of the Sacred Stone Camp at Standing Rock, LaDonna Bravebull Allard who came to support Mauna leader Pua Case- the two refer to one another as sisters. When she arrived on the Mauna, Bravebull Allard expressed that she had come to “give her sister a hug” and shared stories of how it was Case’s phone calls that got her through even the hardest days of Standing Rock. During her stay, she accepted requests to teach a session at University Pu’uhuluhulu. In which she shared that witnessing what is occurring at Mauna Kea helped her to understand her role in Standing Rock, “it was a seed we planted”, and look what has emerged, “the Mauna is bringing families together, it is bringing nations together, this Mauna is bringing the world together.”
If you are a Canadian university student or alumni from a school that is a member of ACURA begin or join a petition for your university to divest in the TMT
Donate your Hawaiian Airline miles for Pu’uhuluhulu to bring in medics, legal observers and teachers for the University. If you have a membership follow the link to log in and you will be directed to a page where you can donate.
Nikki Sanchez is a Pipil/Maya and Irish/Scottish academic, Indigenous media maker and environmental educator. Nikki holds a master’s degree in Indigenous Governance and is presently completing a PhD with a research focus on emergent Indigenous media. She presented her first TEDx presentation, entitled “Decolonization is for Everyone” this year. Nikki was the acting David Suzuki Foundation “Queen of Green” from 2016-2018 where her work centered on digital media creation to provide sustainable solutions for a healthy planet, as well as content creation to bring more racial inclusivity into the environmental movement. Her most recent media project was the VICELAND series RISE which focused on global Indigenous resurgence. RISE debuted at Sundance in February 2017 and has received global critical acclaim, recently winning the Canadian Screen Guild Award for Best Documentary series. For the past decade, Nikki has also worked as an Indigenous environmental educator, curriculum developer, and media consultant. She started and runs Decolonize Together, an independent consulting company which specializes in decolonial and equity training for businesses and institutions. She is a keynote speaker with Keynote Canada and a contributor to TEDx, Looselips and ROAR Magazine.
This episode of The Green Flame focuses on colonization and has three interviews: the first with Anne Keala Kelly, a native Hawaiian organizer, journalist, and award-winning filmmaker; the second with Mari Boine, a world-reknowned Sami indigenous musician; and the third with a river.
We discuss colonization, history, tourism, the TMT telescope project on Mauna Kea, indigenous peoples of Europe, music, and how to connect with the land. Three of Mari Boine’s songs are used in this episode, with permission: Gula Gula, Goaskinvielija (Eagle Brother), and Vilges Suola.
The Green Flame is a Deep Green Resistance podcast offering revolutionary analysis, skill sharing, and inspiration for the movement to save the planet by any means necessary. Our hosts are Max Wilbert and Jennifer Murnan.
Bios
Anne Keala Kelly is a journalist and filmmaker. Keala’s published articles and Op-Eds have appeared in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, The Nation, Indian Country Today, Honolulu Weekly, Honolulu Civil Beat, Hana Hou! Magazine, Big Island Journal, and other publications. Her broadcast journalism has aired on Free Speech Radio News, Independent Native News, Al Jazeera English, The Newshour with Jim Lehrer, Democracy Now!, The Environment Report, and more. She is a frequent guest commentator on First Voices Indigenous Radio, and has been interviewed on numerous nationally syndicated radio programs, from KPFK Los Angeles’ Rise-Up to Native America Calling in Anchorage to the Australia Broadcast Corporation’s Pacific Beat. Her reporting on Hawaiian poverty and homelessness garnered her Native American Journalism Awards. And her documentary, Noho Hewa: The Wrongful Occupation of Hawai’i, has received international film festival awards, and is widely taught in university courses focusing on Indigenous Peoples, colonization, Hawaiian sovereignty, and militarism. Keala is an outspoken Native advocate for Indigenous representation in media, and has been a guest speaker at universities in Hawai’i, the U.S., and Aotearoa-New Zealand. She has delivered conference keynotes and participated in conference and community panels and roundtables. She has an MFA in production from the UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television. To learn more about her film, go to www.nohohewa.com.
Mari Boine: Imagine the ice and snow of the Arctic landscape, the bitter cold of the Northern wind, the hint of compelling blue under a crystallized lake. Close your eyes. Then listen. Really listen. You’ll feel a voice before you even hear it. It’s like none other. It’s a voice that brings the landscape alive with a mesmerizing purity; a voice that represents a thousand years of ancestral connection to an unyielding frozen space. This is Mari Boine. Musician. Songwriter. Singer. A genre-bending trailblazer with a taste for jazz, folk, rock, and world. An artist whose music is inspired by and infused with her Sámi roots. A woman who knows who she is, where she’s come from and what she stands for. A music icon who has inspired indigenous artists the world over.
MAUNA KEA, Hawaii – The permit allowing the Thirty Meter Telescope to be built and operated on Mauna Kea has been thrown out by the Hawaii Supreme Court.
In the conclusion of a 58 page opinion written by Chief Justice Mark E. Recktenwald, the court vacated the lower circuit court’s “May 5, 2014 Decision and Order Affirming Board of Land and Natural Resources, State of Hawaii’s Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law and Decision and Order Granting Conservation District Use Permit for the Thirty Meter Telescope at the Mauna Kea Science Reserve Dated April 12, 2013, and final judgment thereon.” The Supreme Court remanded the matter to the circuit court “to further remand to BLNR for proceedings consistent with this opinion, so that a contested case hearing can be conducted before the Board or a new hearing officer, or for other proceedings consistent with this opinion.”
As many predicted after hearing the court’s questions during the oral arguments presented on August 27 (video below), the court found that the Board of Land and Natural Resources “acted improperly when it issued the permit prior to holding a contested case hearing.” The court says BLNR’s February 25, 2011 approval violated Hawaii’s constitutional guarantee of due process.
Many view the debate surrounding the Thirty Meter Telescope’s proposed construction on Mauna Kea and Kanaka Maolis’ opposition to it as fundamentally a question of science versus culture. On the benign end, the word “science” has come to connote something close to cool and objective rationality – nothing more nor less than a collection of knowledge to be used in man’s (isn’t it always “man’s”?) noble aim to transcend nature. More malevolently, however, pitting science against indigenous culture is nothing more than insidious racism. This racism operates on the often unchallenged claim that science is an inherently western way of knowing and therefore superior to indigenous ways of knowing.
In fact, some Mauna Kea protectors wish to avoid this rhetorical ploy so strongly they can be heard saying, “We’re not against science, we’re just against building this telescope on Mauna Kea.” Their words imply that the telescope could be built somewhere else and western science allowed to run its course everywhere but here.
Personally, I am against the construction of telescopes anywhere and I have lots of problems with western science. I am careful to emphasize the adjective “western” in western science because Kanaka Maolis often remind me that they’ve always known many of the things western science claims to have discovered. Remember, as Mauna Kea protector Hualalai Keohula has reminded me, that Kanaka Maoli navigated the world’s largest and greatest ocean in canoes built with wood and stone, aided with nothing more powerful than the naked human eye, centuries before the West realized the world was round. This, it should be said, is the right way, the least destructive way, the non-violent way to practice astronomy.
I speak only for myself, here, but I will go so far to say I wish western science never existed. I know in today’s dominant culture my wish is pure blasphemy. As my friend Derrick Jensen noted in his brilliant work Dreams, science is the new monotheism. The old monotheisms – Christianity, Judaism, Islam – succeeded in removing meaning from the natural world and placed meaning in the hands of a jealous, abstract God dwelling in far-off heavens. Science, then, erased God and obliterated any possibility of meaning with Him. When I make these arguments, I’ve found it to be like Jensen has observed, when you blaspheme God, you are called a disbeliever. When you blaspheme science, you are called an idiot.
Still, on the whole, science has been a disaster for life on Earth. The first problem with science is the first problem with so many products of the murderous culture we live in. The first problem with science is science’s epistemology is rooted in this culture’s epistemology. And, this culture’s epistemology is based on domination. Epistemology is the study of how we know what we know.
One way to understand science is to trace what the leading scientific epistemologists have to say. Remember Sir Francis Bacon from your 6th grade science class? He invented what we call today “The Scientific Method.” He said his “only earthly wish is to stretch the deplorably narrow limits of man’s dominion over the universe” by “putting her (nature) on the rack and extracting her secrets.” As if that wasn’t scary enough, Bacon went on to say, “I am come in very truth leading you to Nature with all her children to bind her to your service and make her your slave.”
Or what about the hugely popular science apologist, Richard Dawkins? He writes in his book A Devil’s Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love that “Science boosts its claim to truth by its spectacular ability to make matter and energy jump through hoops on command, and to predict what will happen and when.”
“To make matter and energy jump through hoops on command” is a soft way to spell domination. Substitute yourself for “matter and energy” (that is what you are, of course). How would you feel if a scientist pointed a gun at you, or shot electrical currents through your muscles, or stuffed you into a cage, starved you, pumped your body full of chemicals and forced you to jump through hoops at his command?
The culture we live in is based on domination. How else do we account for the fact that one in five women will be raped in her lifetime? One in four girls and one in six boys sexually abused before they turn 18? How else do we account for the fact that 2.6 people are killed by American police every day?
Why, then, would we expect western science – a product of this culture – to be any different?
***
There’s a better way to judge science. It is a question that should form all of our moralities. The question is simple.”Is the real world better off because of science?” I think the answer to that question is a resounding no.
I come to that conclusion because my morality takes the needs of the real, physical world as primary. Water, soil, air, climate, my body, your body, and the food that sustains us are all formed by complex relationships of living beings. These living beings form the communities that make life possible. The needs of these communities must inform every action humans take. Anything else is suicidal.
I understand that science can be useful. Western science gives us modern medicine, for example, but modern medicine is more often than not a leaky band-aid applied to a wound created by science in the first place. Many tell me that western science is going to give us the cure to cancer while they forget that most cancers are produced by environmental toxins that exist because of science. I understand that western science can help us predict the devastating consequences of climate change, but science opened the road to the technologies responsible for climate change in the first place. Western science is responsible for napalm, agent orange, and atomic weapons. Of course, the surest way to prevent the destruction those weapons caused would have been to never open the doors of knowledge that lead to them.
The TMT project serves as a perfect reflection of the insanity of western science. Just like western science gains knowledge through domination, the TMT project is only possible through the domination of Kanaka Maoli. If the original people of Hawai’i were not exterminated by genocidal processes, were not made second-class citizens on their own islands, their culture not beaten to within inches of its life by American denationalization programs, Mauna Kea would be truly protected with the highest reverence.
But, western scientists have arrived, confident in the role Francis Bacon has laid out for them, to stretch Hawai’i on the rack and extract her secrets from her. The cops have come twice, with guns on their hips, to make Mauna Kea protectors vacate the Mauna Kea Access Road like Dawkins’ scientists who make matter and energy jump through hoops on command and arresting anyone who refuses the command.
Again, let’s ask the most important question of all. Is the real world better off with or without the TMT?
One way to answer this is to examine the physical processes needed to construct the TMT. Included in these physical processes are the actual materials used in construction. I am no expert on telescope construction and I’ve found it difficult so far to find detailed lists of the materials that will form the TMT (probably because acquiring these materials are a disaster for the environment.) From what I can tell, though, the TMT will be built with materials like steel, aluminum, and other rare earth metals.
You cannot have the TMT without steel, aluminum, and other rare earth metals. You cannot have steel, aluminum, and other rare earth metals without mountain top removal, open pit mining, and the combustion of vast quantities of fossil fuels. You cannot have mountain top removal, open pit mining, and the combustion of vast quantities of fossil fuels without climate change, mass extinctions, the forced removal of indigenous peoples, and the violent labor conditions present in extraction industries. So, before the materials needed to build the TMT ever even arrive in Hawai’i, they will be covered in the blood of humans and non-humans alike.
Telescopes are a disaster for the real world just like western science has been. Telescopes cannot be anything other than disasters for the real world because they are products of a murderous system of knowledge. It might be really super cool to discover the 832nd star in the 412th known galaxy with a new, massive telescope. This knowledge, however, comes through the domination of life on earth.
Mauna Kea – and I would argue all mountains – might be best understood as a complex community of living creatures living in mutual relationship. The needs of this community trump the desires of science. Mauna Kea itself acts as a giant water filter and houses the largest freshwater aquifer on Hawai’i Island. Everyone needs clean drinking water, but there have already been seven documented mercury spills associated with the telescopes on Mauna Kea. Currently threatened, endemic species call Mauna Kea home. The needs of mamane trees and ahinahina to live trumps the curiosity of astronomers to peep at other worlds.
***
Before I finish, let me anticipate the objections I will receive. Yes, I am quite aware of the comforts brought to some of us by western science. But, when we talk about how great science is for “us,” who are we talking about? Are we talking about the few indigenous societies clinging to their traditional ways of life, clinging to the only human ways of life that were ever truly sustainable? Are we talking about polar bears? Sumatran tigers? Bluefin tuna? We can’t be talking about West African black rhino because they just fell into the deepest dark of total extinction.
I know that science produced the internet, the laptop I’m typing on, and brought the delicious cold brew coffee I’m drinking. People often criticize me asking, “How can you condemn these wonderful tools you are using? You get on planes and travel to Hawai’i, you get in cars to visit places across Turtle Island, aren’t you a” – and they gasp – “a hypocrite?”
My answer is simple. Yes, I might be a hypocrite, but I believe my friend Lierre Keith who said, “Understand: the task of an activist is not to negotiate systems of power with as much personal integrity as possible – its to dismantle those systems.” Western science is a system of power and must be dismantled if we have any chance of surviving the catastrophe facing us. Sitting Bull used American made rifles to defend his people from American cavalrymen. Ken Saro-Wiwa, the Nigerian poet who was murdered for resisting Shell Oil in his homeland, wrote in English – the language of his oppressors.
I wish with all my heart that I could live as our ancestors lived – a life free from the deepest anxiety that in a few years everything might be gone. I was raised in the Wasatch and Uinta Mountains of Utah – a place I just visited – and I wish with all my heart that I could spend my life walking in Indian paintbrush, columbine, daisies, and lupine consumed in the total wonder and beauty of life. I wish with all my heart that I could sit still in simple expression of the love I feel. But, while everyone I love is under attack, it is simply unforgivable not to do everything within my power to protect them. It is simply unforgivable not to use every tool at my disposal to defend them.
History reveals western science as an accomplice to the murder of the real world. Western science is attempting the murder of Mauna Kea. Mauna Kea and the real world demand that we stop it.
Will Falk has been working and living with protesters on Mauna Kea who are attempting to block construction of an 18-story astronomical observatory with an Extremely Large Telescope (ELT).
