1959 \u201cStatehood\u201d was a time of excitement in Hawai`i over the notion of this territory and the people within it becoming \u201cEqual American Citizens\u201d with all others.\u00a0 Bon fires lit the night along with firecrackers, blaring music, and all forms of celebration.\u00a0 20 years and a new generation later, the conversation began to change, asking, \u201cwhat happened to the option of returning Hawai`i to its status as an independent nation-state, as we had been prior to the U.S. military invasion in 1893.\u201d\u00a0 37 years since Statehood, a television dialogue was held, including the last Hawai`i Territorial governor (U.S. Presidential appointment), William Quinn.\u00a0 When asked why the options for Hawaiian Independence and Free Association was not also included in the plebiscite question for the Hawai`i voters, the former governor laughed at the idea, saying he had never heard of such a requirement until that very moment.(1)<\/p>\n
Today, 50 years later, the international standard of affording a people under colonial like conditions the choices of independence, free association, or integration with the colonial (administering or metropolitan) state is a matter of wide knowledge.(2)\u00a0\u00a0 That Hawai`i\u2019s plebiscite question in 1959 failed to present those options are also widely known.(3)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A growing number of people are demanding the full and proper exercise of self-determination, making no secret that their definite preference is for an Independent Hawai`i.\u00a0 The State of Hawai`i, recognizing the change in awareness and mood of the people recently switched from a celebration to an observance of the 50th anniversary with a conference and a dance, while protesters outside the convention center cut the last star out of the U.S. flag.(4)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 One of Hawai`i\u2019s foremost jurist, Walter Heen, on the 50th Anniversary, says, today there is no question in his mind that the Statehood vote was unfair.(5)<\/p>\n
A people\u2019s rally of over 300 supporters was kept outside the convention center, watched by security officers to assure the numbers would not overflow & disturb the conferees.\u00a0 Rally organizer, P\u014dk\u0101 Laenui said, \u201cwe call upon the United States & the international community, to bring about our full exercise of self-determination, following legal mechanisms already established by the United Nations.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe call upon the people who are now the residents of these islands, to become engaged in the liberation of these islands from U.S. colonialism,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n
When asked what is this engagement of the people, P\u014dk\u0101 replied, \u201cit is the engagement of community dreaming, of community conversation, of reconsidering and restructuring a foundational platform, upon which we can build anew our nation containing all of the highest and finest principles of humanity we can create!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cProper decolonization among a colonized society should follow five phases, 1) recovery & rediscovery, 2) mourning, 3) dreaming, 4) consensus, and 5) execution.(6)\u00a0\u00a0 If we depend on decolonization being merely the departure of the colonial authority, leaving us the colonial structures and patterns of behavior, we will not have become decolonized.\u00a0 We will merely replicate what we are today, a people pretending we are the colonizers, perhaps even looking for others to colonize!\u00a0 If we do not take the time to \u201cdream\u201d and build among ourselves the values we aspire to live by, and rethink how to formulate our social, economic, environmental, political, and national security structures upon those values, we will fail ourselves in the full promise of decolonization.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHawai`i today,\u201d he said, \u201cis much like many large cities and towns in the rest of the world, operating its formal structures, its rules of economic, social, political, environmental, educational, religious and national security, on the basis of three principles – Domination, Individualism and Exclusion (D.I.E.).\u00a0 This is a selfish, mean, and dehumanizing set of values, and there is no reason why we need to continue these principles.\u00a0 It has set all of our formal structures into a downward spiral, killing the humanity in these structures.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAre our principles of `Oluolu (non-confrontational, pleasant), Lokahi (group mindfulness) and Aloha (loving, caring, inclusive) (O.L.A.) not able to operate in the formal as well as in our informal systems?\u00a0 Why can we not build new ways of interacting along these principles, whether it is in our religious approaches, our environmental approaches, yes, even in our national security system,\u201d he asked?<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2019Dreaming\u2019, in our decolonization process, is just as important as how we separate politically and militarily from U.S. colonization.\u00a0 Hawaiian Independence is not only our human right as a consequence of historical events and principles of decolonization, but it is our sacred challenge to lift our society to a higher order of social and spiritual development,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n
NOTES:<\/p>\n
(1)\u00a0 DIALOGUE: Statehood & Sovereignty, \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0HAWAII PUBLIC TELEVISION, August 16, 1996\u00a0 Transcript, page 5 at http:\/\/hawaiianperspectives.blogspot.com\/<\/a> or http:\/\/www.opihi.com\/sovereignty Revisiting Statehood & Sovereignty<\/a>.<\/p>\n (2)\u00a0 U.N. Charter, Article 73, G.A Resolution 742 (1953), G.A. Resolution 1514 (1960), G.S. Resolution 1541 (1960), Grounds for Hawai`i Self Determination, http:\/\/hawaiianperspectives.blogspot.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n (3)\u00a0 The ballot question posed was, \u201cShall Hawaii immediately be admitted into the union as a State?\u201d<\/p>\n (4)\u00a0 Honolulu Advertiser, Saturday, August 22, 2009, p. 1<\/p>\n (5)\u00a0 Hawai`I Public Radio morning news report, 21 August 2009<\/p>\n