Ku Haaheo a Welo i ka Hae

So about four or five years ago, I was working at the Hawaiian immersion school Kawaikini, and I heard about the thirty meter telescope being built on Mauna Kea. To be honest, I didn't quite get why it was a big deal. There already were a whole bunch of telescopes up there. It had gone through a legal and lengthy approval process, even conscientiously involving "native cultural practitioners", and it had the public support of the office of Hawaiian affairs. It seemed at the time like just another reactive anti-science protest, like the anti ferry, anti GMO, anti-Vaccine, anti sex Ed, anti evolution, and pro hollow earth flare ups that rocked the miniature political landscape on Kauai, and I was tired of alllll of that noise.

The school participated in a roadside protest, standing on the side of the road waving Aole TMT and KU Haaheo and Malama I ka Mauna signs. I felt comfortable saying Malama I ka mauna, take care of the mountain, and respect the language and the culture, but I wasn't convinced that the no TMT thing was the hill, so to speak, that I wanted to die on. Wasn't there a way for science and culture to both have space to flourish? Aren't there more critical battles to be fought, for school funding, for social programs, for language support? My students were suffering in material ways. One telescope more or less, what difference could it make?

I was wrong. I had a fundamental misunderstanding of the issue, of what the stakes were.

A great wave has been rising. It started with the Hawaiian Renaissance in the 1970s- with those musicians and hula dancers and cultural practitioners who brought pride and life back to the Hawaiian culture. They started preschools and immersion schools that rose the tide. The babies were raised with their mother tongue in their mouths. The teachers created curriculum as the babies grew, and now an entire generation of children, na pua o Hawaii, have been raised speaking their Native tongue, practicing their protocols, and taking intense and healing pride in their culture. Those babies are now PHDs. They are now lawyers and doctors and teachers and farmers. Highly educated in all paradigms, proud, mobilized, grounded in spiritual power and armed with knowledge.

They are taking a stand, with a kapu aloha-- a law of love and non violence and teaching. The wave is as high as the mountain.

It is wrong to say, this is legal, so get out of our way. It is wrong to say, your culture doesn't matter, but science and industry does. It is wrong to say, this issue is already settled, fight the NEXT telescope.
No, the Hawaiian people are saying-- enough. This is the line.

The state of Hawaii imagines this will peter out. That it's just a small group of people disconnected from the mainstream. They are fundamentally misunderstanding just as I did. This is a whole generation that has prepared with beauty and diligence their whole lives for the opportunity to take this stand. They are informed about the struggles across the world. They are a part of something much bigger than one telescope, one access road, one mountain.
The are standing as guardians on the mountain representing their own dignity and power.

The state of Hawaii should bow in respect of these kupuna, these elders, of these passionate young people, of the children and parents, of the outside supporters, and the fact that they are speaking out here, and now, and in this place. They should acknowledge the history of the place, not just with lip service and charming cultural trappings, but by refusing to replicate and perpetuate the harms done to the Hawaiian kingdom, the Hawaiian people, and the Hawaiian Pae Aina.
This is a call for a show of respect, not a show of might makes right.

To knock down a school, to slice the flag in half... I hoped that the state simply didn't understand that this protest is about more than the thirty meter telescope, that it's about acknowledging the sovereignty of the Hawaiian people over their land. But that symbolic gesture left no doubt that they know it's about a call for respect, and they responded in the most demeaning and hurtful way possible. Possibly to bait the kiai out of their kapu aloha--, to incite violence or rage.

That gesture of desecration is, i hope, enough to show anyone who is still skeptical about this protest what the stakes are. It's not about science. It's about respect. And everyone should understand that the Hawaiian people, this beautiful rising tide, highly prepared, are deserving of respect, especially in their own sacred places.

#kukiaimauna
#maunakea
#aoleTMT