Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 2, Number 2, 1 February 1985 — Indigenous People [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Indigenous People

By Hayden Burgess Trustee, Oahu

"For ages, our ancestors lived here. We haue flourished in our culture, language, religion and tradition. We haue a duty to our children; that we preserue all of this for them. Do we gamble this responsiblify on the foreign political concepts whieh at this time prevail in our lands?"

In Nicaragua, Alaska, New Caledonia, Guam, Tahiti and Hawaii, this question forms the basis of the conflicts between the now dominating governments and the first peoples of these lands. Governments eome and go. Eaeh age finds a new

scenario; eaeh government claiming to exist forever. But none has done so. As eeonomie conditions change, moral strength decays or wars are fought; one after another tumbles. The U.S., whieh now pretends to be forever, is but a young nation whieh is already undergoing moral decay. Some say that decay grew by leaps and bounds 92 years ago when they set aside law and morality and stole Hawaii's governance from Hawaii's people. The decay only deepens as the U.S. continues in its path of denying people their right to control their own destiny.

The same situation is going on in Nicaragua where the Sandinista government, whieh is now in power, is attempting to exterminate the identity of the indigenous people by eliminating their language, land control, culture and tradition. This policy is now called integration: "Be like us, adopt our language, our poliheal and eeonomie concepts, our code of life." The U.S. follows this madness with the American Indians, the Eskimos and Inuits in Alaska, the Chomoro in Guam and the po'e Hawaii here. "Give me your Iand — here, take this money , now make yourself and your children like us, talk like us, live like us, worship like us, and forget who you are." The French in New Caledonia and T ahiti is practicing the same madness.

Why do we continue to struggle against these foreign governments? Because onee we accept their dictates, we sign the death warrant for our indigenous people. The generations of our ancestors end and we will have become the foreigner ourselves in our own homeland. How do we resist? First, know thyself. Know that our cause for racial and cultural survival is just; it is founded in moral principles, in developing international law, in eommon sense. Would we extinguish a race or a culture from the face of the earth, even if they are the cause of great wars or environmental tragedies? Of course not. Then why should we allow another do it to us? Second, k.now thy enemy . Leam their ways well, for that knowledge will prove most effective in the many forms of combat to take plaee.

And form alliances for there are many others like us, who share the love for human justice as we do. We ean find them here in Hawaii among the haoles, the orientals, the polynesians and the rest. They ean be found in the churches and other humane organizations across the U.S. and the world. They ean be found in the international community of nations. This is a very serious task; the survival of our people depends on this age. Should we fail, we will have helped others erase the future of our people as po'e Hawaii from this planet; we will have brought about the termination of our indigenous people; a noble, intelligent, loving species of the human race.