Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 10, Number 3, 1 March 1993 — A Con-Con can help Hawaiians shape their future [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A Con-Con can help Hawaiians shape their future

by Rowena Akana Trustee-at-large Hawaiians have a golden opportunity in a proposed 1993 Hawaiian constitutional convention, but if we're not careful the opportunity may slip through our fingers. A House bill intro-

duced in January calls for the election of 101 delegates July 15, with the Con-Con to start on Sept. 2. This bill leaves Hawaiians less than a year to decide their fate. Hawaiians must

choose their own destiny and the ConCon bill is a good start, but as written it leaves unanswered some major questions. Of the 130,000 Hawaiians eligible to vote last year, only half are currently registered for OHA elections. The Lt. Governor's office says it will seek out and accept Hawaiians willing to vote in the Con-Con eleehon, but registering the other half by May 15

will be a Herculean task. Time is also of the essence for potential delegates. They 'must file for candidacy by June 15. How many of these electorate outsiders, if registered, will_have time to study all the sovereignty models? How many ean compete for attention with those whose minds

are set, have an agenda and. the means to drive it? Only as many as we educate. For 100 years, Hawaiians have. been forced into decisions allegedly for our own good,

for justice's sake or for political expediency. When have native populations ever been happy with decisions made under duress? To help strengthen the ConCon's prospects, a puwalu (all together, co-operative) would allow any and all interested Hawaiians to gather, discuss, question and learn anything and everything about sovereignty in the short time allotted.

Scheduled sometime between the July 15 election and Sept. 2 convention, a puwalu would give everyone a ehanee to participate, breaking through the politics that might otherwise dominate the sovereignty discovery process. Education is the key to infuse our movement with momentum. A puwaiu would be inclusive and allow free-flowing discussion without hindering anyone's ehanee to learn more about the important choices ahead. A puwalu would almost certainly prevent any one faction from having absolute control while providing a forum for new ideas and new leaders. The Con-Con, however, does not ensure a resolution to the Hawaiian sovereignty question. The bill looks fine as an organic document, but nowhere does it discuss what lands if any would the state return to a Hawaiian nation. Land is power and without the former Hawaiians would still laek the latter. An organic document is only so mueh paper if no foundation supports it. The bill has many supporters,

but the self-imposed conclusion of the congress Dec. 15 forces Hawaiians to put up or shut up before the end of the year. And if the bill is not ratified Jan. 17, ean we hold another Con-Con to try again? There is as of yet no guarantee. If the ratification date is extended to at least March of 1994, Hawaiians would have the ehanee to digest the bill's recommendations while leaving the Legislature time enough to eonclude its other business. The Con-Con bill is only one of several sovereignty bills before the Legislature. One state representative wants the state to acknowledge Hawaiians' inherent right to selfdetermination. Several state senators want the Legislature to protect gambling rights on any future Hawaiian land holdings. A pod of representatives wants the United States to compensate Hawaiians at least to the degree of American and Alaskan tribes. A sovereignty group wants the state to recognize it as the rightful govemment of all Hawaiians. And, of course, there is the Con-Con.

All the bills ask for something from someone. But we first need to ask something from ourselves. We know — and have known for a long time — what our people's needs are, but do we know how best to fill those needs? Do we have the courage to make this Con-Con work? It is within ourselves that we will find the answers. We must start asking questions of, and demanding answers from, those who wish to lead us. If we don't like what we hear, then we must raise our voices until we are heard ourselves. Only then will the state and the union address our needs and only then will we see progress for our people. That's why the Con-Con and a puwalu are so important: to gather all of sovereignty's voices so we might discover the best of all worlds. This is our time, and if we truly want more for our future than a eommon past, then we will work through the problems to make this Hawaiian constitutional eonvention a reality.