Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 22, Number 4, 1 April 2005 — Creating our own reality [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Creating our own reality

To those advocating that the Akaka Bill is the only "realistic" means we have for self-governance, I wish to point out "reality" is whatever we decide it should be. It wasn't long ago that people said it was "unrealistic" that a black man could be elected president of South Africa, that the Berlin Wall would be torn down to reunify Germany or that the Cold War would end peacefully. People in the U.S. used to say it was "unrealistic" that women would ever vote, mueh less be elected to Congress. Some here said it was "unrealistic" to think that the bombing of Kaho'olawe could

end when it did, or that Hawaiian could thrive as a spoken language. In every case, a few dedicated people refused the "reality" that others tried to dictate. In every case, there

was a passion and inspiration to challenge the status quo. In every case, the world was better for it. If Hawai'i's independence from the U.S. will allow a new citizenry to define enforceable laws for the entire archipelago - for the wise use of all lands and waters, for sustainable growth, for insightful educational policies, for unprecedented care of our iwi and our kūpuna - then perhaps that's where the inspiration for reality should eome from. If those before us had focused only on what would be allowed by the status quo, or what obstacles stood before them, then where would the world be today? To those advocating that federal

recognition is the only way to preserve our identity or even existence, I question why they seek to solve significant social problems at the same level of thinking that created them. Since U.S. occupation, the Hawaiian population went from the most literate to the most educationally atrisk; since occupation, we went from Hawaiian-speaking to English-speaking; since occupation, we've seen more degradation of our lands by the military and more behavioral heahh risks in our communities. Indeed, our social, eeonomie and heahh statistics mirror those of tribes that

have had federal recognition for many decades. Addressing these issues "within the laws of [the U.S.] nation," as Trustee Mossman put h in his February eolumn, will not provide the solutions and positive

change our community yearns for. We need a new level of thinking. Sure, the future is unpredictable. So why not create it? And why not create it by building on the best of what we've done and what we've seen, rather than by believing what others say is and is not possible? Our imagination and inspiration for a different reality and better future isn't an abstraction if we remember when the seemingly impossible was made real. Ene Kapono Hilo

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