Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 25, Number 9, 1 September 2008 — Combined opposition to the Akaka Bill [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Combined opposition to the Akaka Bill

Walter M. Heen Vice Chair, TrustEE, O'ahu

One ean always tell when the Akaka Bill (Bill) is closer to a vote in the U. S. Congress: the groups in opposition fiercely voice, from both ends of the spectrum, their beliefs that the Bill is unconstitutional, unnecessary, unfair, immoral and a surrender of the best interests and future of the Native Hawaiian people. From the right, the eall is that the Bill will result in "Balkanization," creating an unallowable separation of America's population based purely on ethnicity. Their argument is that America should be "color blind" and that the Bill, like civil rights legislation dating back to the end of the civil war, requires all Americans to unnee-

essarily and unconstitutionally accept ethnic divisions. Those "bluenoses" elaim that the Bill is a monument to ethnic separation is rhetoric of the lowest order. The Bill recognizes that the overthrow of 1893 was utterly insupportable and illegal under international law and seeks to provide a means for Native Hawaiians to restore their lost right to control their destiny. The argument that it creates a division based solely on ethnicity is completely off the mark. At the time of the overthrow, Hawai'i's independence was guaranteed by the major world powers. It was a nation that, like every other nation, perhaps with the exception of the U. S., was composed of a group of people with a unique and uniform genetic eonfiguration and a eommon culture not shared by any other area of the world. That is the nation Native Hawaiians seek to restore. Restriction on citizenship in the Akaka entity must only

naturally follow the original model. We lionize people like Nelson Mandela, who fought to restore their native homelands to their rightful original indigenous - (ethnic) - owners. And didn't we really engage in the Balkans conflict to protect ethnic populations from "ethnic cleansing" and establish new borders and governments to ensure that protection? Does the situation here in Hawai'i eall for the establishment of new borders? Fundamentally, the rightists fail to understand that they must always, in one way or another, face the results of their ancestors' actions, acknowledge their wrongs, and provide concrete recompense. That is precisely what the civil rights legislation required them to do. They didn't like it then, and they don't like it now. And that is what the Bill requires of them. Finally, some rightists elaim that they should not be required to face consequences for their ancestors' misdeeds. However, they are enjoying the fruits of their forefathers' transgressions and must take the bad with the

good. The other side of the spectrum is represented by the "radicals," the full sovereignty proponents. Some of them argue against the Bill's failure to obtain full sovereignty - now. For them, atonement requires full control over all our resources through a government of our own choosing and establishment. With all due respect, and I do respect them all, their insistence on immediate re-establishment is shortsighted and completely unrealistic. The United States will never voluntarily give up hegemony over our Islands. And there is no one in the world who ean force them to do so. I have reminded the radicals that the civil war was fought to prevent any state from seceding from the union. And the nahonal government will use armed force again if necessary. Our immediate goal is to take what we ean now while continuing to press for more. As one radical said recently, "I will take every little bit by every little bit, because I know that in the end we will have it all." □