Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 28, Number 3, 1 March 2011 — Building a Hawaiian Cultural Nation [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Building a Hawaiian Cultural Nation

A PR0P0SAL To present the Hawaiian eommunity as a Cultural Nation (while waiting forrecognition as a Political

I Nation) by launehing the nation as an online digital plaee that houses all the components that comprise the fundamentals of a nation - its customs, traditions, people, places, practices and more. THE NEED The world's notion of who we are is completely distorted because the primary prism through whieh they see us is tour-

ism marketing with its skewed characterizations of Hawaiian Culture generated by mega-million dollar advertising campaigns. Add to that the years of politicizing the Hawaiian community by news media that continue to starkly define us as dominated by poliheal activism, institutional clashes and lawsuits. We have been media-identified as a group without a eommon vision, absent a clear leadership structure and engaged in a wandering struggle for relevance. The result is that when non-Hawaiians conjure up a collective image of the Hawaiian community, they perceive us as angry, confused and sometimes threatening. It makes them nervous. Some are even fearful. THE 0PP0RTUNITY Since the 1970s, Hawaiian culture has experienced spectacular growth in the perpetuation of cultural traditions as well as in the evolution of new cultural expressions of ancient themes. Hawaiians by the thousands are pursuing every traditional discipline. The Hawaiian community has emerged in an unprecedented celebration of itself in profound manifestations of a cultural identity. But in spite of the cultural revolution and exponential growth, the culture still is hidden in the shadows of our politics. Our cultural achievements as a nation sit helow the waterline of mass media making it difficult to propel cultural information to any vantage points of attention. The communications revolution of the Internet - or cyberspace - presents

a historic opportunity. No longer fenced in by gatekeeper systems of controlled bureaucracy, the Internet empowers anyone to completely bypass the oppressive man-

aged information systems and bullet their way past the mass-media leviathans and the institutional strangulation of the 20th century. What used to require expensive marketing systems to reach a global audience is now reduced to a person, a keyboard and an idea! There is a powerful message in the story of the 30-year old Google executive who

launched the Egyptian revolution from his laptop. A world onee organized around centralized control is now being dismantled and replaced by a digital revolution with new rules. The playing field is called The Commons. The Commons presents a historic opportunity for the Hawaiian eommunity to roll itself out to a global audience as a vibrant cultural nahon. Let us build a Hcrwaiian Cultural Nation in cyberspace. A navigable digital nation that presents our institutions, our organizations, our cultural leadership structure, our art forms, our societal networks, our authors, our scholars, our poets, our painters, our composers, our performers, our cultural disciplines and our values - a global validation that we already exist as a nation. We don't need legislative bodies debating whether or not we are entitled to nationhood status. We are a nation. We have existed for centuries and eonhnue to exist as a cultural nation. Hawaiian culture deserves its own stage, its own light, its own prism to the world. In the coming months, I will be seeking the blessing of my fellow Trustees to convene a think tank of prominent cultural leaders to help sort through the issues and challenges of such an ambitious initiative. I weleome any thoughts you, our readers, may have on shaping an approach to developing a strategic plan that will yield a Hawaiian Cultural Nation in The Commons. Please feel free to contact me about this - or any issue - at peteraoha@gmail.com. ■

PetEr Apo TrustEE, O'ahu