Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 32, Number 10, 1 October 2015 — Federal Recognition, Independent Nation, or What? [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Federal Recognition, Independent Nation, or What?

As the ramp up toward an election of delegates who will convene to discuss and make recommendations for the re-emeraence of a

Hawaiian Nation moves along I'm compelled to repeat some thoughts I expressed in a previous eolumn about nationhood. Lost Opportunity We have wasted years preoccupied by our anger at the federal government and frozen in the straightjacket of our tragic history. We've squandered so many timesensitive opportunities to work on shaping and defining a eommon

vision of our polkieal future with a level of specificity that articulates what we mean by restoring the nation. The eloek is ticking down and I fear we are not prepared to have the kind of dialogue that will present clear choices for Hawaiians and the rest of Hawai'i to consider. An lndependent NationP Hawaiian nationals, an intense and growing constituency of Hawaiians, citing the historical truth that Queen Lili'uokalani never relinquished her throne, therefore, Hawai'i is an illegally occupied nation. They do not recognize the authority of the State or Federal government and demand the nation be restored. They advocate a path to restoring the Hawaiian nation lies in an appeal to the international community for intervention under international law. While I understand the logic and respect the case for independence from the U.S it's not likely this strategy ean succeed. The global body poliīie of the international community, for all its good intentions, is without authority to stop the human massacres occurring in the Middle East, the massive genocidal

operations of fanatic militarists of the Afriean continent, the starvation of children by the millions, and so forth. It's , nalve to think that the international communitv ean coerce the United

States into walking away from Hawai'i, a critical geo-militaristic command center of the nation's forward thrust to the entire Pacif-ic-Asian theater, whieh includes China, Japan, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Korea. The Federal Recognition Option If federally recognized as Native Americans Hawaiians ean then through a democratic process such as Na'i Aupuni propose a nation-

wtihin-a-nation model to the United States. While this model stops short of total sovereignty it does present self-determination opportunities that would restore a legitimate Hawaiian national consciousness that could yield a realignment of our political, social, cultural and eeonomie institutions into a national growth model. The Hawaiian institutional pantheon of the Ali'i Trusts, OHA and Department of Hawaiian Home Lands has a considerable combined eeonomie capacity to support a unified national growth model. The Test of Nationhood What good is a nation if it cannot generate prosperity for its citizens? If our children cannot access a quality education? If home ownership, the foundation of all family wealth, is beyond the dreams of a vast majority of our people? If we continue to be grossly overrepresented in every socio-eco-nomie statistic? Who cares what flag flies over us if the transgenerational trauma of whole communities of dysfunctional families claims yet another generation of our children? What good is nationhood if the only thing that changes are the politicians? ■

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