As seen on Civil Beat’s Community Voices.

With a lot of the #StopTMT and the #WeAreMaunaKea hashtag activism that is going on in the news, or at least with celebrities, I wanted to discuss, or at least address the complex feelings I have towards the issue. Please note that my spellings and references will likely be wrong, and please correct me if I am. My knowledge is also very limited on some things, so I won’t be able to do anything close to a full and complete analysis.

What is it to preserve a culture?

Some of the arguments I’ve heard against the TMT (Thirty Meter Telescope) involve the desecration of sacred lands. The namesake for the mountain, Mauna Kea is important in Hawaiian culture. I attempted to google it to briefly summarize what its significance is, and it took a bit of time honestly. There weren’t clear stories or places to find the story, everything I tried to Google came up with incomplete or partially relevant results. Give it a try:

Mauna Kea origin story
Mauna Kea kumulipo (kumulipo is the Hawaiian origin story)
Mauna Wakea story
kumulipo

Either way, the name, fully expanded, is Mauna a Wakea, Mountain of Wakea. Wakea is the Sky Father. Within Hawaiian culture, this mountain is seen as the first-born, preceding all the Hawaiian Islands and to the Hawaiian people. It continued its significance in Hawaiian culture with Hawaiian royalty burial site and a place of pilgrimage for some Hawaiian people.

Given the passionate discourse about the subject, it’s very clear that this place is of cultural significance.

How do we define what is culturally significant?

Is what is culturally significant a place, or is it a continuous living practice? Is it a living people who practice traditions that preserve it? How are we defining culture for it to be significant and worth preserving?

How does a living culture evolve?

Obviously, or maybe not so obviously, culture is made by its origin and its future. How a culture goes about surviving is an entirely different matter.

The methods by which countries have reconciled their past, future and present selves vary widely. China at some point in the past century destroyed many historical relics in an effort to modernize and cast away traditional thinking. Yet, many countries in Asia have rich traditions that have persisted through time: Diwali in India, Songkran in Thailand, and Hanami in Japan. Within the Middle East, where religion and culture are both ubiquitous and synonymous, Jewish tradition and Islamic tradition permeate the lifestyles.

Part of what preserves a culture, maybe ironically is in what ways it evolves or doesn’t. The previously listed cultures survived in spite of continued and persisting warfare, conquest, and diaspora. How do we compare it to something dead?

Roman culture is dead. It doesn’t exist by itself, but exists through what has evolved from it. We don’t run around speaking Latin (well, most of us), but we have forms of government that have evolved from it, or languages. Modern languages have actual sentence structure, whereas before, finding the meaning of a sentence was difficult with arbitrarily placed words and declensions.

The Vandals and the Goths conquered Romans and their culture was essentially wiped out. Right? Right. That’s what we’re told to understand, but history always has been written by the winners. Any time we’ve “learned” history, it’s always been from the side of the winners. From the takeover of China by the Mongols to the conquistadors in South America, this has thematically occurred again and again in history. The long reaching effects of imperialism made its way to Hawaii in the 1800s and many of the Pacific Islands.

What makes this conflict about the TMT interesting is that much of the protesting still goes back to what is considered by many the illegal annexation of the Hawaiian Islands to the United States. The events that have transpired cannot be undone and the repercussions of what’s outside of the status quo are innumerable and unpredictable. I’m more interested in the reconciliation of Hawaii’s past and present.

Hawaii has a bit of a dichotomy because the culture is both honored and sometimes commoditized, but one could argue so are many other cultures. It’s what makes Hawaii, Hawaii. Hawaiian culture “lost” but isn’t lost, like the Romans from before. This culture has the rare opportunity to remain relevant in its original form, instead of transforming and altering itself.

When I went to New Zealand, I found that New Zealand, even with a “modern” democracy still had many immersion schools, kura kaupapa. Within these schools the Māori traditions and expectations remained, and it was fascinating to hear from my friend how important becoming a kaitiaki is. They’re people who choreograph the kapa hakas. In fact, she said it’s a great honor to be a kaitiaki, as well as people that are involved in the dances, or the costume making. She had explained how there’s a competition similar to the Merrie Monarch that’s equally as prestigious.

It’s fascinating to think considering almost similar circumstances, that the presence of Māori culture is so permeating when compared to the circumstances revolving around our own island society. Is it the slow annexation and separation of New Zealand from Australia when compared to the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy by the greed of capitalism? Or was it the sheer number of unified Māori that banded together? Is the inability to form one cohesive and unified group because of the distance in between groups scattered across Hawaii’s archipelago? The islands own history tells the story of unifying under one King, but even he didn’t unify all of Hawaii (see: Kauai). But maybe it’s simpler than that.

Where is the voice of Hawaii?

Voter turnout in Hawaii is low and keeps getting lower. As it stands now, only 36.5% of eligible voters actually voted during 2014. It's gotten to the point where the state is considering mail in voting to hopefully increase voter participation. How many of the people who voted are Hawaiian? How many Hawaiians didn’t vote? The majority isn’t speaking, and while people are asking why, I don’t think they’re asking the right questions. Why is there disinterest and apathy in our island home?

The voice of the Hawaiian people, the advocates for the Hawaiian culture, lies dormant. It’s only when something disagreeable comes up that we hear it. Where is the voice when something is agreeable and respectful towards the culture? How is the current government to navigate the nuances of Hawaiian culture if it’s being reduced to an afterthought? If the culture is to remain relevant and present, it needs to engage in the present. The stories of the past will only become stories and the culture will be lost because their opinions will be reduced to shrill in the background when compared to the booming voices of the minority who actively vote and engage.

I understand and acknowledge that many disagree with the annexation of Hawaii, but we’re no closer to a solution for it when the majority of people simply don’t care. How are the people who believe so strongly in preserving the islands placing the values of Hawaii?

It’s important for the people who advocate for the Hawaiian culture ask themselves what is considered important? What is considered valuable? Where is the consistency in the approach of what we value?

Mauna Kea is a sacred Hawaiian site for rituals and within Hawaiian lore. Its protests are documented through social media activism, but a quick search of “stop tmt” brings me nothing. Hawaiians have banded together to protest a Thirty Meter Telescope that aims to bring all of mankind scientific advancement. Their concerns for the environment are sound and are also concerns of mine, but where were the interest and concern when the telescope was first proposed? I’m sure many would say they weren’t asked about the location, but did many of them offer either? Celebrities are showing their support for the cause, but do they understand the cause as well as the Hawaiian people? Do they understand the nuances of our local government and the push and pull between government relics and tradition as the tides of the sea?

I doubt it. I asked a close friend what he thought of #StopTMT as he moved from here to Boston. His response?

“Honestly, I don’t care.”

The cause that is being so strongly fought for has been reduced to a hashtag in a society that believes the only voices of importance exist on the Internet, not in the environment from which they take in the sun and breathe in the salty bitter air. Salty and bitter is all we’ll be if there is continued apathy and no organization in the arbitrary protests that somehow magically occur. There isn’t a need to let the winners continue to write history, when the same internet that gives us hastag activism also gives everyone an equal voice when used productively.

If the health of the islands is prioritized, where is the protesting against the developments in Kakaako? Oahu is the most populated of all the Hawaiian Islands, and with increasing population growth, how will our island sustain all the people? Where is the voice to speak out against this? Will the voices come too late? With the latency between government decisions and active protesting, I'm inclined to say yes.

I question the consistency of the protests and consistency needs to come with a consistent presence in the current dealings of the “illegal” government. Illegal or not, the decisions made by them and the minority that votes happen without consent and they need to be questioned and challenged so that the islands have continued growth.

As I’ve written this, I’ve come back to the question of this, what does surviving and winning look like to Hawaii?

I don’t believe the all or nothing approach that has been taken is the way to go, and much of the reason I brought up the Asian cultures is because somehow, the past compromises with the future. Without the past, Hawaii loses its identity and what bonds it to other Pacific Island nations. The future will come, with our without the reverence for relics of the past, no matter how much we try to fight it. The voice of Hawaii needs to be present, and like the characters of myth: adaptable, clever, strong, and resilient.

Hawaiian culture looks to revere and honor tradition, and rightfully so. Many cultures look to do this respectfully, albeit differently. How do we honor the old gods in the modern world? Through oral traditions preserved in the continuous repetition, continued reverence towards sacred sites, and being everything that we can be. Isn’t it very possible that somewhere sacred in Hawaiian culture be revered in the present by giving it continued importance?

Two opposing ideologies can coexist and be both equally important and relevant and sacred. Science and tradition don’t have to exist exclusively of each other, even though it’s easier to believe in only one being right. It eliminates the need to actively engage in the situation and analyze the complexities. To be active participants in the current society, the voice of Hawaii needs to find itself and not let the minority continue to speak for it.

Hawaii is not just one place, but a chain of islands each with different identities and ghost stories and idiosyncrasies. I’ve talked about culture and its perpetuation, but even with tradition, languages, dances, and songs, they’re lifeless without one thing:

The people who celebrate it.

We are not Mauna Kea. We should not reduce the importance of the culture to a single place. Hawaii is under our feet and with the pidgin that we speak and the air that we breathe. The people of Hawaii need to have open and fair dialogue to both protect the traditions and continue the relevance and importance of the island chain. Without that, our old ways will become an quiet echo in the strong oral traditions that this culture celebrates.

We are not Mauna Kea. We are Hawaii and we need to start acting like it.