Native Sovereignity

[Icy]

Okay I havent posted a topic in this section since its founding.. and ya'll are embarassing at times. Play devils advocate from time to time damn it, and if that's happening then I'm glad. Anyway because of Sakura/Jason's post in the "What would you do if you were president" thread which I'm refraining from posting in for personal reasons, made me want to at least have this somewhere and whatever. The post excerpt is thus:

 

Address the Hawaiian sovereignty issue (this is something that probably only Icy or I will have any knowledge of). While probably at the bottom of list of things to do, it will be given an appropriate look and things can be worked out.

1. Brief summary: Some still believe the 1893 overthrow of our last queen by white businessmen from the US was illegal, and that Hawai'i has been illegally occupied since then (including statehood). Ideas have been pitched to give them the right to form their own government within the state (similar to native Americans), but there is opposition to that idea. [To be fair, a lot of Hawaiians think it is a bad idea, and we do stand to lose a lot more than gain]
2. If it hasn't already been said, I am not native Hawaiian, but I've lived here my entire life (and hear about it every so often).

 

 

Yes I have great knowledge of this topic in no small part I'm sure because I'm very VERY native Hawaiian. I have a personal investment into this topic by default, even if I have a different stance to it. And on the record, I think that while the move to make Hawaii a territory a pretty dick move, I think its wound up for the better. 

 

Jason mentions the topic of Native Populations gaining autonomy in sub-nations of sorts. Sovereignty. But aside from "he said she said this is mine", I pose these questions:

• How practical is this even in the modern age?
• Is a culture/religion/people of a specific bloodline truly better off gaining autonomy from their mother state?
• When gaining sovereignty how feasible would it be to care for ones new nation? 
• Are some cultures more prepared than others?
• Would you be able to give up your entire way of life just to "get back whats ours"?
• Take where you live, picture it gaining autonomy from the rest of your country/state. Would you be able to live with having to rebuild infrastructure?

etc

 

These are the things I worry about if the Sovereignty Movement wins. But it also sets precedent for similar areas if it does, no matter how small the native population in first world countries. So its an important worldwide issue to consider these things if it were to happen to you. Your world resets for better or for worst.

 

Weigh in on not only what you feel owed but the future you've been already given. 

 

[Resident Fascist]

I mean, if a native population got occupied by a superior power in the first place, is it even able to be independent?

[Dad]

I mean, if a native population got occupied by a superior power in the first place, is it even able to be independent?

 

Quoting US history I see.

[Resident Fascist]

Quoting US history I see.

 

I mean the basic law of the world is that the strong rule. It's not particularly just or good, but it's the nature of the world. The more time advances, the closer many things in the universe get to disorderly uniformity, and the borders of the world probably are the same. 1000 or so years ago, there were many more smaller city and nation states vying for control of their local region. Germany is an example of a particularly powerful one (Prussia) absorbing it's neighbours and becoming a much more powerful whole. It's not just in Europe and the Americas, Japan had a similar period of nation states in control of localised regions. While I don't like Globalism and the idea of forsaking all national borders is ridiculous, history is filled with stronger nations taking over others by force. I mean, it's not exactly correct nor morally acceptable to do so in today's age, but the question remains that over time, through force or other means, superstates like the US and Soviet Union are bound to result. As for Hawaii and it's sovereignty, I see no real reason for Hawaii to seek sovereignty from the US other than to get sovereignty from the US. It serves very little actual purpose and weakens Hawaii as a whole, while affecting the US very little.

 

 The US respects Hawaii's culture from what I can assume, while it may be Americanised somewhat. Who cares if the original occupation was legal or not if it benefits Hawaii in the current day?

[~ P O L A R I S ~]

I'm wary of any rule by ethnicity, but given the US' foundation of genociding Native Americans and proceeding to basically rule by ethnicity from 1776-2008, some conscientious concessions with that in mind would be refreshing. 

[Flash Flyer - Sakura]

I mean the basic law of the world is that the strong rule. It's not particularly just or good, but it's the nature of the world. The more time advances, the closer many things in the universe get to disorderly uniformity, and the borders of the world probably are the same. 1000 or so years ago, there were many more smaller city and nation states vying for control of their local region. Germany is an example of a particularly powerful one (Prussia) absorbing it's neighbours and becoming a much more powerful whole. It's not just in Europe and the Americas, Japan had a similar period of nation states in control of localised regions. While I don't like Globalism and the idea of forsaking all national borders is ridiculous, history is filled with stronger nations taking over others by force. I mean, it's not exactly correct nor morally acceptable to do so in today's age, but the question remains that over time, through force or other means, superstates like the US and Soviet Union are bound to result. As for Hawaii and it's sovereignty, I see no real reason for Hawaii to seek sovereignty from the US other than to get sovereignty from the US. It serves very little actual purpose and weakens Hawaii as a whole, while affecting the US very little.

 

 The US respects Hawaii's culture from what I can assume, while it may be Americanised somewhat. Who cares if the original occupation was legal or not if it benefits Hawaii in the current day?

 

For the most part, the US does respect Hawaiian culture (well, if they didn't, the California Hotel in Vegas wouldn't be working right now, because the theme of it is Hawaiʻi). If they didn't, then stuff like Lilo & Stitch wouldn't exist (and likely Moana; not Hawaiian, but Pacific Island cultures in general).

 

Most people here are respectful about our culture, well, take into consideration Sun & Moon's location is literally our island chain and uses words from our language (which you all should be able to pronounce without issues, bar for maybe words like "Kiawe" and "wela" which have the "w" sound pronounced like a "V" (even Hawaiʻi has this change when pronounced natively). [someone did make a joke about the word "melemele" here a while back though...]

 

===

Back then though (well, early territorial days after the takeover), the US/white government at the time tried to suppress it (i.e. Forbade the usage of Hawaiian in schools, made people convert to Christianity [if I remember history lessons from the mid-1800s up until the 1900s or so]).

 

There are probably some nowadays who disrespect the native religion (which I'll avoid talking about because it's complex in its own right; along the lines of denial that the gods are false (and things correlated to rituals)). If you guys want to know more about this, I can try to write a quick blog about it based on my Hawaiian religion notes from this semester. 

 

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To understand why native Hawaiians (or at least some of them are adamant about this issue), you need to understand what happened back in the late 1700s and spanning into the 1800s (well, probably after 1819 after the ʻaikapu system was abolished [the old Hawaiian religion mentioned above]). I'm not going to give you guys a full history lesson, but after this time, Hawaiʻi began to "westernize". 1848 was when the Great Māhele came about, which effectively stripped native Hawaiians of land (well, land use rights anyway). 1887 had the Bayonet Constitution which Kalākaua was forced to sign under threat, which took away power from the kingdom to appoint its own government and left it in the hands of mostly whites (the Hawaiian League). Queen Liliʻuokalani wanted to restore rights to native Hawaiians after ascending the throne, but then got overthrown on January 17th. 

 

(Basically, 1848, native Hawaiians lose their original system of land distribution and over a period of 40+ years, a series of reforms cause whites to gain more power and ultimately force the queen to surrender [or face casualties]. There was a counterrebellion to try and restore the monarchy, but it failed.)

 

As I mentioned in the quoted part of that post Icy has in the OP, this is what activists believe in. While I know why they're trying to do this (partly on me having grown up here and having to learn about these issues in the educational system [and partly because I took a Hawaiian studies course for college two years ago]), my personal feelings (as an Asian-American born/raised here) on the matter is that dropping out of the United States will NOT be good for us. 

 

One of our former senators, Dan Akaka, tried to do something about this issue, but people didn't like it much so it never went through. 

 

----

Granted, there still exist areas where the native culture is untouched by modern civilization (some of you may recall the article about North Sentinel Island near India a while back), but for countries who already got colonized / annexed, it's going to be very difficult if not impossible to completely isolate themselves and return to native traditions. Going on about Hawaiian religion, it is still practiced to this day, although not to the same extremes as it was in the past. 

 

If you do get sovereignty, you need to be able to manage political affairs accordingly and make sure things actually pan out in the long run. 

----

 

I didn't expect to write this much, but yeah, now you know some background behind what happened, how it led up to the overthrow and why we have activists here who still push for it. As I mentioned too, there are native Hawaiians who oppose this (so it isn't a unified consensus on what to do). Activists are so far in the minority, but the overthrow is still an issue here (it gets remembered every year). 

 

(If you all noticed how I am writing Hawaiʻi instead of Hawaii, it is due to it being how it is written in the native language [however both forms are accepted in common use]. Same goes for the use of ʻokina and kahakō/macron; again, due to how they're written [and partly on me having to write Hawaiian words properly for academia])

[Halubaris Maphotika]

Okay I havent posted a topic in this section since its founding.. and ya'll are embarassing at times. Play devils advocate from time to time damn it, and if that's happening then I'm glad. Anyway because of Sakura/Jason's post in the "What would you do if you were president" thread which I'm refraining from posting in for personal reasons, made me want to at least have this somewhere and whatever. The post excerpt is thus:

 

 

Yes I have great knowledge of this topic in no small part I'm sure because I'm very VERY native Hawaiian. I have a personal investment into this topic by default, even if I have a different stance to it. And on the record, I think that while the move to make Hawaii a territory a pretty dick move, I think its wound up for the better. 

 

Jason mentions the topic of Native Populations gaining autonomy in sub-nations of sorts. Sovereignty. But aside from "he said she said this is mine", I pose these questions:

• How practical is this even in the modern age?
• Is a culture/religion/people of a specific bloodline truly better off gaining autonomy from their mother state?
• When gaining sovereignty how feasible would it be to care for ones new nation? 
• Are some cultures more prepared than others?
• Would you be able to give up your entire way of life just to "get back whats ours"?
• Take where you live, picture it gaining autonomy from the rest of your country/state. Would you be able to live with having to rebuild infrastructure?

etc

 

These are the things I worry about if the Sovereignty Movement wins. But it also sets precedent for similar areas if it does, no matter how small the native population in first world countries. So its an important worldwide issue to consider these things if it were to happen to you. Your world resets for better or for worst.

 

Weigh in on not only what you feel owed but the future you've been already given. 

It's very practical and actually is still being used. China and Hong Kong have a similar type of structure. Honk Kong is still part of China, but has a separate government from China and has a more Capitalistic economic system.