Ka Leo O Hawaii

File Photo * Ka Leo O Hawai'i Joey Salazar marches and chants along with protestors in Janurary's 110 year aniversary of the overthrow of the Hawaiian Monarchy. [Click to enlarge]

Nothing gets people bent out of shape like a "Racial Issue." Nothing else so easily gets the blood pumping, plays so instinctively on our raw nerves, or is so guaranteed to instantly divide everyone into a thousand different camps. The stark and somewhat sad irony in all this is that these issues are usually initially intended to help bring people closer together.

The latest bid for the Akaka Bill — the bill for federal recognition of Native Hawaiians as an indigenous people — has been no different. Anyone even mildly associated with this complicated issue seems to have a different, but equally passionate perspective. Under this dynamic storm of established opinion, things look pretty bleak for the individual trying to come up with an insightful and reasonably objective judgment. But what the hell, I'll take a shot.

Under the Native Hawaiian Recognition Bill, Hawaiians would have U.S. sanctioned rights to form their own government, their own laws, and perhaps most importantly, the bill would "prevent the sale, disposition, lease, or encumbrance of lands, interests in lands, or other assets of the Native Hawaiian governing entity without the consent of the Native Hawaiian governing entity." After 110 years, Hawaiian lands would finally be back in Hawaiian hands — at least partially.

So far so good. In light of how Hawaiians lost the right to self-determination in the first place, there's not much to topple the claim that it should be reinstated (setting Thurston and his ilk aside for the moment). From here, it should just be a simple matter of pushing the initiative through to help settle up old debts, right?

No such luck. Despite its seemingly good intentions, various parties have voiced several misgivings about the bill (and we'll do this keeping column length limitations in mind):

• The trivial - Critics like Kenneth Conklin claim that though Sen. Daniel Akaka is fronting the bill, it was actually Sen. Daniel Inouye that engineered its creation. Relevant criticism of the bill's quality? Of course not.

• The ridiculous - Thurston Twigg-Smith is a haole that, whether he likes it or not, has benefited directly and substantially from the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom. Asking him how reparations should be made is like asking a criminal to decide his own sentence, so it should surprise no one that he has claimed, "Full pardon."

• The naive - Overzealous Hawaiian nationalists declare federal recognition unnecessary. They claim that since it would be an American law, it has no bearing on Hawaiians anyway. Well, those are definitely nice sentiments and noble ideals, but ... Reality Check: There was a conflict in 1893. Hawaiians lost. Game over. Today, it's a different game the Hawaiians have to play, and those who refuse to accept the reality of the present situation will never be able to adequately fight for future reform.

Then there are issues that are worth a closer look.

First, there are the immediate financial repercussions of the bill. In 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in Rice v. Cayetano that it would be unconstitutional to allow the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) to have a "Hawaiian-only" suffrage limitation.

They were right. The key is that OHA is a state agency, and therefore in an all-American arena. In that arena, any "Hawaiian-only" vote would indeed be an unconstitutionally racist distinction.

That decision paved the way for constitutional attack on all federally funded "Hawaiian-only" programs, including nearly 30 entitlement programs dealing with such areas as health care and education.

If Native Hawaiians are not officially acknowledged as being an indigenous people, "Hawaiian" will remain merely a racial distinction and deserves no special privileges. This results in all their entitlement programs being in jeopardy, including a recent push to grant Native Hawaiians tuition waivers at UH.

But if federal recognition can be secured, "Hawaiian" will suddenly become a political designation, such as "Navajo," or "Inuit," or "American." Naturally, the bill's strongest supporters have been these federally-dependent Hawaiian offices, as their continued services may ultimately hinge on federal recognition. For this reason, OHA recently voted unanimously to support the Akaka Bill.

Do Hawaiians deserve special privileges? Well, do the Indians and Alaskans? They also saw their homelands completely swallowed up and forced to become "American." They too owe their presently impoverished status to the criminal conquests of yesterday's America. The U.S. has acknowledged its past crimes of humanity and given special political status to over 550 groups of indigenous people as one way of making reparations. Are Hawaiians any different in these respects? Obviously not.

There are concerns about the potentially negative outcomes of the bill, such as the possibility that it would undermine the eventual goal of a fully sovereign Hawaiian nation (though this seems to be an unfounded worry). But perhaps the biggest concern about the bill is the question of its Hawaiian authenticity.

To be a true Hawaiian initiative, one would naturally conclude that Hawaiians must have agreed on this bill through a vote or at least widely spread public hearings. Yet this has never been done. Limited public hearings were held in late 2000, but only on the island of O'ahu and only for the original draft of the bill.

According to UH Political Science and former Hawaiian language professor Noenoe Silva, further measures have never been taken to determine whether Hawaiians genuinely support this bill or not. If they do, who and how many? As Hawaiian UH student Joey Salazar put it, "Nobody's asking us."

There certainly are diverse opinions within the Hawaiian community itself. Noelani Lopez, a Hawaiian KCC student, said that if given the option of Hawaiian sovereignty, "I would stay American because job-wise, income-wise, there would be more opportunity and also military protection. I just think that they [the Native Hawaiians] would want to live the way that old Hawaiians lived, but because I was raised the American way it would be hard for me to adapt."

And then there are those Native Hawaiians who express even more overt pride in being Americans, such as many who have served in the military. It is this diversity of opinion that the Akaka Bill promoters do not take into account because, simply enough, they have never asked.

The drafters of the bill were some 20 prominent Hawaiians handpicked by Sen. Daniel Akaka. Their blessing does not represent Hawaiians as a whole. The governor and senators themselves are state representatives elected by the whole state and therefore also not automatically qualified to represent specifically Native Hawaiian interests without a vote of approval.

Silva asked, "If Hawaiians aren't allowed to vote as a group on their own political status, how do we know that Hawaiians want this political status, and how legitimate is it for them to change it?" As mentioned above, though OHA voted unanimously to support the bill, Silva says, "OHA was designed to administer funds designated for Hawaiians. The trustees were elected to administer those funds, not to represent the views of Hawaiians on their political status or on sovereignty."

Raising the issue of plenary power, Silva asked further, "Do Hawaiians understand the history of Indian defraudment and should we, in light of that mismanagement, transfer Hawaiian land to the authority of the Department of the Interior?"

Though the authenticity of its Hawaiian support is in question, some feel that the Akaka Bill is at least a step in the right direction. From the Center for Hawaiian Studies, Dr. Haunani-Kay Trask stated that she supported the bill. "It's not as good as it could be, but it's better than nothing. We have less than nothing right now."

Hawaiians absolutely have a legitimate grievance with the United States government, and ample precedent has been set for the U.S. to make amends, including a written commitment to do so in the U.S. Apology Resolution of 1993. However, to ever serve any real sense of justice, Hawaiians must be allowed, as a group, to articulate and negotiate their own terms for self-determination and self-governance, otherwise you might as well scratch out the "self" part.

The biggest challenge faced by Native Hawaiian activists now is their lack of clear organization and leadership. Pushing for a sweeping change on this scale is going to take unity more than anything else. Promoting public awareness is always a productive goal, but it won't provide the kind of political spearhead needed here. While the Akaka Bill is not the perfect implementation of a reparations plan, without a focused Hawaiian front, it may be the only high-level implementation they ever get.

At least it may help them get started by creating a self-chosen government that would be the Hawaiians most powerful negotiation device yet.

However for now, all the questions may be moot. Trask offered this prediction, "I don't think the bill will pass because the country, Congress, and president are in an extremely reactionary, anti-native mode. We are not now at the right political moment."

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