The Value of Hawaii 2: Ancestral Roots, Oceanic Visions

Defending Hawai‘i Without Machine Guns

ALOHA HALEY KAILIEHU DEFENDING HAWAI‘I WITHOUT MACHINE GUNS jAMES KOSHIBA We love Hawai‘i. The signs of that love are smoothed over the rear windows of our trucks and cars—“Maui Built,” “Moku Nui,” “HI Life”; all declare our island pride. Like all loves, however, this one can tip toward fear and anger when the things we treasure appear threatened. Debates over what’s best for Hawai‘i—wind, geothermal, urbanization, the Superferry, and more—thus devolve into open combat, fracturing our otherwise tight-knit communities. Even our bumper stickers evince this tension, urging us to “Live Aloha” while pledging to “Defend Hawai‘i”—with a machine gun. Some might say that public discourse in Hawai‘i is no more polarized, or even polite, compared to other states. Yet this raises the question of whether an island people, so closely connected and interdependent, can afford to adopt a continental style of civic debate. One thing is certain: the number of conflicts and their urgency will only increase in the years ahead. Precious natural resources will become more precious under the strain of population growth; government budgets will be stretched thin as obligations to retirees come due; the things we love about Hawai‘i will continue to be under pressure , from inside and out. As these pressures mount, we would benefit from a new way of fighting for what we believe in. We could use a new kind of activism that accounts for the unique dimensions of island living and honors island values of humility , aloha, and kuleana. We need a way of fighting over the things we love, over Hawai‘i, that holds space for both peace and justice once the fighting is done. But what would such an island-style activism look like in practice? AN EXAMPLE OF ISLAND ACTIVISM I was wrestling with this question a few years ago, when I was invited to participate in an “Environmental Justice Tour” of the Wai‘anae Coast of O‘ahu organized by the advocacy organization KAHEA. The tour took us to 292 ISLAND-STYLE ACTIVISM landfills, power plants, waste spills, and illegal dumps scattered from Nänäkuli to Ka‘ena Point. Following the tour, we sat with a group of küpuna, the Concerned Elders of Wai‘anae, each one an accomplished activist and community leader, for an intimate discussion. I wanted to ask for their thoughts on island-style activism , but I didn’t have the words at the time. Instead, I asked, “How do you get people to join you in your activism, particularly your non-activist neighbors , family, and friends?” Each kupuna offered sound advice, but one, Auntie Alice Greenwood, shared a powerful story. The year before, Alice had been homeless, living on the beach and caring for her hänai son. There were many challenges living on the beach, but Alice found one aspect of houseless life especially painful: each day, she saw young children playing unsupervised in the filthy beach park bathrooms. Now, a typical beach park restroom on O‘ahu is already a dicey affair. Imagine the filth of a restroom serving beach-goers and a community of several hundred homeless residents. Alice agonized over what to do. Should she tell parents to keep their keiki out of the bathrooms? Or chastise those who dirtied the bathroom? (It tended to be a known handful of people.) She decided to do neither. Instead, without fanfare, she committed to wake every morning at dawn, and clean the bathroom herself, top to bottom. When her neighbors on the beach realized what she was doing, they thought she was crazy, and politely told her so. “Alice, no sense—the bathroom going be all pilau by lunchtime.” “Alice, you one kupuna. Let somebody else do ’um.” Each time, her response was the same: “I have to do this. Kids play in here sometimes.” After a few weeks of cleaning every day, some of Alice’s homeless neighbors offered to pitch in: “Take a break today, Alice. I got it.” Still there were the cynics, “You guys cannot last.” After a month, a shift system had emerged, with people rotating cleaning duties. Even the hardest cynics took turns standing outside the bathroom, hosing off people’s feet before they entered the bathroom, reminding them, “We gotta keep this place clean. Kids play in here sometimes.” Without any resources or authority—indeed, without demanding anything of others...