A bill prohibiting genetically modified taro in Maui County received final approval Friday by the Maui County Council.

The taro bill prohibits anyone from testing, propagating, growing or introducing genetically engineered or modified taro, or kalo, within Maui County. Council members voted 9-0 to approve the ban, saying they believed taro's cultural and spiritual significance to Native Hawaiians was more important than any other factor.

Mayor Charmaine Tavares said after the vote that she would support the ban.

"I will be signing the bill into law and recognize that the passage of this new law will send a message of support for state Representative Mele Carroll's efforts to introduce and pass a bill at the state Legislature," she said in an e-mailed statement.

An award-winning documentary about the "occupation" of Hawai'i will be shown at 7 p.m. Oct. 8 at the Paliku Theatre at Windward Community College.

"Noho Hewa: The Wrongful Occupation of Hawai'i" is free and open to the public.

Winner of the Hawaii International Film Festival's 2008 award for best documentary film, the 82-minute film offers an analysis about the connections between militarism, desecration and homelessness, and how these issues are related to Hawaiian sovereignty.

The film will be followed by a Q&A session with filmmaker Anne Keala Kelly.

The screening is sponsored by Ku Pono and the Ko'olaupoko Hawaiian Civic Club.

Donations will be accepted and a DVD of the film will be available for purchase.

The Office of Hawaiian Affairs will eliminate 28 of its 178 positions as part of a new strategic plan outlined yesterday.

The layoffs are expected to save OHA from $500,000 to $750,000 and are part of a shift to a more "results-based" strategy.

OHA plans to set specific goals, such as raising the level of Native Hawaiian incomes to meet or exceed non-Hawaiian incomes in the Islands.

The plan also calls for turning over OHA assets to a new Hawaiian government that could result from passage of the so-called Akaka bill in Congress, which would grant federal recognition to Native Hawaiians.

"That's fairly controversial," OHA administrator Clyde Namu'o said yesterday. OHA's trustees "see OHA as eventually going out of existence and being taken over, if you will, by this Native Hawaiian entity. ... That is a strong statement about how the trustees view the future for Native Hawaiians."

PRLog (Press Release) – Sep 03, 2009 – Othila Media Productions has announced that the documentary film "Hawaii A Voice For Sovereignty" is beginning a theatrical tour starting with special screenings at the Palace Theater in Hilo, on the Big Island Sat. Sept. 5th and Sun. Sept 6th. Following the screenings in Hilo the film will move to Waimea at the historic Waimea Theater, Kaua'i, Sept. 25th. More screenings will be announced throughout the Hawaiian Islands, the U.S., New Zealand, and Japan.

The documentary is an inspiring, and educational modern epic which takes us on a journey beginning with the takeover of Hawaii in 1893. The oral history, told by Native Hawaiians, reveals how Hawaiian culture, spirituality, and land rights continue to be threatened to this day.

Photojournalist and filmmaker Catherine Bauknight says “to be separated from their culture, land and spirituality could result in the extinction of a culture. These are extremely critical issues not only for the Hawaiians but for the entire global community as well. The Hawaiians want to get their message out to the world.”

In conjunction with Fat Ulu Productions, an organization dedicated to creating and strengthening communities through the literary arts (it recently produced a series of collaborative poetry performances), Kumu Kahua presents a collection of monologues, scenes and stories written by Hawaii playwrights, poets and storytellers. With the intention of presenting multiple perspectives on the issue of statehood in Hawaii – including political, historical and sociological – in early 2009 Kumu and Fat Ulu invited local writers to create short, personal expressions and reflections on any chosen aspect of statehood. These pieces were first read by the writers or actors to an audience, then revised by the writers and refined and organized by producers at Kumu. The result is a significant, and refreshingly different addition to both the commercial promotion and journalistic reportage that has been celebrating Hawaii's 50th anniversary of statehood.

Statehood for Hawaii was:

a) A tragedy.
b) A disaster.
c) An illegal act.
d) All of the above.

Those answers represent the range of perspectives found in "The Statehood Project," the Kumu Kahua/Fat Ulu Productions collaboration that opens the 2009-2010 season at Kumu Kahua. It consists of short works by 16 playwrights, authors and poets, and a 1974 vintage poem by the late Wayne Westlake.

The Westlake poem, written in response to the 15th anniversary of statehood, is performed several times in the show. The final lines sum up the show's general take on statehood: "It's raining/I feel like crying."

Sonny Kaniho was one of the giants in the modern Hawaiian rights movement who gained fame by quietly, and then not-so-quietly, protesting the failures of the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands to make land available to Native Hawaiians.

Life, Liberty, And The Pursuit Of The Perfect Wave: The Hawaiian Independence Movement Gains Momentum

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Hawaii's statehood, I went down to the beach at Waikiki and witnessed a lovely evening fireworks display. Only thing is, the fireworks didn't have anything to do with the anniversary -- it's something my hotel does every Friday night for the tourists. At least in Oahu, there wasn't much of anything else going on to commemorate the historic anniversary, either. A '50s nostalgia concert starring the Platters, the Coasters and the Drifters, or imitations thereof. A conference at the Hawaii Convention Center. A march and rally for Hawaiian independence.

Wait a minute, I said to myself as I read that last one in the Honolulu Advertiser. I thought Texas was the only state that wanted to secede from the Union. Why would Hawaii want out?
[...]
But the pieces started to fall into place when we went to 'Iolani Palace, built by King Kalakaua in 1882 when Hawaii -- the only state to have ever been a legitimate, globally recognized kingdom -- was still a sovereign nation. A decade later, his successor, Queen Lili'uokalani, was forced by an American-led faction to relinquish the monarchy and was placed under house arrest there. Restored to something approaching its 19th century glory in the late '70s, the palace is now a major tourist attraction -- and a gathering place for Hawaii's many independence groups. We weren't shocked by the unabashedly pro-royal tone of the palace's audio tour. After all, the royals are the place's big selling point. But the final audio segment, in which "Prince" David Kawananakoa (a descendant of the Hawaiian royal family) advocates Hawaiian sovereignty, made us prick up our ears.

It turns out that the independence movement isn't just a nutty gambit to avoid paying federal taxes, the way it is in Texas. The Hawaiians, especially those who can trace their ancestry back to the time when Captain James Cook "discovered" the islands, have some pretty legit grievances. ...

Hawaii demonstrators call for independence

Posted at 02:06 on 24 August, 2009 UTC

About 500 demonstrators have called for Hawaiian independence on the 50th anniversary of the state.

The protestors marched to the Hawaii Convention Center, where a statehood commemorative conference was being held.

Lynette Cruz, an organiser of the Hawaiian Independence Action Alliance, says supporters of full independence for Hawaii are a minority.

But she says the movement is growing as recent scholarship reveals more about the history of Hawaii.

“Because all of us know for a fact actually that there cannot be a state of Hawaii because there was never an annexation treaty between Hawaii and the United States, it just makes us realise quite clearly that what was going on was a kind of a fake celebration of a statehood that doesn’t really exist.”

Lynette Cruz says protests calling for native Hawaiian rights usually attract much bigger crowds, but she was pleased that those that took part in this demonstration were committed to the cause of independence.

So as our state celebrates its 50th anniversary this weekend, the fuss over Obama's birth certificate -- its authenticity and what it might be hiding -- has been kind of perplexing to me. The president's mother is American. His father is Kenyan. Is he an anomaly because he is of American and Hawaiian and Kenyan heritage? Exotic? Because he's from a state that isn't a state because we aren't on the mainland? Because he is from this provincial place that had been a state for only two years when he was born? For a few voices shouting loudly from the fringe, that has been enough reason to raise questions about whether he really is what he says he is.

Here, we have another question: Is Hawaii legally a state? Was the Kingdom of Hawai'i stolen? Some native Hawaiians say that, though Obama is American in the eyes of America, the real issue is that Hawaii is not a legitimate state in the union. We were a kingdom taken by force by the revolutionary Committee of Safety, which was backed by the U.S. Marines. Our queen was forced to abdicate her throne in 1893 to prevent bloodshed among her beloved subjects.

This makes Admission Day, as the statehood anniversary is sometimes known, more complicated. Robert Kanaka`ole Ebanez, one of the founders of the Hawaiian Independence Alliance, a sovereignty group, hasn't been in a mood to celebrate statehood. Ebanez believes that the bickering over the president's birth focuses on the wrong thing. To him, Obama is a legitimate Hawaiian citizen born after the "illegal overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii."

Sandra Reyes strolled across the empty grounds of 'Iolani Palace this week and fully understood why state officials are not marking 50 years of Hawai'i statehood today with any kind of celebration.

"I can see why they would be afraid," said Reyes, who lives in Makaha. "You have to understand the history of Hawai'i."

That sound you don't hear is the celebration of the 50th anniversary of statehood. Oh sure, they're having a conference at the Convention Center today, but it sounds suspiciously like one of those sustainability conferences they have every six months. A highlight of the all-day event is a job fair. That pretty much sums up where we find ourselves at this moment in time.

Anniversaries are good times for the media to sell advertising, kids to compete in poster contests and Reyn's to make a special shirt. For the rest of us just trying to get by, there is a feeling of ambivalence. Anybody throwing a big statehood party in their garage tonight? Anybody soaping "Happy Statehood" signs on their car windows? Anybody going to remember this day as a shining moment 50 years from now? Uh, no.

Today's Admission Day holiday is no cause for celebration, according to a crowd of Native Hawaiians and supporters who rallied Thursday afternoon by the State Building in Wailuku.

"Statehood is a fraud," Kahu Ken Ho'opai Jr. said into a hand-held megaphone as he spoke to passing motorists on High Street. "The truth needs to be exposed. We've been all lied to."

The rally on High Street took place on the eve of today's 50th anniversary of Hawaii statehood.

Another rally will be held from noon to 1 p.m. on Keolani Place approaching Kahului Airport.

Annexation forces bent on overthrowing Queen Lili'uokalani were meeting behind closed doors in offices at the corner of Merchant and Queen, Hina Kneubuhl anxiously told a gathering of listeners.

"They are accusing the queen of treason, and revolution!" she shouted. "And they are forming a committee for safety to formulate a plan of action!"

Kneubuhl was joined by "Legislator" Charles Timtim, who added, "It is insulting and outrageous that the very men — I won't say gentlemen — who promulgated the Bayonet Constitution by force, now have the audacity to call the queen treasonous!"

So went the first walk-through rehearsal of "Mai Poina" ("Don't Forget"), a living history presentation set for tomorrow, Thursday and Friday at 5, 5:30 and 6 p.m., starting in front of the Hawai'i State Library.

The free tours, presented by the Hawai'i Pono'i Coalition, give people a review of events surrounding the 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy from the arena where those events took place. Tour guides and role players in period costume enact the story at six tour stations around 'Iolani Palace.
[....]
Sammie Choy, "Mai Poina" director, considers the walking tours a counterpoint to the 50th Anniversary of Statehood celebrations taking place around the Islands.

"The person doing the introductions will say something about, 'We unapologetically present this tour from the perspective of those loyal to the Hawaiian nation and the queen. ... We want you to remember that Hawai'i was once an independent country with a strong identity,' " Choy said.

“The Rights of My People” examines the two battles for Hawaii’s sovereignty. Liliuokalani led them.

Author Neil Thomas Proto revisits the first battle – the 1893 coup d’état and annexation in 1898 – through a new perspective: the harsh remnants of the Civil War, the missionaries’ disquieting view of race, and the Renaissance and newly defined role of Hawaiian women.

Explored for the first time is the second battle: the fate of the Crown lands – a quarter of the Hawaiian Islands – taken in the 1893 coup d’état and contested aggressively by Liliuokalani through 1910.

For more than a decade, the queen took up residence in the nation’s capital, often for months at a time, to challenge the complicity of the United States in the media and before Congress. With reluctance, she turned to a court of law; many found this to be disquieting.

Through previously unexamined court records, correspondence, and graphic portrayals, “The Rights of My People” tells the story of Liliuokalani’s political, legal, and media maneuvering. She used her hard-earned wisdom and skill to lend credibility to her claim that the taking of the Crown lands by the United States was immoral and illegal.

The threat of execution and assassination and the continued use of religious and racial condescension and deception by her adversaries, old and new, unfold in Honolulu, Hilo, and onto the continent in San Francisco, Boston, and Washington, D.C.

Hawaii turns 50 years old as the 50th state Friday, but there will be no grand parades, no dazzling fireworks, no lavish displays of native culture.

Organizers of the observation are not even willing to call it a party. It is simply a "commemoration," one that is sensitive to a painful history of the Hawaiian monarchy's overthrow and unresolved claims of Native Hawaiians.

The main event is a low-key daylong conference reflecting on Hawaii's place in the world. Behind the tourist-friendly tropical images of beaches and sunshine, many remain uncomfortable with the U.S. takeover of the islands and the idea that businesses have exploited Hawaiians' culture.

"Instead of state government having huge parties and fireworks, we're having a convention," said Manu Boyd, cultural director for the Royal Hawaiian Center, a shopping and entertainment area in Waikiki. "That shows the strength and spiritual power of the Hawaiian people, whose shattered world has not yet been addressed."

When statehood came calling in 1959, it ushered in an era of economic prosperity through tourism and the side effects that came with it: resort high rises, more than 500,000 monthly tourists and an emphasis on hokey luaus rather than the authentic host culture.

Sovereignty groups advocating independence from the United States make up a minority, but many residents recognize the long-standing issues associated with the 1893 overthrow of the monarchy, the islands' annexation and past harms to the Native Hawaiian people.
[...]
Alaska, by contrast, which joined the union in January, 1959, embraced the 50th anniversary of statehood with concerts, fireworks displays, a prize-winning float in California's Rose Parade and observances throughout the state during the past 12 months. Among the festivities celebrated in a downtown Anchorage festival was the re-enactment of placing the 49th star on the American flag.

Here, even the low-key conference is drawing complaints. Hawaiian sovereignty groups are planning protests outside the convention center Friday, and some say the conference's topics are too focused on tourism, economic development and business opportunities.

One panelist, University of Hawaii Center for Hawaiian Studies professor Jonathan Osorio, said the conference should focus more on Hawaiian culture and history.

"It's a political cop-out because the state doesn't really want to address the legal or political nature of its claim to authority in Hawaii," Osorio said. "It's one of the reasons they have really muted its commemoration."
[...]
"This newfangled idea of celebrating statehood shows that people don't understand Hawaii's history, or if they do understand, then they're celebrating a lie, a theft, that essentially stole a people's right of self-determination," said Poka Laenui, a Hawaiian and attorney who has worked for independence for more than 30 years.

No jubilation felt in illegal statehood

The "Jubilee of Statehood," was supposed to be a humdinger of an event. But the mood had changed considerably since 1959, so the state's celebration commission decided to downplay the jubilant part of jubilee.

You see, over the last few decades Hawaiians became increasingly aware that there was something wrong with statehood. The more that was discovered about the shady circumstances that led to statehood, the more statehood looked like a massive con job. The people of Hawaii (and the world, for that matter) were hoodwinked.

The passage of the Apology Resolution in 1993 by Congress and signed by the president, had obvious implications: It confirmed that Hawaii was being unlawfully possessed by the U.S.; that the Kingdom of Hawaii never ceased to be; and that the people of Hawaii had the lawful right (indeed, patriotic duty) to restore their country.

The Republic of Hawaii was unlawful; the annexation of Hawaii by the U.S. was unlawful; the Territory of Hawaii was unlawful; and the State of Hawaii was and is unlawful.

This is radically different from Hawaii being the 50th state. The dilemma for the state is: celebrating the jubilee of a lie.

Oliver Dukelow
Kahakuloa Village, Maui

Amid official preparations for a 50th anniversary of statehood celebration–including the lei-bedecked arrival of the USS Hawaii, a $2.5 billion nuclear submarine billed by the Honolulu Star-Bulletin as “7,700 tons of aloha”–a counter movement is offering a different narrative of how, and why, Hawaii became part of the Union.

One leading spokesman of this movement is Dean Saranillio, a Maui native now at the University of Michigan whose dissertation is entitled Seeing Conquest: Colliding Histories and the Cultural Politics of Hawaii Statehood. He has been speaking in venues around the Islands this summer in an attempt to drum up discussion of competing narratives.

The mood was less festive but still heartfelt at 'Iolani Palace, where the Temple of Lono was hosting a gathering of Native Hawaiian leaders, cultural practitioners and others who find Independence Day a bittersweet occasion.

"While everybody is celebrating the Fourth of July, we are still not independent," said Hank Fergustrom.

The event started with what Fergustrom called a "lively" discussion about the Office of Hawaiian Affairs Kau Inoa initiative, the Akaka bill, and Hawaiian sovereignty in general. It continued with an afternoon screening of Catherine Bauknight's film "Hawai'i — A Voice for Sovereignty."

"In order to get on the same page, we have to talk about our differences," Fergustrom said. "It's difficult to say that we are going to be a people if we can't come to some sort of shared platform. There are very diverse opinions (about Hawaiian independence) but people were civil and courteous, which we needed to keep our dialogue intelligent and moving forward."

Fergustrom said he hopes that participants will "go back to their home teams to share what was discussed so we can have more fluid and focused discussions."