Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 13, Number 8, 1 August 1996 — The inherant right of sovereignty [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The inherant right of sovereignty

by Kīna'u Boyd Kamali'i Trustee-at-Large

Federal po!icy acknowledges that the native peo-

ples of what is now the United States enjoy certain special and unique rights not extended to other American citizens. In effect, this policy and the laws whieh implement it acknowledge that Native Americans - including native Hawaiians - have an identity, culture, and rights whieh are deeper, older and more profound than being Amenean. In a series of rulings spanning nearly 200 years of judicial review, the United States Supreme Court has consistent!y ruled that Native Americans must be

treated differently from other citizens. The basis for this difference is polkieal - Native Americans have lived in what is now the United States "since time immemoiial," before there was an American nation. Unlike other citizens who freely chose to become Americans, the native peoples of the United States were forced by acts of war and eonquest to become part of the Union. And our very existence and identity would be destroyed unless acknowledged and accommodated within the United States. Thus, in a country founded on the equal and fair treatment of eaeh citizen - regardless of race, color, or creed - certain special and unique political rights are recognized as just, fair, constitutional, and inherent in the native peop!es of the United States. The first of these unique and inherent rights is to exist as a people to be Hawaiians. Hawaiians were denied that right to exist for most of this century. We were forbidden by law and social pressure to speak our language, to dance the hula, to protect our ancestral graves, to gather from the streams and oeean, or to secure water for the lo'i. We were denied the right to simply "be Hawaiian." Such denials occurred because we no longer had control over the laws whieh governed us. We could not join with other Hawaiians to make certain choices

and decisions whieh would affirm, protect and assure our Hawaiian existence. Thus the right to exist is inseparable from the right of sovereignty, the right to exercise the powers of

government to shape and decide a shared future as a people with a shared culture. If Hawaiians are to be acknowledged as having an identity and rights that are different from other citizens, then how ean we be ruled by the same laws? More to the point, how ean we exist if the application of those laws are hostile to our culture? The inherent right of sovereignty is inborn. Like life itself, its source and origin is beyond human design and eon-

trol. However, again like life - what you do with it is an individual ehoiee of great power and consequence. Tradition held a deep belief in the unbroken family links between Hawaiians. These connections were repeated without end in the womb and the development of eaeh child as joining the past and the future. Ho'okahi nō māua ēwe. Literally translated, "We are of the same placenta." What we do with our lives as Hawaiians makes us answerable to the countless generations whieh preceded us, and the countless generations whieh will follow. This responsibility is great. And knowing its magnitude we are tempted to say, "l'm not ready. Lef s wait. I want to know more." But responsibility is a life-long process not a one-time decision. And the heart of that process is doing, maybe making mistakes, learning from your correct and wrong choices, and continuing. The Hawaiian Vote isn't a "Yes" or "No" to the right of sovereignty. The fact that you have a vote confirms that you're sovereign. The ehoiee is whether to take the next step, to elect delegates to formally begin defining the powers and privileges needed to assure a Hawaiian existence joining the past and the future. The ehoiee is ours.