Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 19, Number 3, 1 Malaki 2002 — History subverted [ARTICLE]

History subverted

The recent torrent of letters by revisionist Thurston Twigg-Smith, recent immigrant Ken Conklin and Pat Hanifin are beginning to smack of a concerted and collective attempt to again subvert recorded history. Steeped in the belief that white opportunists are virtuous promoters of progress, these usurpers circumvent the fact that the comfortable lives they enjoy today are predicated on the theft of Hawaiian property. President Grover Cleveland referred to the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawai'i in 1893 as an act of war initiated against a helpless, feeble and sovereign people by the the United States. Isn't it amazing that the Twigg-Smiths, Conklins and Hanifins never begin their deceptive theories from this premise? Twigg-Smith's self-styled conclusions are desperate attempts to justify the crimes committed against the Hawaiian Kingdom by his unele, Lorrin Thurston, and his band of conspirators. For example, TwiggSmith states, "The 1893 revolution (it was not) was a widely based uprising that gained support from every racial group, including native Hawaiians," when in fact, Noenoe Silva, doing research in the U.S. Congressional Archives, discovered boxes full of signatures on documents that verify that 90 percent of

Hawaiians opposed annexation. In 1887, the Reverend William 01eson, a missionary, wrote, "The Hawaiian people have not yet thrown off the heavy hand of heredity and superstition (heredity meaning culture and superstition meaning religion). The race is not yet strong enough. They must have help for the stronger races." As he was white, one ean only assume that he meant the white race. The self-righteous pomposity of that statement fuels the "mind set" of white supremists today! As a result of the Spanish-American war, during whieh the Spanish controlled the Philippines, the U.S. realized that its westem flank was exposed to invasion and was desperate to gain a strategic foothold in the Pacific to protect its westem seaboard. Henee, the duplicitous scheme to overthrow, annex and blatantly steal the Hawaiian Islands, all illegal under the the U.S. Constitutional and international laws. As a result of the events of Sept. 11, it is more evident today that America must purge itself of past injustices or risk being condemned as a suppressor of human rights by millions of its own citizens. Rod Ferreira Kamueia

| Leka Kalele |