Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 19, Number 9, 1 Kepakemapa 2002 — Lingle's spin [ARTICLE]

Lingle's spin

Received Lingle's booklet the other day: True to a politician's nature, Lingle puts a spin on an important historical event of the Hawaiian Kingdom. Following the restoration of the Hawaiian Sovereign Kingdom after a short-lived British takeOTer on July 31, 1843, King Kamehameha IH said, "Ua mau ke ea o ka 'āina i ka pono"; The sovereignty of the land ispreserved in Justice." Lingle, following the foreigner's tradition of appropriating things Hawaiian and using it for one's own ends, uses these revered words in her booklet, trivializes them, claiming they actually mean "...trust and integrity is lacking in Hawai'i, so let's get rid of the corrupt politicians, and who better than me to take their plaee?!" The booklet claims the motto means to restore trust in American government, but of course it was a commemoration and celebration of the restoration of the Hawaiian sovereign govemment! How ironic the state motto eelebrated a moment of reinforcing and celebrating the independence and sovereignty of the Hawaiian Kingdom, now it's the "state" motto, and now, a politician wallowing in the very muek of the kind of government and system Kamehameha tried to protect the islands from, appropriates his words for her own ends . Have we no regard towards the intellectual property of a culture? Additionally, upon seeing Cayetano going over her "plan", she cries foul, and runs to the "ethics commission". What a mess, thatthis reprehensible situation even exists and that this system requires a commission on ethics! And one wonders why there's such low voter turnout! Allen St. }ames Honolulu