Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 33, Number 1, 1 Ianuali 2016 — Weleome To The Hawaiian Reality Show [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Weleome To The Hawaiian Reality Show

What a year we left behind. The two big stories of Mauna Kea

\/ \/ and the Na'i V V Aupuni eleehon dominated all the Hawai'i media platforms as Hawaiians continue to face off against eaeh other. I consider the Na'i Aupuni battle pitting Hawaiian against Hawaiian as a strategic and pivotal political engagement between those who support federal recognition and those who identify themselves as Hawaiian Nationals who do not recognize the authority of the federal or state governments. For them, Hawai'i is an illeaally

occupied nahon. For them, Na'i Aupuni is a plot of OHA and the State to stage a rigged constitutional convention to support federal recognition and petition for "tribe" status as Native Americans under U.S. Law. Then there is the matter of Mauna Kea. The fight between Hawaiians on this issue is more interesting because the protectors, by expertly managing social and mainstream media, have captured the high ground and have been successful in creating the impression that all Hawaiians are opposed to the Thirty Meter Telescope. The reality is that Hawaiians who support the TMT and the search for knowledge and access to our ancestral past, have been passive about speaking out, not wishing to engage the

media circus created by this science versus culture mischaracterization of the issue. This is actually a profound clash

between two Hawaiian belief systems for whieh there is no eommon ground. What Mauna Kea and Na'i Aupuni have in eommon is that they have both heeome real-time reality shows with high entertainment value for the non-Hawaiian puhlie watching us Hawaiians beef it out on the national stage. So 2015 ends the first episode in dramatic fashion with the U.S. Supreme Court putting a temporary halt on Na'i Aupuni and the Hawai'i State Supreme Court

doing the same with Mauna Kea. What strikes me as so sad about all of this is that we Hawaiians have never fought with anyone but ourselves. And some of us do it with such hate, anger, and disrespect that we heeome unrecognizable as Hawaiians. People will criticize me that by pointing this out I heeome part of the problemrather than the solution. Perhaps there's no solution - there is only the reality and the show must go on. But what keeps me going day to day is the belief that there is a solution. That solution is aloha. If we ean remember aloha is in our DNA, nurture it and practice it every day, we will find a way. And this reality show will get cancelled. ■

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