The Honolulu Star-Advertiser ran an unusually strong editorial in its Sunday edition, taking on the TMT stalemate on Mauna Kea that has grown in to a more generalized rebellion with me-too civil disobedience demonstrations surrounding the latest wind farm in Kahuku and the park planned for Sherwood Forest in Waimanalo (“Editorial: Protest blockades can’t rule Hawaii“).
The editorial meanders through a recap of where we are after 100 days of the protest camp on the Mauna Kea access road. It acknowledges valid and longstanding grievances of Hawaiians. But….
For Hawaii as a whole, community engagement can be lacking, with both sides bearing some of the fault for being late to the conversation. But for Hawaiians in particular, a longstanding sense of grievance has fueled the protests. And the kia‘i have taken this occasion to draw a red line. No TMT deal, no way.
That may feel right, emotionally. But rarely in a democracy can that intransigence be allowed to stand — especially here, where every hurdle has been cleared.
That is, where every “legal” hurdle has been cleared.
And after chiding those who have emerged as leaders of the anti-TMT demonstrations for refusing to negotiate to end the standoff, the editorial calls for officials to end the encampment, saying the site “must be cleared.”
peaceful resistance, also known as civil disobedience, assumes the willingness of the resisters and the disobedient to accept the consequences that their actions bring. There have been very few consequences at the Mauna Kea Access Road, and even the encampment facilities have been allowed to remain and the barriers to harden.
Nevertheless, they must be cleared — a painful step the state must take lest Hawaii lose something with the potential benefit of a world-class telescope. The erosion of public support is evident, but that does not negate the immense promise of this project, its leaders having followed every procedural step the state laid out.
The editorial ends by pointing to the significant political gains already achieved by the TMT protests, up to and including the new “shared governance” for Mauna Kea that has been floated, but dating back to earlier revamping of the management of the astronomy district, agreement to decommission older telescopes, siting of the TMT to be visible only from certain angles, and avoiding interfering with traditional and customary activities, whether religious or cultural, etc.
I agree that the self-defined protectors of Mauna Kea need to dial back their inflexible position and look for additional creative reforms that could be negotiated for without demanding total rejection of TMT.
That inflexibility was evident in comments left here in response to a post in which I raised the issue of how we can work out differences given competing definitions of “sacred” in a diverse society like ours. Instead of positive suggestions of principles that might provide guidance in sorting out these difficult situations, it seemed like most of those who commented simply doubled down in support of their own positions without regard for how to resolve conflicts. I found that quite troubling.
There is a certain spiritual purity that comes from holding fast to an unyielding position based on high principle. It is, in many respects, what saints are known for. But it’s not the kind of position that allows for working out differences or governing a diverse community in the long run. And it’s not a path many regular people can travel down once principle demands personal suffering.
It seems to me there are times for direct confrontation and standing firm on principle. There is also a time for moving ahead to claim the fruits of victory, perhaps not all that was sought but significant victories nonetheless. The movement to stop the bombing of Kahoolawe started with several years of civil disobedience, along with the criminal prosecutions that followed. There were heroes that emerged from those civil disobedience actions. Their sacrifices certainly grew the movement and generated long-term public understanding and support. But civil disobedience ultimately had to be supplanted by efforts to harness that political support in order to achieve the legal and political victories that ultimately led to the end of the Navy’s bombing of the island, and its eventual return to the State of Hawaii. Simply standing firm was not enough to stop the bombing. It took a different kind of leadership to work the system and achieve the end of military use and the chance to rehabilitate the island. It seems to me that the movement to protect Mauna Kea also has to be prepared to shift gears and move beyond civil disobedience.
In that sense, I find myself in agreement with the Star-Advertiser’s editorial writers.
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At a Kahuku community meeting in 2014, I made a video testimony against Ka Makani Wind. My testimony was that our community already have enough windmills, it would affect our community in a negative way and the current windmills have not made our electricity bill’s any lower. Who is benefiting and who is funding these expensive projects? I also pointed out that windmills are dynamic, while solar is passive and we live in a very corrosive environment which will affect the maintenance of these windmills.
After my testimony I received numerous mailers over several years from Ka Makani Wind and each mailer had a DVD.
I side with my community and Waimanalo on having to go to these extreme acts to stop these projects from being stuffed down our throats.
Its apparent that the benefits to these contractors outweigh the communities opposition. That our representatives have not been able to represent the community.
I am also appalled by the amount of money just spent on modifying Kam Hwy to accommodate these huge windmills.
Like they say follow the money.
All I can say is these windmills will corrode like the 1980 windmills finally corroded near Turtle Bay.
Blow salty winds, blow
Good points. I agree.
This is where religious conflict goes. Mauna Kea is “sacred”, thus its one’s sacred duty to stop a telescope. Thus the compromise between Galileo and the Catholic inquisition was they wouldn’t burn him at the stake, he just had to abandon publishing the fact the earth rotates around the sun. While you are right that compromise is part of our system. At the root of compromise is our diversity, and allowing live and let live between people of different opinions. That ultimately is rooted in our democracy. What this really demonstrates is there is no consensus for a multicultural, diverse, democracy in Hawaii.
I should have said I agree about Mauna Kea. Sherwoods project needs to stop however. And it’s stoppable. Not conversant with situation with the windmills but they damned sure look looming, ugly, forbidding. Hawaii Nei, where you stay?
It is cheaper to build a new baseball field in Waimanalo than to fix what has been decaying for years. The construction of a baseball field in Waimanalo is exactly what the community out there wanted and advocated for years ago, but they forgot about it. As one person in Waimanalo said, “With all of Hawaii’s distractions, how can we be expected to keep up with community governance?”
This is the real issue. Discussion and debate. The bureaucracy and the construction industry plod ahead blindly with poorly conceived projects. We always went along with everything.
These rural communities turned out to be particularly conservative. They demand amenities, but then when construction begins, they freak out.
The job of politicians is to talk to people. But the response of the politicians has not been to engage with the public and remind them that the residents were the ones who set the machinery in motion. Instead, the politicians are sending in an army of cops. Weird.
The perspective never addressed is the inherent value and beauty in open space. Regardless if iwi, sacredness or other factors, open space has value and doesn’t need to be justified. Communities fight to keep open space because they feel the highest value of the land is keeping it as is.
Speaking of Me Too actions, that certainly explains Civil Beat’s similar but weaker-kneed chorus editorial today.
Not sure why you call it ‘unyielding’. The only acceptable outcome is building the telescope on Mauna Kea. Where’s the compromise? I only see a winner and a loser.
Seems the Hawaiians are the only ones who are expected to ‘compromise’, to sacrifice for the good of the greater whole. Too many broken promises already, too much sacrificing already. The people in Kahuku aren’t protesting for the sake of protesting. Maybe the people pushing more windmills should put them in their own back yards if there’s no noise or vibration.
The clear message here is Hawaiians don’t matter.
An international Forbes 200 Big Wind company comes to rural Kahuku with divide and conquer tactics, hundreds of police and promises of money for one family (an uknown “non profit”). A David and Goliath struggle, yet Star Advertiser gives us a plantation/house slave editorial. We need follow the money stories with facts.
AES
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4163722-aes-corporation-potential-power-king
In the 1980s, Waikiki started to become really generic, and by the 1990s, it was becoming ugly. The City installed cheap bulky street lamps painted brown because it was cost effective. One man in Waikiki kept writing letters to the editor and to politicians and speaking up at community meetings, saying that Waikiki is Hawaii’s economic driver, and the City is killing it. Everybody laughed at him. By the mid-1990s, there was a consensus that this guy was right. Mayor Harris went on his beautification spree.
Years later, the City held a community meeting on a transportation project. Not one community member at the meeting talked about the issue at hand. They would rant on about the Vietnam War or the Iraq War and American history. The City cancelled all the further community meetings it had planned. A weary-looking City functionary told a TV reporter that “We really wanted to have a discussion on the issue. But its impossible.”
So 99% of the time there is complacency. No, actually it’s not just passivity, its a kind of arrogant, smirking ignorance. Putting down people who ask questions or have a point to make. The other 1% of the time there is hysteria. Vandalism and outrageous lies about everything.
So can we empower real community-based planning? No. And the problem is not the authorities, it is us. The authorities did not impose this system, that is another one of the lies that we tell. This system reflects us.