I was searching for information about the Honolulu Police Department’s use of reserve officers, often retired HPD officers, who volunteer to serve at least 20 hours per month.
Along the way, I tripped over an online exchange posted in 2021 that included this statement. This comment, submitted in resonse to someone seeking information about becoming a volunteer police officer in Honolulu, raises an entirely different issue.
There is a significant part of the population there that chooses not to recognize the city and county of Honolulu, the state of Hawaii, or the U.S. government- they only recognize the defunct Kingdom of Hawaii. They will view you as a foreign occupation force and the direct cause of all of their life’s problems, and they will want to take it out on you personally. If you don’t speak pidgin, you may not even recognize the danger until several pickup loads of angry mokes show up to physically confront you.
Do you think it is correct to say that “a significant part” of the population no longer believes in the legitimacy of our basic structures of lcoal, state, and national government? Is that a factor on the west side today?
I’m one of those who does not believe sovereignty or the restoration of the kingdom is coming any time soon. If that’s true, how big a problem does the “fake state” attitude create in the meantime? What are the spill-over effects? Does it make governance and law enforcement more difficult?
Share your thoughts, please.
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I do not think a significant part of the population supports this, just a very vocal part. It does indeed create problems, maybe even (in some minds) justifies bad behavior. I’ve done some deep study on the topic. Inspired by a long time friend and non-profit business association who (in 2015) decided David Sai was right. This prompted me to look into the issue. I came across the Grassroots Institutes “Hawaii Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand” and a wonderful HPR interview with David Forbes (Hawai’i’s Story/The Queens Story). It is extremely clear that, in point of fact, this issue is cloudy but we are still a State within the USA at large.
I agree. David Sai convinced some folks that they were not subject to State and common law with respect to real property titles because the Hawaiian Kingdom laws still applied. Created a lot of pilikia for a lot of people. Here is link to Star-Bulletin article: https://archives.starbulletin.com/1999/12/02/news/story2.html
It’s a really good demonstration of how each one of us lives in a bubble. A “significant part” of that person’s bubble does not recognize US govt. A lot of people live in a bubble with no Trump supporters, and a lot live in a bubble with no Harris supporters.
Perfect comment.
That online comment sounds like an older person (moke is old school) that spent little or no time in Hawaii.
No I do not surmise that a large part so believes, however the significance of such believers may become amplified in many ways.
What stands out strongest to me in the quoted post: I hear a racist dog whistle loud and clear in use of the term “mokes”. I haven’t directly heard that term in decades but it brings the past back into view. I watched agemates use warnings like this one to transmit their racist rhetoric to newby colleagues who “don’t speak pidgin.” This has carried forward the legacy that protects white privilege.
This isn’t a phenomenon limited to Hawaii. So-called ‘sovereign citizens’ across the mainland follow similar beliefs, just lacking the ‘citizen of the Kingdom of Hawaii’ excuse. They will claim that courts don’t have jurisdiction over them, neither do the cops. They adapt a weird way of talking and writing so as not to ‘incriminate’ themselves. The best example I can think of is not using their name in court filings. Lawyers love them and by ‘love’ I mean ‘hate.’ A quick google search of ‘sovereign citizen’ will give you more info than you care to see.
I’ve always wondered which came first, sovereign citizens or citizens of the Kingdom of Hawaii. As mentioned in other comments, Sai bears tremendous responsibility for ‘Kingdom of Hawaii’ scam. Not sure what happened to his former partner, Don Lewis, once highly respected realtor in Hawaii. Both leveraged their education, experience, and perhaps most of all, their Hawaiian ancestry to gain followers.
Regardless of which came first, sovereign citizens and Hawaiian Kingdom citizens share many traits, chief among those, disaffectedness and lack of education.
Yes, I agree that this is part of a much larger “mindset” of divisiveness throughout the nation and maybe the entire world. I could be wrong but it seems much of the Hawai’i part began around the time of the “Apology Resolution” which is discussed in Grassroots Institute’s -Hawai’i Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand.
Cast your mind back to the protests over astronomy and TMT on Maunakea, Gov. Ige was in office and Josh Green was the Lt. Governor. The protesters, now identified as the Kia?i, attested that they lived in a “Fake State” and the Hawaiian Kingdom was at hand under the guidance of UH Professor Williamson B.C. Chang. I don’t think this is a noisy minority, it’s alive, thriving at UHM in the Richardson Law School and the Hawaiian Studies Department. It is rumored there are at least four claims to the throne; and all the “different” car license plates, not to mention the new Hawaiian flag. The law school encourages students to consider a new social structure for all who don’t have the blood of Kanaka Maoli, even those who have been here for generations. They consider themselves to be professionals, educators. Have they managed to clear the tarps off Maunakea or are they still littering the ecosystem? If not then it would seem that the influence is greater than the average resident realizes.
Ian, thank you for continuing your probe into this topic. To show that this topic is very much under current discussion, here’s the announcement of a duo of panel discussions at UH law school a few weeks ago, with a link to a YouTube video of the whole event (3 hours and 28 minutes!). After that are a few webpages featuring “dialogs” between some panelists and myself, and also a link to letters sent in September 2024 from panelist Keanu Sai (in his capacity as acting head of the Kingdom of Hawaii) to local U.S. military officers warning them that they are subject to arrest on charges of war crimes due to failure to set up a martial law government to administer the ongoing illegal U.S. occupation of Hawaii.
Richardson Law School Alumni Association, September 12, 2024
Two panel discussions: (1) Has Statehood Benefited Native Hawaiians?; (2) Which Direction for Hawaiian Sovereignty?
3 hrs 28 minutes YouTube video
https://youtu.be/hoJ0cPyRyA0
Original announcement of the event. Notice who the panelists and moderators are.
JOIN THE RICHARDSON LAW SCHOOL ALUMNI ASSOCIATION FOR A PROVOCATIVE TWO-PANEL FORUM ON NATIVE HAWAIIAN ISSUES:
PANEL I — HAS STATEHOOD BENEFITTED THE HAWAIIAN PEOPLE (THE KANAKA MA`OLI)?
Moderator: Professor Williamson B.C. Chang
Panelists: Samuel W. King, II, Robert “Rob” Burns, Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu
** Conklin comment: A main issue is that NatHwns are indisputably better off under Statehood as measured by tremendous increases in population and wealth (Sam King charts) vs. NH are horribly worse-off due to loss of language, culture, thought processes, and relationship with land (Wong-Kalu).
PANEL II — IN WHICH DIRECTION SHOULD THE HAWAIIAN NATION MOVE?
Moderator: Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu
Panelists: Professor Williamson B.C. Chang, Hayden Burgess (Poka Laenui), Palikapu Dedman, Dennis “Bumpy” Kanahele
** Conklin comment: Everyone on this Panel#2 believes there is actually a “Hawaiian nation” and they all believe in the concept of independent nationhood as opposed to the tribal concept as proposed in the Akaka bill where the “Hawaiian nation” would be like any other Indian “nation” under plenary power of U.S. Congress. So there is no discussion about what sort of policies the independent nation would pursue; only the usual sort of discussion about illegal overthrow, illegal annexation, illegal statehood vote, and therefore Hawaii is a fake state.
** Conklin comment: Some webpages directly related to these panelists and their topics, especially the “fake state” concept:
BOOK REVIEW OF Aran Alton Ardaiz, “Hawaii — The Fake State” (A Manifesto and Expose of a Nation in Captivity). Hawaiian Islands, Truth Of God Ministry, 2008.
https://www.angelfire.com/big09a/FakeStateBookReview.html
Ken Conklin book
“Hawaiian Apartheid: Racial Separatism and Ethnic Nationalism in the Aloha State”
http://tinyurl.com/2a9fqa
Is there a Treaty of Annexation between Hawaii and the United States? Dialogs between Williamson Chang and Ken Conklin
http://big11a.angelfire.com/DialogsChangConklinTreatyAnnex.html
** Evidence that the “fake state” concept is very much alive in current discussion about Hawaiian sovereignty
Ken Conklin vs. Keanu Sai — Dialog regarding Sai’s presentation to a committee of the Maui County Council in May-June 2019 in which Sai relies on false assertions that Hawaii is under a continuous prolonged belligerent occupation by the United States from January 1893 to now; that the State of Hawaii is an illegitimate puppet regime; that therefore land titles in Hawaii are not valid. Sai has actually had 3 similar occasions putting on his performances at Maui County Council under the auspices of Council members Tamara Paltin and Shane Sinenci who seem to be disciples of his.
https://big11a.angelfire.com/DialogSaiConklinMauiCCLandOccup.html
Keanu Sai, letters to military officers this month warning them they are guilty of war crimes
Hawaiian Kingdom blog, September 9 and September 16, 2024
https://hawaiiankingdom.org/blog/
Sovereignty flows from the will of the people.
The people’s will is Statehood.
Hi Ian,
The only other state besides Hawaii I know of that takes sovereignty to extremes is Texas. I believe they have their own homegrown radicals convinced Texas is a Republic and have battled with local law enforcement to make their point.
And only in Hawaii do we have these intense carport, beach park, front porch discussions about statehood for better or worse.
I happen to believe that every state should be as lucky as Hawaii to have a population as interested in its history as Hawaii is.
Would rather see these issues settled at the ballot box or courtroom than the streets.
In 2003-2005 I created a webpage warning about the dangers of the Akaka bill, comparing ethnic Hawaiian race-nationalism with Chicano race-nationalism and Black nationalism.
https://www.angelfire.com/hi2/hawaiiansovereignty/AkakaHawnChicanoNatnl.html
There are strong similarities between the Hawaiian sovereignty movement and the Chicano nationalist movement. The 2003 Gubernatorial recall campaign in California focused public attention for a few days in August on the radical agenda of an ethnic nationalist group to which Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante belonged. This Chicano-power group is MEChA, or Nation of Aztlan. One of their slogans was that illegal immigrants can be excused for crossing the border, because the border previously crossed them (In the Mexican-American war the U.S. captured, and still holds, the northern 1/3 of Mexico). MEChA seeks a reconquista — to take back those lands either by force or by flooding USA with Hispanic immigrants. Its view of history and demands for nationhood are strikingly similar to the Hawaiian sovereignty movement. During the time the Akaka bill was active in Congress (2000-2012) there were exchanges of correspondence between leaders of MEChA and leaders of Hawaiian race-nationalism. The Hispanic activist group was, and still is, La Raza, whose name openly declares its focus on race, just like the name Ka Lahui.
There was also a strong Black nationalist movement seeking to take over ten Southern states for a Nation of New Africa. Demands for reparations for slavery were part of this movement, and of course reparations remains a topic in today’s politics.
I don’t think we can rule out that a group or belief that might not be significant at the moment could enlarge quickly with social media. If a larger group is sufficiently enraged about an incident or event, they might attach to whoever takes leadership of the rage. BLM might be an example. I think the message here is that Hawaiians need to maintain strong leaders in the mainstream to counter any movements that arise from the fringe.
I agree. I went to jury duty last year and out of a jury pool of 75 persons, about 10% of them explained to the judge that they could not serve because they do not believe in the legitimacy of State government.