TMT advocates require deep introspection
Retreat of the TMT bulldozers did not signify defeat of the substance of Hawaiian culture, as portrayed in Kelly Greenwell’s Dec. 22 West Hawaii Today letter to the editor. Adherence to legal due process and laws protecting the environment and Hawaiian culture are what prevailed.
Those who forget the lessons of the past are doomed to repeat them. Ignoring the never-ending ambitions of the international astronomy industry and decades of land mismanagement by DLNR and UH will blindside telescope advocates to even more legal and political setbacks against renewed telescope development efforts in the name of “progress” and “the future.”
Violating the legal rights of cultural and environmental litigants who challenged the state’s biased TMT decision-making process culminated in the revocation of the telescope’s conservation district use permit. TMT officials and local project promoters were never innocent parties to this, choosing to remain silent about these injustices as their project rode the coattails of a fraudulent decision-making process. This, despite warnings to TMT from their own paid consultant and (in a 2007 private meeting) from the litigants who ultimately prevailed in the Supreme Court.
Why is it that the monied and powerful always tell people to accept their version of change? And why is it that after the Protectors win justice, there are all these cries that the loss of the telescope will be too costly and that it must be saved? The way forward now is not more blind ambition but deep introspection by TMT advocates and a commitment to reform any future decision-making for Mauna Kea.
Nelson Ho
Hilo