There are heroes all around us and one of them is a cheerful Hawaiian man named Kelii Akina.
He didn’t charge across a battlefield, win a gold medal or ride a white horse. He’s a trustee for OHA, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs.
He bucks the system, makes waves and stirs up plenty pilikia, a real troublemaker.
But so was George Washington, Ghandi and Martin Luther King. So was King Liho Liho, who disrupted the kingdom to make it better.
He’s one of those guys. One of the rare ones who has ethics and sticks to them. That makes him a hero right there.
He sees the higher good above the rules, above skin color, even his own culture. So how did Mr. Akina show these qualities? It wasn’t easy, it took real coconuts. He’s Hawaiian and stood against forming the new Hawaiian Kingdom. He said he had to sum up all his courage to do it.
It was like standing in front of a train, and having it stop at his feet.
But to Kelii it wasn’t right, he believed Hawaii and OHA should be for all races, not just Hawaiians. This strong belief was behind his lawsuit to stop an election for native Hawaiians to form their own government.
When someone said, “Don’t make a federal case out it,” that’s exactly what Akina and his group did, they took it to the U.S. Supreme Court and won. The Sovereign Kingdom was dissolved thanks to him.
That’s a big move for a local boy from Wahiawa.
After being the biggest wet blanket around, breaking up the biggest Hawaiian movement since the Great King united the islands, what did Hawaiians do? Did they paddle him out beyond the reef and tie a rock around his neck and drop him in the ocean? Did they give him stink-eye?
Nah.
Hawaiian residents voted him an OHA Trustee.
That was the biggest show of aloha ever or maybe something else. Maybe people saw that the time for pulling one race together and excluding other races is over. They elected him because they agreed with him.
Colors are fading thanks to people like Kelii Akina, making these sweeping waves, this good kind of trouble.
He reminded Hawaiians to keep stirring the melting pot, and preserve aloha. By hanging loose more and more, we start to live aloha and see only a person’s smile, that’s all we need.
Hawaiians don’t need a private club or kingdom, they know who they are. That’s how you get after saying aloha for 1,000 years.
Akina’s message is, “E Hana Kakou — let’s work together! It’s time to stop dividing people and start uniting them. Only by putting aside our political, ethnic, religious and other differences, can we create the Hawaii our keiki deserve.”
Jesus could not have said it better, neither could’ve Thomas Jefferson or Abe Lincoln. Mahalo, Mr. Akina, for standing up for all Hawaii.
But did I mention he is for the TMT? I said he was great, I didn’t say he was perfect.
Dennis Gregory is a musician and writer who mixes, truth, humor and aloha in his biweekly column. He can be reached at makewavess@yahoo.com