To elders expressing exasperation in editorials about the TMT conflict last week: It’s sad to read God-quoting, hymn-singing people reduce important, emotional Native Hawaiian religious issues to a metaphor about out-of-reach cookies.
It’s disappointing to read a person who lives here mistaking Native Hawaiian pride as advocating “socialism and to be the ruling class of everyone.” Going on to demand readers whose ancestors are buried in caves up mauka to “Get off the mountain, show some respect for our island” is like saying you should move off the island if you don’t like Hawaiian flags — divisive words that belittle complex issues.
It’s also kind of a “wow” moment to read that folks in this community misinterpret the conflict with TMT as some clandestine effort by “many islanders want[ing] to go back to the old ways of the Kingdom of Hawaii.” If anything has “ruined the cause and the effect is miserable for the majority of us here” like one editorial whined, it is foreign concepts like money being sacred.
Choosing hurt sensibilities about “the anger they display” as being “beyond comprehension” from the same culture that gave you aloha because one driver of a big truck was rude in traffic is beyond comprehension to this haole. “Big trucks with flags” are not out to incite fear and mutiny.
Protectors of Maunakea have valid concerns that are generations in the making. Please get informed and listen.
Learn about kapu aloha at www.puuhuluhulu.com. Please follow on your Facebook Puuhonua O Puuhuluhulu MaunaKea. You are invited to watch daily live stream protocol, get updates on educational opportunities held daily, check out what celebrities/musicians/politicians/students/officials/families/professionals that have visited protectors have found, and listen to what Maunakea cultural practitioners and lineal descendants have to say about TMT’s project.
Krista Joan Donaldson is a resident of Kailua-Kona.