The blockade at Kaunakakai is an outrage and should not be tolerated. On Nov. 26 a seagoing assemblage blocked a 145-foot tourist cruise boat from landing on Molokai, demanding that it stay away until "the community can hash out its concerns over the direction of the tourism industry."
The Molokai Chamber of Commerce issued a statement saying it supports all business and tourism. It went both ways: It characterized the incident as an interference with lawful commerce but also expressed concern that the boat’s visits could have "negative consequences" on the "fragile" economy of Molokai.
Walter Ritte told American Safari Cruises, the owner of the ship, "You ask first, before you come to somebody’s house." Whose house could that be? He wants ASC to ask his permission before entering a state harbor? This all sounds like a 17th-century toll road; travel, but only after settling with the highwayman.
Ritte said ASC should have allowed the Molokai "community" to "work though" its "concerns" before the ship arrived. He wanted ASC to show "some kind of commitment to the community by stopping the cruise ship before coming in." Imagine what would happen if he asked NCL to do that in Honolulu Harbor.
Let’s get it straight. The obstruction of a ship from entering a state harbor by private individuals was not a "protest" or a "demonstration"; it was a blockade, reminiscent of the Superferry blockade on Kauai in 2007. Both were illegal.
It is a violation of law to interfere with navigation into a harbor. Harbors are strategic to state commerce, especially in an island state. Federal and state governments are supposed to protect harbors and keep them open. These "protesters" intentionally obstructed the ship. Will we do nothing about it?
Walter Ritte’s assemblage is claiming a right to obstruct tourism. What would the authorities have done if this incident took place in Honolulu? If you tried to obstruct a ship coming into Honolulu Harbor, you would surely be arrested, charged and locked up by sundown. Aren’t the rules the same for all of us?
How different is this from barring Big Wind from Molokai? These things are all part of a continuing campaign to isolate Molokai from Oahu and keep it free of wind farms, cruise ships, tourism and a local economy. Secede from anything that smacks of Oahu, except for the social safety net, in a one-way isolationism.
In our hearts we know that Superferry was not about berries on your boots, just as Big Wind is not about seabirds. These things reveal a disturbing trend of "insular drift," where one island tells another to take a hike. The ASC incident helps us understand the trend. "Working through" the "impact" of visits from Oahu really means "Why don’t you stay away from our island?"
Actually, it’s just as much our island as it is your island, and it’s just as much our harbor as it is yours. I am just as much a citizen and taxpayer of this state as you are, and this is my state just as much as it is yours. One island can’t wall off the others. That kind of thinking went out hundreds of years ago.
We can’t live in the past or in isolation. We can’t operate on the notion that our islands can go their own ways or that the people of our islands are not connected to each other. We’re one state and one people truly connected. If one island turns its back on the others, that disgraces us all and is not aloha under any definition. Rather, it’s disrespect for the law and legacy of our state.
Do dissenters on neighbor islands have a right to bar tourists? If they can bar tourists, maybe next time they’ll bar the rest of us. There’s no justification for any of it. We need to be in a state of enlightenment, not a state of nature. We can’t accept or afford insular drift. What happened on Molokai has got to stop.
Jay Fidell, a longtime business lawyer, founded ThinkTech Hawaii, a digital media company that reports on Hawaii’s tech and energy sectors of the economy. Reach him at fidell@lava.net.
