Activism, from TMT to Standing Rock

An alliance among native groups across the country was evident in the recent Standing Rock pipeline protest on Sioux territory in North Dakota, and in the Mauna Kea protest against the Thirty Meter Telescope.

That, said Kealoha Pisciotta of Hawaii island, was the result of two factors. One was the collaborative discussion of indigenous issues at various United Nations conferences, and in other venues, over many years.

The other, she said, was much more recent: the development of social media, which enabled disparate groups to knit themselves together quickly.

Pisciotta, a veteran of the TMT opposition, has now moved her activism to the hearing room of the state Board of Land and Natural Resources, where the contested case against TMT is playing out.

At the U.N. conferences, the vernacular of Mahatma Gandhi became the accepted approach, she said.

“I can affirmatively state that there is an ongoing peaceful resistance in the indigenous movement,” Pisciotta said. “When you’re committing civil disobedience you’re standing up against an illegal law … we’re using our body to prevent the crime.”

It’s now a movement powered by millennials, too.

“There are more young people who have now become more educated about our history,” she added. “They have a heck of a lot of tools that we did not have.”