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Gov. David Ige has sunk to a new low, declaring a group of unarmed, nonviolent, organized Native Hawaiians an “emergency.”
Emergency proclamations are meant for hurricanes and floods and wildfires. What exactly is the emergency on Mauna Kea? That an international company can’t start its huge construction project? That Native Hawaiians have organized into
a savvy, powerful force to stop a project that has yet to prove it won’t leave lasting damage to the mountain? That they’re chanting and praying and livestreaming the protest?
Are Hawaiians the emergency? Is a construction project as vital as a hospital or a military base that it merits every law enforcement protection state government can muster?
There have been no
riots among the kiai. No acts of violence or threats of violence. They’ve blocked roads, but that is hardly an emergency situation. There’s no standoff where people are unwilling to talk or negotiate. They haven’t stomped on ambulances or taken out firetrucks or thrown rocks at police vehicles. The old folks who were arrested didn’t even resist.
Shame on David Ige. The one time in his entire limp life he decides to play tough, he takes on the grandmas and the people assembled to protest a project that they
believe is wrong, as is their right.
Ige himself has in the past admitted that the management atop Mauna Kea has been lousy for
decades:
“We have in many ways failed the mountain,” he said in 2015. “Whether you see it from a cultural perspective or from a natural resource perspective, we have not done right by a very special place.”
Since Ige mouthed those words, neither he nor his
administration, the University of Hawaii nor the Department of Land and Natural Resources addressed the long list of failures that have piled up over the years.
Just because the state
Supreme Court said TMT could start construction doesn’t mean it should. Too many serious questions have yet to be addressed. A telescope can be a thing of great value, but how it is built matters. This is smelling like a Superferry deal, where all the skids have been greased and huge concerns have been ignored. A good thing begun badly is forever going to be tainted.
What is happening right now on Mauna Kea can no longer be framed as science versus spiritual beliefs. Those opposed to further development on Mauna Kea have actual, measurable
science on their side that UH has yet to address, like chemical spills on the mountain, sewage tanks, removal of natural and cultural
features.
If Ige has been casting about for a legacy to eclipse his false missile alert debacle, he’s found it now: He will forever be known as
the guy who declared an emergency when Hawaiian kupuna stood up to protect the mountain. He stood in his air-conditioned office in Honolulu and waved his pen to make it possible to suspend laws, shut down public property and call in the
National Guard when a large, diverse group of Native Hawaiians and their allies stood to protect a place and a culture unlike any other in the world.
There is an amazing confluence of forces here, though, because while it was so heartbreaking to watch footage of kupuna
being arrested and carried off by law enforcement, the feeling of sorrow and outrage was mixed with pride and admiration. Who tougher than those elders? Who stronger than the line of women defending an
entire mountain with just their linked arms? Who more fearsome than men fighting with just their voices?
David Ige must have hid in his fifth-floor office and trembled.
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