Hawaii County Mayor Harry Kim may well praise the protesters against the Thirty Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea for their nonviolence (“Thirty Meter Telescope opponents gather support for resistance,” Star-Advertiser, July 21).

But that isn’t really the point, is it? Their cause may even justify violence because they are right, and justice is on their side.

Their land was taken away from them by private American business interests in 1893, a wrong that has never been addressed and which in itself involved violence in the form of gunboat diplomacy.

Is violence now unthinkable? Is nonviolence somehow one of our core values because it embraces the status quo? These protesters know history too well to be taken in by Kim’s devious words.

Edward D. Lasky

Hawaii Kai

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