The flattening of the once round and vast globe has brought us closer to each other. The world is now in our backyard. Out our window we see different cultures and customs colliding. How can we protect our own heritage and culture from being influenced by the diversity of the world? How can we protect our culture and heritage without sounding racist?
Over one hundred students and teachers met up at the school's auditorium the 29th of April to bear witness the very charismatic and straightforward speaker and human rights fighter Haunani-Kay Trask, presenting her view on the struggles the native Hawaiian face under the "American occupation" of Hawaii. Haunani-Kay Trask is a public speaker, indigenous leader, an author and a human rights organizer in her native land Hawaii. She has been traveling the world for the last twenty years promoting her cause and her people. She has been described as one of the top leaders on Hawaii.
Trask enters the podium relaxed and calm. The crowd shouts and applauds franticly. This woman certainly has the crowd's attention. "Aloha", she says, and goes off on an intense speech attacking the core issues her people are facing; Militarism, imperialism, occupation and tourism. "Most of all I hate the tourists" Hawaii is being swamped by rich immigrants and tourists buying out the land, destroying the agricultural fundaments for self preservation, making the state more dependent on tourism, squeezing out the natives, leaving many people homeless and unable to support themselves. Trask wants to give back the main rights to her people: the right of their own language, land and representation. Looking back at the history of American imperialists, the Hawaiian language was forbidden, "the land stolen", militarized, occupied for strategic purposes, leaving natives to live in reserves, stripping them for land and rights. To this day we see natives, undocumented persons, and indigenous groups struggle for the simple right to be represented. The right to have a voice in the big capitalistic choir we once called democracy.
To counter this Trask advocates the force behind unionizing and the gathering of the people who are left out. Deeply Inspired by Karl Marx, she believes in the power of the working class, the people who keeps the machinery going. Uniting them against oppression is the key to justice and to getting the rights they deserve.
As she stands there, clearly showing her nationalistic beliefs on the sovereignty of her culture and her people, "everybody who's not Hawaiian should get the hell out of here" my mind starts to wonder. Even if this woman advocates human rights, something is making the back of my hair raise. Even though she is right about the human right violation committed in Hawaii, can she get away with saying that Americans, even if their third or second generation, should leave. That the country doesn't belong to them as much as the natives?
"That the white Europeans should go back home"
Why would a speaker advocating unionizing use racial terms? Is this fight for the native Hawaiian only? Why don't she gather people experiencing the same oppression, no matter where they are from, what color they have, what language they speak. Her strong nationalism provoked me, but intrigued me as well. Is she right? Can we stand our ground; protect our culture from other influences, saying "get out of my country" without being a racist? Saying I have a right to be here, you can just go back to where you belong, even if your parents put you here? Where is the line between racism and cultural preservation?
After the speech I asked Mrs. Trask how she felt about the situations that occurred in Germany after the First World War, how she felt about that form of nationalism that came from people claiming the same thing as her. She replied the cases were different, and that we have to see the Hawaiian situation as an isolated situation. When I asked her about her thoughts on the Palestine..Israel conflict, she said she was on the Palestinian side. The paradigm here, as I see it, is that the Israelites claim Israel as their native country, just as the Hawaiian claims their land.
As I look out in my backyard, the shape of our new world, I see conflict, I see struggle, and I see oppression, people whose culture is being violated, which language is being forgotten. But I also see cultures richened by other cultures, people that learn new things thru tolerance, people who are glad they were willing to let their culture draw new lines. The only way to fight oppression is not to draw lines of color and origin to unite. Let us unite across the borders of race and ethnicity.
The times are changing, even if you like it or not. You are not a citizen of your country anymore. You are a citizen of the world. And the foot of oppression steps on everybody, no matter where you're from, or what color of skin you have. And if we don't stand firm together, it will crush us.
Over one hundred students and teachers met up at the school's auditorium the 29th of April to bear witness the very charismatic and straightforward speaker and human rights fighter Haunani-Kay Trask, presenting her view on the struggles the native Hawaiian face under the "American occupation" of Hawaii. Haunani-Kay Trask is a public speaker, indigenous leader, an author and a human rights organizer in her native land Hawaii. She has been traveling the world for the last twenty years promoting her cause and her people. She has been described as one of the top leaders on Hawaii.
Trask enters the podium relaxed and calm. The crowd shouts and applauds franticly. This woman certainly has the crowd's attention. "Aloha", she says, and goes off on an intense speech attacking the core issues her people are facing; Militarism, imperialism, occupation and tourism. "Most of all I hate the tourists" Hawaii is being swamped by rich immigrants and tourists buying out the land, destroying the agricultural fundaments for self preservation, making the state more dependent on tourism, squeezing out the natives, leaving many people homeless and unable to support themselves. Trask wants to give back the main rights to her people: the right of their own language, land and representation. Looking back at the history of American imperialists, the Hawaiian language was forbidden, "the land stolen", militarized, occupied for strategic purposes, leaving natives to live in reserves, stripping them for land and rights. To this day we see natives, undocumented persons, and indigenous groups struggle for the simple right to be represented. The right to have a voice in the big capitalistic choir we once called democracy.
To counter this Trask advocates the force behind unionizing and the gathering of the people who are left out. Deeply Inspired by Karl Marx, she believes in the power of the working class, the people who keeps the machinery going. Uniting them against oppression is the key to justice and to getting the rights they deserve.
As she stands there, clearly showing her nationalistic beliefs on the sovereignty of her culture and her people, "everybody who's not Hawaiian should get the hell out of here" my mind starts to wonder. Even if this woman advocates human rights, something is making the back of my hair raise. Even though she is right about the human right violation committed in Hawaii, can she get away with saying that Americans, even if their third or second generation, should leave. That the country doesn't belong to them as much as the natives?
"That the white Europeans should go back home"
Why would a speaker advocating unionizing use racial terms? Is this fight for the native Hawaiian only? Why don't she gather people experiencing the same oppression, no matter where they are from, what color they have, what language they speak. Her strong nationalism provoked me, but intrigued me as well. Is she right? Can we stand our ground; protect our culture from other influences, saying "get out of my country" without being a racist? Saying I have a right to be here, you can just go back to where you belong, even if your parents put you here? Where is the line between racism and cultural preservation?
After the speech I asked Mrs. Trask how she felt about the situations that occurred in Germany after the First World War, how she felt about that form of nationalism that came from people claiming the same thing as her. She replied the cases were different, and that we have to see the Hawaiian situation as an isolated situation. When I asked her about her thoughts on the Palestine..Israel conflict, she said she was on the Palestinian side. The paradigm here, as I see it, is that the Israelites claim Israel as their native country, just as the Hawaiian claims their land.
As I look out in my backyard, the shape of our new world, I see conflict, I see struggle, and I see oppression, people whose culture is being violated, which language is being forgotten. But I also see cultures richened by other cultures, people that learn new things thru tolerance, people who are glad they were willing to let their culture draw new lines. The only way to fight oppression is not to draw lines of color and origin to unite. Let us unite across the borders of race and ethnicity.
The times are changing, even if you like it or not. You are not a citizen of your country anymore. You are a citizen of the world. And the foot of oppression steps on everybody, no matter where you're from, or what color of skin you have. And if we don't stand firm together, it will crush us.
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