Haunani-Kay Trask : THEORY QUESTION 4 : What is the basis of the conflict between “political” educators like yourself and “cultural” educators?

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Transcript

I think there was a time when the culture people were great naysayers and attacked us all the time. That time has passed.

Culture people became very active. Momi's article - the 'Īlio article in the Amerasia Journal(1) - not that she was unconscious, but when culture people saw their base of their praxis(2) attacked, they became instantly political. So I don't think that's as strong as it used to be.

On the other hand, my enemies are always attacking me because I don't know Hawaiian language or whatever. But as you get older, there is a certain sense of stature, that I have a stature now whether people like it or not, for ill or for good. And it's hard to criticize me for not having contributed. There used to be, "Well, you know, she doesn't know the language, she doesn't dance, she doesn't do this…" That seems now to have disappeared with this assault on our entitlements.

Also, I think culture people got the message. You can't ever be safe no matter what you do. If you're a fisherman, you can't be safe. If you gather, you have Senate Bill 8(3) coming after you. If you are in Hawaiian language immersion,(4) the federal bill that's been funding you for 20 years is about to be killed by the Republican Congress.

So I think even those who are most resistant perhaps to being politicized have sort of diminished in numbers because there's no question that everything is political and they finally get it.

That doesn't mean there aren't still major splits between myself and other people. So much of it, too, is style. Hawaiians are very oppressed that way. They are really captive of their own "aloha-ism," I call it. And so lots of people don't like my style, but I've never really cared, except when I was very young. Style to me is so ephemeral as not even to be worthy of comment. If people don't like what I say… they can say whatever they want to say.

But I think that gap, if it still exists between culture and politics, is much, much smaller. And the rise of the Aloha ʻĀina Party,(5) although they didn't elect anyone, is a clear sign of how politicized culture people became. They actually created their own political party and ran candidates. So I don't think that that's there anymore.

Notes

(1) “'Īlio'ulaokalani: Defending Native Hawaiian Culture” is an article by kumu hula (hula master) and professor of Hawaiian Studies Momi Kamahele, published in Amerasia Journal (January 2000).

(2) Praxis: The ongoing and circular process of moving between a deep theoretical understanding of any given social reality, and the direct action taken to transform it. In regards to the process of learning and struggle, critical educator Paolo Freire states:

It is only when the oppressed find the oppressor out and become involved in the organized struggle for their liberation that they begin to believe in themselves. This discovery cannot be purely intellectual but must also involve action; nor can it be limited to mere activism, but must include serious reflection: only then will it be a praxis. (Paolo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum, 1996 edition. page 47.)

(3) Senate Bill 8: Introduced in the Hawaiʻi State Senate in 1997 by land developers and businessmen, the bill was designed to extinguish the traditional customary rights of Hawaiians to gather natural resources (flowers, ferns, fibers, and so on) from the mountains and sea shores for cultural and religious activities. Native Hawaiians successfully defeated this bill after forming a large resistance coalition called ‘Īlio‘ulaokalani.

(4) Hawaiian Language Immersion: As a strategy to counter the effects of colonization on younger generations, many Native people have begun language immersion schools to revive and nurture their indigenous languages and cultures. Native language immersion schools use the indigenous language in all aspects of education - for the teachers as the medium of instruction and for the students as the means of participation and conversation. In 1983 (almost a hundred years after the Hawaiian language was banned in all public and private schools), Hawaiian language immersion schools opened their first pre-schools. Today, some of the Hawaiian language immersion schools (K-12) are part of the state’s public school system (1987).

(5) Aloha ʻĀina Party: A Hawaiian political party formed in 2000 in response to the Rice v. Cayetano decision of the U.S. Supreme Court and the increasing wave of attacks against Hawaiian cultural and political rights in the State Legislature. The broader principles of the Aloha ʻĀina (love of the land) Party are to protect Native Hawaiian lands, culture, civil and human rights, and entitlements. In the November 2000 election, the Aloha ʻĀina Party fielded two candidates for the State Legislature. At the turn of the twentieth century, the original Aloha ʻĀina Party led by Hawaiian revolutionary Robert Wilcox, was a nationalist party which sought unsuccessfully to return Hawaiians to political power by defeating the Provisional Government.

Excerpt from the Draft United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Part I.

Article 3.

Indigenous peoples have the right of self-detemination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.

Part II.

Article 7.

Indigenous peoples have the collective and individual right not to be subjected to ethonocide and cultural genocide, including prevention of and redress for:

(a) Any action which has the aim or effect of depriving them of their integrity as distinct peoples, or of their cultural values or ethnic identities;

(b) Any action which has the aim or effect of dispossessing them of their lands, territories or resources;

(d) Any form of assimilation or integration by other cultures or ways of life imposed on them by legislative, administrative or other measures;

(e) Any form of propaganda directed against them.

Part III.

Article 12.

Indigenous peoples have the right to practise and revitalize their cultural traditions and customs. This includes the right to maintain, protect and develop the past, present and future manifestations of their cultures, such as archaeological and historical sites, artifacts, designs, ceremonies, technologies and visual and performing arts and literature, as well as the right to the restitution of cultural, intellectual, religious and spiritual property taken without their free and informed consent or in violation of their laws, traditions and customs.

Part III.

Article 13.

Indigenous peoples have the right to manifest, practise, develop and teach their spiritual and religious traditions, customs and ceremonies; the right to maintain, protect, and have access in privacy to their religious and cultural sites; the right to the use and control of ceremonial objects; and the right to the repatriation of human remains.

States shall take effective measures, in conjunction with the indigenous peoples concerned, to ensure that indigenous sacred places, including burial sites, be preserved, respected and protected.

(Reproduced in Haunani-Kay Trask, From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawaiʻi, revised edition. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 1999. pages 200-203.)

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