Text Mirror:
What does decolonization of Hawaii, and the US look like? From one Native Hawaiian’s perspective (me)
The US military is destroying our islands along with the 12 million tourists under foreign billionaire-owned tourism. Too many Americans are buying up our lands forcing us out by jacking home prices to $1.5 million etc.
But the solution in places like Hawaii, North America is not as simple as everyone who is white or non-indigenous simply leaving.
If the people in Hawaii & North America could repair the inequities with the indigenous people there, respect treaties, allow indigenous and ethnic minorities to exist as equal yet different - the way Vietnam, China have 50+ ethnic minorities who co-exist, allow them to speak languages, don’t mass-arrest imjpoverish, etc - then everyone would not need to leave.
If the colonizer-mindset people in Hawaii leave and go to N America, that pushes the problem to Native Americans. If they go to Europe, at least you don’t have re-settler colonialism.
When the French colonizers were defeated and kicked out of Vietnam, they were < 5% of the population, had clearly delineated ‘us and them’ lines, and so decolonization was more straightforward. Most French chose to leave Vietnam, because they were there to extract resources and labor from their ‘coolies’ and when they couldn’t anymore, they went back to Europe.
At the same time, all people of French/white heritage were not required to leave Vietnam after the dismantling of colonial yt supremacist rule.
As an example, my Vietnamese friend Luna Oi has a white American husband in Vietnam, and he is not required to ‘go back to America’ because he’s white. He simply has to follow the rules of Vietnam, its socialist anti-imperialist country, and co-exist peacefully, and it is fine. Vietnam is 98% indigenous.
Bolivia is ~60% identifying as indigenous, with a unique history, but they have had great successes with their indigenous-led socialist plurinational - meaning many language, many peoples, coexisting within one state - in the Western sense.
They do not require the 40% white/non-indigenous identifying people to leave Bolivia and go back to Spain, Europe, US, etc. but over time, they will need to learn to co-exist in actual equality with the indigenous.
The US is 98% identifying non-indigenous, with ~20-30% non-white identifying.
The US is the worlds’ largest European settler colony by far with 330 million people, and the worlds’ capitalist superpower that dwarfs and puppeteers its parent Europe itself.
The process of undoing colonization, and healing the broken people and ways (including indigenous and non-white people who have had our ways and languages severely harmed by colonization) will not look identifical to either Bolivia or Vietnam, and will be unprecedented in human history - but we can learn from each of these struggles.
Education, listening to the marginalized, indigenous etc. and implementing that education in concrete ways is certainly an important part of the process. Which is why the US is banning CRT, anything that makes white people ‘uncomfortable’ from schools. Because it would indeed be the undoing of the US over time.
Long story short - it will be a long story and there is no easy shortcut out of it, lol.
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This is, specifically, a conversation about Hawai’i, an illegal occupation that began in the 50’s. Imagine believing that is too cemented to be undone.
Also, “the damage has been done” implies that the genocide is over. Residential schools in Canada didn’t close until the 90s. There are still scoops happening. Indigenous people are still being invaded in their own lands
In the 90s the Canadian military started a war in order to build a golf course. Now they are attacking Wet’suwet’en for pipelines.
Starlight tours are a common RCMP practice.
It is disingenous to pretend that this is all some thing over and done with that we need to “move past.”
And regardless of whether it is “over and done with” Indigenous nations still exist and deserve liberation.
https://native-land.ca
Welcome to what a “prison of nations” looks like.
There’s a very sinister feeling to saying you think there should just be more continuation of the reservation system. That is apartheid.
Finally fuck the brits, Ireland for the Irish, Scotland for the Scots, Wales for the Welsh, Mann for the Manx. “British” Isles when only one of them is British, complete garbage.
Honestly, I wouldn’t be too sad about the US loosing Hawai’i, given that it hasn’t been that long. It would be far from a death keel for the nation. That said, 75% of Hawai’i is not at all indigenous so even that is an ask.
It sounds like Quebec’s Minister of Native Affairs John Ciaccia had the right of it:
You’ll get no quarrel from me here. Canada didn’t need a golf course and this was being done with no regards for the First People of the area. And we’re absolutely seeing the same done in the US.
I wish the Wet’suwet’en the very best. I really do. It sounds like this is a fight where the harm can be stopped before it is done.
The main flaw I see in the current reservation system is that they were push onto smaller and smaller patches of more and more marginal land. As far as I know, there aren’t intrinsic problems with reservations. They were originally big open air prisons on land that Europeans didn’t care for, but there have been movements lately to transfer ownership of prime property or sacred land to tribes. It’s also completely separate from apartheid since apartheid refers to systems that mandate segregation. Reservations in the current day are voluntary, with people regularly leaving them. But economic opportunity is limited on the reservation. I don’t know what’s involved, so I won’t play white armchair expert.
All this said, things have definitely improved in the US and Canada as of late. I went to see a museum exhibit in Vancouver, B.C. a few years back. It was on the First People in the area. The subject was handled respectfully and it was clear that First People had been involved through the entire project.
What I am saying is that certain damage is done and cannot simply be undone. The US is here and we’re staying, like it or not. What needs to be fixed is not returning all that was lost to its previous ownership. Humans just aren’t like that, and it’s pointless to ask. I just bought a home on land that five tribes could claim ownership over. Sorry, I’m not giving that up. It’s better to try to make amends that benefit people as they live now.
The Scots and Brits are both descents of invaders to the Isles. But no one is serious trying to retake it or the other areas on the European peninsula that the Celts used to occupy for the few remaining Celtic people.
Oh sure, if you saw a museum exhibit as a tourist one time then I am certain you are an expert in how much better things are for Indigenous people in Canada, my bad professor
That’s an incredibly bad faith interpretation of what I said. A few decades ago, Canada was literally engaged in cultural genocide.
Canada is still engaged in cultural and physical, murderous genocide. That didn’t stop.
Canada is still doing that, what makes you think they’re doing anything to return stolen lands?
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