The Office of Hawaiian Affairs’ daring plan publicized in ”’The Honolulu Advertiser’s”’ July 17th edition to move “full speed ahead” with forming a race-based, Native-Hawaiians-only nation, shows the depths of the delusion into which the trustees have descended.
With Rice v. Cayetano and the recent debacle of the Akaka bill, what part of “racial discrimination” do the OHA trustees not understand?
So they want to get the “nation” up and running by 2008? If a race-based governing entity isn’t legal now, what makes them think that it will be legal two years from now? Apparently OHA expects us to believe that it will happen if they get 118,000 Hawaiians to sign up under Kau Inoa. Then the U.S. will miraculously say, “Congratulations! You hit the magic number! Now you qualify to have an unconstitutional race-based government!”
What part of “unconstitutional” do the OHA trustees not understand? And what happens if OHA’s recruitment falls short of that number?
And why spend yet another “$7 to $10 million” to “build a nation” by following the exact format that was rejected by the U.S. Senate last month? This would be another $7 million to $10 million lost to silly political machinations instead of real services to the beneficiaries.
And, by the way, how much did OHA spend in the six years of lobbying, slick advertising, posturing rallies and T-shirts to push for the fatally flawed Akaka bill? Where did that money come from?
The OHA trustees need to get on with truly serving all the people of Hawai’i. If it is indeed OHA’s purpose to redress the injustices stemming from the 1893 illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom, then the OHA beneficiaries should be the Hawaiian Nationals (the remnants of a political entity), not Native Hawaiians (an ethnic sub-group of Hawaiian Nationals).
This shift in the beneficiaries from Natives to Nationals, would provide OHA and other Hawaiian entitlement programs with the bulletproof “political entity” they have been flailing around to find.
”’Leon Siu, a resident of Honolulu and a Hawaiian entertainer, can be reached via email at”’ mailto:leon@hits.net
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