Native Hawaiian Panel Withdraws Support For World's Largest Telescope

sciencehabit writes: Trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) – a state agency established to advocate for native Hawaiins — voted Thursday to withdraw their support for construction of the Thirty-Meter Telescope (TMT) on the summit of the Mauna Kea volcano. The vote follows weeks of protests by Native Hawaiians who say the massive structure would desecrate one of their most holy places. The protests have shut down construction of the telescope, which would be the world's largest optical telescope if completed. The vote, which reverses a 2009 decision to endorse the project, strikes a powerful if symbolic blow against a project that, for many native Hawaiians, has come to symbolize more than a century of assaults against their land, culture and sovereignty.

Comments

More religious whackjobs

[lgw]

More religious whackjobs blocking progress. If they own the land, or represent the majority in a democracy, so be it; otherwise a does of "separation of church and state" would be welcome here. No one should get a free pass on being a religious whackjob simply because they aren't a Christian whackjob.

Re:More religious whackjobs

[MrBigInThePants]

You are wrong. Having seen this in action first hand in my own country I can predict this has NOTHING to do with religion.

Typically this is more about the gravy not being forthcoming to the local "leaders".

Re:More religious whackjobs

[Anonymous Coward]

And who exactly should the land "revert to"? Are you going to base this on genetic tests? Should it go back to the first wave of polynesian settlers or the second wave? Maybe it should be purged of all humans and revert to its natural state? Or perhaps handed to the British? Or perhaps the Japanese, who would have conquered it?

Settlement and migration are normal parts of human societies. The land I was born in changed hands dozens of times over the past two thousand years. The idea that the people who first landed on some piece of land have special dibs and eternal rights to self-government is dumb in the extreme. Hawaii should be happy that it became part of the US.

On the other hand, on balance, I'm not sure the US is getting much out of it; so perhaps Hawaii should be kicked out of the union altogether. We'd sure save a lot of money in subsidies.

Re:More religious whackjobs

[jmichaelg]

Hard to worry about what happened over a 100 years ago. Had the issue bothered a lot of people, Hawaii wouldn't have voted to join the U.S. in 1959 by 93%.

The "rightful owners" wouldn't stand a chance against whatever power chose to occupy the islands were they to secede from the union.

It's hard to see this as anything more than a routine "pay us off and we'll shut up" shakedown.

Re:More religious whackjobs

[cavreader]

Just how far back into the past are you willing to go to start righting all the wrongs in the world? Every square foot of land on the planet has been invaded and occupied by an ever changing cast of characters with the most strategic pieces of land having had their borders drawn in blood more than once. And the blood letting is still ongoing right this minute in many places around the world. The entirety of human civilization has been built upon might equals right. Civilizations get built using violence and get torn down with violence and that pattern still holds true today and will most likely continue to hold true until the planet is just a big radioactive ball of lifeless dirt. So how about you go start righting some wrongs perpetrated by people who have been dead for a few hundred years but I'd advise you to build up a significant arsenal before starting on your noble quest. Or you could just be happy with the fact that a small number of US citizens exercised their rights to stop a construction project on land they would rather keep the way it is. It doesn't really matter why they were against the project but I have seen people do the exact same thing to keep a strip mall from being built on land near where they live just to keep the traffic down. No need of sacred burial grounds or state sovereignty issues to bolster their arguments.

Re:More religious whackjobs

[ShanghaiBill]

Native Hawaiians had the misfortune of living on one of the most strategically important pieces of land on the planet.

How is that a "misfortune"? They are better off than anyone else in Polynesia, and have one of the highest standards of living in the world. If they want to stick to the old ways and try to eke out a living by trying to grow taro in volcanic ash, they can still do so. Yet for some strange reason, few choose to do that.

Re: More religious whackjobs

[RightwingNutjob]

Illegal my ass. We occupied and annexed it fair and square, replacing tribal savagery where might made right on the scale of every day life with actual laws and courts and civilized institutions. The fact that we also brought modern religion (that is to say a small-L liberal judeo-christian tradition) to replace this "the colors of the wind" bullshit is all the more icing on the cake.

Re:More religious whackjobs

[Anonymous Coward]

How is that a "misfortune"? They are better off than anyone else in Polynesia, and have one of the highest standards of living in the world.

Don't make the mistake of confusing native hawaiians with all residents. Natives as a group have the lowest standard of living in the state.

Re:More religious whackjobs

[ChromeAeonium]

Those are all good points, but the sovereignty activists don't care. Each of them envisions themselves the new king or queen; this is about petty attempts at grabbing power, nothing more. They really don't care if they are wrong about the telescope as long as it gives them something to rally around (Hawai'i resident here; I have actually heard this said by an anti-TMT activist).

They don't want the economic or educational benefits the telescope would bring; poor and uneducated are good for the leaders. They want racial discontent more than then want tolerance; perceptions of persecution are good for the leaders. You can point out to these activist leaders out that Hawaiian sovereignty is an inherently racist idea (it's no better than the scumbag white nationalist groups, not in my book; all race based nationalism is immoral bronze age bullshit). You can point out that everyone born in Hawai'i is an American citizen equal under the law. You can point out the economic problems that would occur the instant Hawai'i left the US, if that were to happen, and that life for their supporters would become much harder. They do not care, and they don't care if Hawai'i goes to shit, as long as they are the rulers of shit mountain.

That's what this is really about. They want people poor, uneducated, angry, and easy to manipulate for their own benefit. None of the benefits the TMT would provide to Hawai'i County's public education system (like the high school robotics program they fund) and economy? That's great to them. They sure as hell don't want other people educating kids. And they do want people to say stupid shit like 'Hawaiians are anti-science' because it creates an us vs them environment (DO NOT SAY 'Hawaiians are anti-science' as some people have; that's racist and not true. Hawaiian does not equal anti-TMT activist). So we are not talking about a benevolent group here. Keep in mind, every year people do off road racing and snow boarding and other things on Maunakea, and leave all sorts of garbage, and no one cares about that. The Mauna is only sacred in so far as a political point can be made, in other words, they don't really give two shits about mountain or the telescope or the supposed sacredness, only what they can gain from it. Or course, if they really cared, they wouldn't be doing shit like introducing invasive ants.

Additionally, I'd like to point out that if they were really all about ancient Hawaiian traditions, they would realize that there was nothing prohibiting building things on Maunakea and that ancient Hawaiians were active stargazers. There is nothing at all suggesting that this would be offensive. The protestors also seem to be ignoring the fact that their presence on the Mauna would, in contrast, be offense; only the ali'i and kahuna were allowed on the Mauna, not commoners like them (of course, in the modern State of Hawai'i, we are all equals and Maunakea is open to all; there are no castes of people). It's no different than the Christian groups that make up their religion as they go along and pick and choose what parts of the Bible they like in order to justify their current inane actions. It's just like a lot of stuff that seems anti-science on the outside; it's all about someone's power or wealth, you just have to find out who, and in this case it is the Hawaiian sovereignty movement.

Hope that clear up some of the situation here. And the thing is, all of their legal, cultural, economic, scientific, and environmental arguments are complete fabricated bullshit. So whenever the telescope is built (because there is literally no good reason to block it) they are just going to use it as more 'proof' that they are being repressed, and that no one listens to or cares about Hawaiian voices (not

Re:More religious whackjobs

[Applehu Akbar]

I've been there too. What most people don't appreciate about Mauna Kea is its staggeringly large size. As a shield volcano made of lava that came out with the consistency of oatmeal, its spread exceeds its height far more than any other mountain. And since that height had to reach 19,000' just to break the ocean surface, at its present height above water this single peak is larger than the whole Rocky Mountain range.

What this means is that of all the world's high mountains, Mauna Kea is the easiest to access. On this gentle slope, a simple graded road is all it takes to get the largest assemblies up there. The smooth dome in an island location not in any storm belt makes for better weather, and more cloud-free nights, than anywhere else in the world. And it's roomy: the University of Hawaii administers an 11,000-acre nature preserve at the summit, with 52 acres in the middle dedicated to astronomy. Seen from above, everything we can put up there just disappears into the landscape.

Works both ways

[dissy]

If that is acceptable, what about my claim that science is my religion, and the native Hawaiins are desecrating what I declare as holy land? Will they be forced to stop doing so too?

Probably not, which is why we shouldn't allow them to stop us for this reason just the same.

Re:Certainty

[Crashmarik]

I'm sure the comments here will take into account nuanced perspectives of Hawaiian native history and culture,

You mean the history culture of shaking down any deep pocket involved in a large construction project ?
 

No guilt for you

[Iamthecheese]

Nope, I'm finished feeling guilty for the acts of previous generations. The islands are part of the United States now. They have their votes and councils. They have their local government. And this isn't about religion anyway, it's about declaring as much independence as possible. Fuck that, the war is over. I don't care that they want to make a statement. I do care that they want to make their statement at the cost of science. I'm not sure whether I'm disappointed we're not using eminent domain here but I don't think these objections are valid.

Re:No guilt for you

[chipschap]

As a haole[1] living in Hawai`i, I took the time to learn the history and some of the language.

You can't possibly study the events of 1893 and conclude that anything but a monstrous wrong was committed. (I'm writing a novel called "No keia la, no keia po" and to write it I had to read extensively about those days.)

I don't know how to right that wrong. The Hawaiian sovereignty movement has its own ideas, though I don't know how practical those ideas may be. But I do know that something really, really bad was done back then, and it shouldn't be set aside or forgotten.

[1] Today this generally means 'Caucasian' and is sometimes used in a derogatory manner, but in the Hawaiian language, it actually means 'foreigner' without judgmental overtones.

Re:No guilt for you

[Anonymous Coward]

> Hawaiians voted overwhelmingly for statehood.

That would be false.

Out of a population of 600,000 only 140,000 voted for statehood.
And of that 140,000, tens of thousands were US military servicemen.

Also, the choice was limited between remaining a territory with just half-assed rights but all the obligations or become a full state and get full rights with essentially the same obligations. There was no option for sovereignty.

Warmth?

[Spazmania]

Mehana Kihoi. ... âoeWhen you place your hands and your bare feet into the soil, you feel that warmth, you feel her heart."

Liar. Had you ever placed your hands and bare feet into the soil at 13,000 feet atop Mauna Kea you'd know that the only things you feel are hypothermia and hypoxia. It's friggin' cold up there, and the air is barely breathable.