Pono

Some other comments from members of the same group included calling the post whinny or saying things like “what makes me cry is that Hawaiians like this keep voting for the wrong people [and] not for LHG”. Yet the same people who made comments like those on my post looked the other way when one member of their own group plagiarized from the same post.  I guess if you’re not in their club, your mana’o is not your own.

For those who are unfamiliar with what plagiarism is, here is the definition from dictionary.com:

I am no stranger to controversy and I have received death threats before because of the post I wrote about collaborators. Other Hawaiians of course have accused my posts of being almost anti-ali’i. That of course I find amusing because my great great great grandmother was the daughter of Premier and Princess Elizabeth Kina’u and her first husband, Governor (Moses Kalahai’a) Luanu’u II. I mentioned this only because I want to demonstrate how far back my family’s roots are with the last legitimate government of the Hawaiian Islands and that I do know about the ali’i, perhaps a bit too well. Furthermore, I believe that it is the traditional right of every Hawaiian to hold their own leaders accountable. I use the term traditional because we have chants and songs dedicated to figures in our history like Kawelo, ‘Umi-a-Liloa, and Kuali’i who became kings not simply because they inherited the position but because the common Hawaiian people on those islands put those people on the throne after overthrowing their incumbent predecessors. It is my right as subject–I will not use national because that’s not what my own ancestors would have called themselves–of the Hawaiian nation and as an indigenous Hawaiian to look and question my own history, my own culture, and to speak without being suppressed. It is also my right that my mana’o, my mo’olelo, be given the proper respect and credited. Simply because I’m not a member of a faction of a sovereignty group does not mean I do not have rights.  Ua mau ke ‘ea o ka ‘ āina i ka pono can also be translated as “The life/breath/sovereignty of the land has been and will be preserved in its rights.” Yes, pono also means rights as in the song Kaulana Nā  Pua which talks about pono sivila (civil rights) or as in  “‘Aha ‘Ōlelo o Nā Aupuni Hui Pū ‘Ia i Ka Hō’ike No Nā  Pono Kanaka O Ke Ao Nei” (Universal Declaration of Human Rights).  Pono does not begin nor end simply because you’re a member of a sovereignty group or because you have a sharp difference of opinion.  

It is clear to me now that the principles that were long cherished by Queen Lili’uokalani that Hawaiians must mature into a self-governing mass–a mass that respected democracy and individual rights while being guided by our indigenous culture–is not being practiced by some Hawaiians of this day including being able to acknowledge someone else’s mana’o or how for the sake of “unity” Hawaiians censor other Hawaiians. This is not pono. This is not the pono that our ancestors who lived during the tumultuous times in the 19th century would have wanted us, their mo’opuna, to act. They would have wanted us to behave with pono and recognizing each other’s mana’o and pono sivila (civil rights). We need to return to being pono with each other instead of smashing each other in the name of unity or to act hiehie launa ʻole (to be showy, to brag or to be emotionally shallow) towards one another. 

Its time for us to be warriors instead of being armed with the pololū, we shall be armed with our intellect, our ‘imi na’auao (thirst for knowledge), and our desire to always be pono–culturally and politically.