Tomorrow is an important meeting for the Hawaiian Sovereignty movement. One important topic for the participants revolves around reparations by the U.S. for the overthrow of the kingdom and theft of land.
While there have been war reparations paid out before by various nations, are there instances of any decolonization reparations paid ? (French ? Brits ? Portuguese ? etc…) Mere social, immigration benefits apparently wouldn’t count.
“Proverbs for Paranoids, 1: You may never get to touch the Master, but you can tickle his creatures.”
Yeah, the idea of full restoration sounds attractive. Remove English language, airports, skyscrapers, automobiles, government, police, banks, constititutional law, electricity, and all those dreadful things that were imported, and restore the monarchy and grass houses… set the clock back to 1840 or whatever, along with some sort of oops-sorry payment of jillions of dollars to the new monarch.
I guess it is because war reparations are paid for by theloserhistorically. An example, Germany after WWI. I was stationed in Hawaii for three years and I have some relatives there. I don’t recall Hawaiian sovreignity being much of an topic, but most of my kinfolk were only concerned about more roads and better schools. Since Hawaii is a state in the Union, then sovreignity is a moot point isn’t it? I think that issue was settled in Appomattox in 1865. Maybe if the Hawaiian Sovreignity movement didn’t have “Sovreignity” in its name, you could deal with the Feds on a more receptable basis. The Indian nations are accorded a great deal of autonomy in their internal affairs because they stop short of declaring themselves independent nations. In the scope of history there are the victors and vanquished and the only things given back are solely based on the good will of the victor. Hey, what can I say, that’s life in the fast lane.
Y’know, there’s an interesting question. (I can see it ending up belonging in Great Debates.) It’s one thing to say that the South couldn’t secede; those states had joined the Union willingly, and had been part of it for many years, some of them since the very beginning. Hawaii, on the other hand, really didn’t join willingly, doesn’t have the geographical proximity to the rest of the U.S. that the South had, and has been a state for just about 40 years.
I think that if the majority of the residents of Hawaii wanted their nation back, we ought to give it to 'em.
I think the sovereignty movement in Hawaii is about 40 years too late. Correct me if I’m wrong, but Hawaii’s statehood was supported by a vast majority of the islands’ population.
It’s interesting to note that Hawaii is one of the few parts of the United Staes that wasn’t annexed with government guns or money, but by the political astuteness of American businessmen and missionaries.
I’m guessing that by the time of statehood, ethnic Hawaiians were a minority. Now that I think of it, perhaps the sovereignty movement is 140 years too late.
Guess I didn’t phrase my question right. I am not a proponent of sovereignty (except for the part about throwing virgins in the volcano), and I tend to agree with Papa on the timing and voluntary aspects of the matter. Those 2 issues set aside for the moment… Two questions derived solely from the movement’s statements in the local press:
a) where is there any precedent for non-war reparations ?
b) isn’t the “voluntary association” and contemplated accession of Stewart Atoll to the “Sovereign Hawaiian Nation” (assuming this to be true; see other post) similar to Hawaii’s entry to the US, & hence more than a bit hypocritical ?
(Apart from the other issues (forgetting the existence of a slave class, etc…) there is always some sense of schadenfreude to be gleaned from the unstable internal structure of a revolutionary argument.)