The Situation at Mauna Kea in Hawaii

The Socialism Or You Money Back blog endeavours to present socialist ideas or a socialist interpretation of political events. Sometimes it is merely relaying basic information of actions of the working class around the globe.

One such movement has been the opposition to the building of a large astronomical telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii.

https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2019/07/26/we-are-mauna-kea/

https://truthout.org/articles/mauna-kea-protests-are-part-of-a-long-fight-against-colonialism/

The SOYMB main blogger declined an invitation from a comrade to comment and to be open and fair, his response to that decision should now be posted.

"...Thank you for "I'll be honest" but that is taken for granted between comrades. Judgement calls exist because they are our thoughts and conclusions. They change all the time with new facts, knowledge acquired. I will enter my thoughts as a commentary, conversation.

Comradely,   
 TG-H


2019-07-27:
The blog has not covered the Hawaii although aware of the protests.

Those were not "protests". They are part of the present enactment of The Material Conception of History. It is the Hawai'i part of the global uprising of aboriginal peoples against the occupiers, who militarily stole their land to do whatever they want with it [read money] for the capitalist class of the foreign state imposed on them. Much of South America is rife with savage intrusion on their lands by states legally giving land to mining, forestry. oil rights taken from them. Mexico, the U.S. (blocking pipelines. water confrontations) and all over Canada. When I was reading the Hawai'ian history in that article I was reading step-by-step step-by-step the history of Canada. In detail really! The residential schools and the eradication of their language, broken treaties, rape and subjugation of their identity (we call religion destroyed the lands they have, the 1960's Scoop when 1000's of children were seized by their parents and sent for adoption in white Canada and the U.S. The state sent out armed militias to eradicate them in Nova Scotia. That is what they were "protesting." It is a battle about land ownership control à la Marx: the occupied racially oppressed  underclass rising up against the white "owning" class.


I'll be honest … i felt it might be a case of NIMBYism (NOT IN MY BACK YARD) being politically exploited

More like "NOT ON MY LAND ANY MORE YOU THIEVES". Remember Oka? Those Hawai'is were the exploited underclass with no military might,  using their bodies and mouths,  causing physical obstruction until removed (AND GAOLED?) Of course it is (seen as) "political".


Also being non-religious, I thought appealing to the "sacred nature" of the mountain to be something a materialist would not do. 

I am a materialist, hence articulate atheist, although I describe myself as an anti-theist. In the case of the sacred mountain we consider it "religious", but aboriginal social, cultural beliefs are a world-wide communal view of the world. It is who they are and they live on Turtle Island. Perhaps you could compare "the sacred mountain" to our society's communal cemetery of our ancestors.


"The Thirty Meter Telescope is the colonizer trying to exterminate our identity and our sense of self as Hawai’ians..." -  a bit of hyperbolic language.

Perhaps they symbolise the socialist principle of human freedom to be our social selves in equality with all others.


Nor did I find this other article to particularly persuasive

https://truthout.org/articles/mauna-kea-protests-are-part-of-a-long-fight-against-colonialism/

I accept I made a judgement call and you may well disagree with it. 

 There may be many cultural and nationalist questions concerning Hawaii but I am not so sure of the degree of priority of adding another telescope to many others in relation to them.

Obviously I am not going to argue about your "judgement call" which is quite legitimate.  I still think the historical information contained could well be used for an interesting article in the SS.


As an aside on colonialism, I see no movement to remove the British Union Jack from the Hawaii flag but perhaps there is

Chuckle icon. I guess it wasn't a priority considering the small number representing their tribe. Or perhaps there were no volunteers to climb the flagpole and then immediately head for the dungeon..."

The SOYMB blog is not infallible and there will be occasions that it will err. Perhaps deciding not to draw attention to the situation in Hawaii may be one of those times that it was amiss. We will not disguise or hide our weaknesses.