by Mark Jeffers on 22 November 2007
To be relaxed, and in tune with the natural world in Hawaii, anywhere really, is to love its beauty and care for it with your own hands. Unfortunately, too few newcomer people to Kauai come here with good experiences of personally knowing the land or the ocean in a first hand caring & aloha aina way.
Those local family members of all cultures who have lived on this island the longest have felt the sting of another "haole" attitude or the incredibly arrogant presence of a noxious insect or a new comer weed, playing havoc with fragile island environments.
We all have an immediate need for a more secure island before a pestilence of sorts breaks down the fabric of our communities with over whelming invasive species and turns the balance of our islands' cultural landscape and natural cycles too far to one cut-shorted side.
Too few of us have the kind of historical knowledge and respect to give one voice politically and economically to our sovereign island people. It is truly unfortunate that our Hawaiian Kanaka Mauli people are not seen by our present system of administration as one people, an original people, deserving to receive back what was taken away from them in the overthrow and the subsequent annexation and statehood political travesties.
The potency and benefits of a system of island Home Rule for Kauai's safety must be chosen now by the majority of citizens that live on Kauai in a democratic way. Will it be on the ballot in 2008? Perhaps our County Council should be asked to research the possibilities of island self governance that exist elsewhere in the Pacific Basin. We must consider gently seceding through time from globalization.
We now should tighten our shores from invasives' like Fire Ants, bird killing mongooses, drive through package liquor stores, nuclear devices, or sprawling subdivisions. Neither a "SUPER" ferry nor a "SUPER" anything should be being built on or brought to our very limited Kaua'i island home. |
