After Hawaiian independence

In Hawaii, there has for many decades been a small, but vocal, subset of people dedicated to the hope of regaining political independence for the islands. Earlier this week, HRCFS director (and Professor of Political Science) Jim Dator spoke to a community group of Hawaiian pro-sovereignty activists, to explore possible scenarios for the islands in the -- eventually, probable -- event that their shared aim were to be realised.

Below is a video of the first ten minutes of his address on 26 October, which was part of an occasional series sponsored by Ka Lei Maile Ali`i Hawaiian Civic Club, and convened by Lynette Cruz.



(The remaining four segments can be found via YouTube: two, three, four, five.)

In this presentation, titled "After Independence, What?", Dator highlights the importance of preparing a coherent sense of the possible political landscapes that may lie beyond the milestone of recognition of sovereignty. He lays out a variety of sharply differing models for post-independence Hawaii, noting the diversity of preferred scenarios even among members of the audience, and urging them to work towards a shared transitional agenda sooner rather than later. And he gives an account from personal experience of the sudden changes undergone by several Eastern European polities, to a post-communist era; countries which achieved "whatever it was that they had been striving for, but they weren't prepared for the next step."

Although these issues have been of great concern to a variety of Hawaiian independence advocates for a long time, at the moment there seems to be a surge of public interest in these issues, perhaps in part due to the grim global economic outlook, and the accompanying realisation that the place of the U.S. in the world is shifting. At the Hawaii International Film Festival last month the winner of the Best Documentary award was Noho Hewa: The Wrongful Occupation of Hawai'i, directed by a local journalist, and it is currently screening at the University of Hawaii's Manoa campus, where HRCFS is based.