• Jimbo and Ray are an inspiration to us • Loss of Hawaiian culture Jimbo and Ray are an inspiration to us I want to thank Chris D’Angelo, Léo Azambuja and TGI for their coverage of the ongoing saga of
• Jimbo and Ray are an inspiration to us • Loss of Hawaiian culture
Jimbo and Ray are an inspiration to us
I want to thank Chris D’Angelo, Léo Azambuja and TGI for their coverage of the ongoing saga of the Wailua multi-use path. Chris’ latest piece is called “Wailua altar dismantled” (March 14). The removal of a symbolic sacred ahu from the footprint of the path is not the end of the story.
Saturday, it was announced that Prosecutor Justin Kollar will not prosecute Jimbo and Ray for their religious practices at Wailua, the piko of Kaua‘i, and one of the most sacred places in all of Hawai‘i.
In the big picture, the concrete construction is the latest culturally genocidal act in the 120-year illegal occupation of Hawai‘i by the corporation known as the U.S. Government and its wholly-owned subsidiaries, the fake state of Hawai‘i and the County of Kaua‘i. Just as they have done in Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, the Marshall Islands and in many other places, the U.S. Empire has invaded and militarily occupied a non-threatening sovereign nation, in violation of international laws.
The workers may have removed the rocks at Wailua, but it wasn’t their decision to do so. In fact, they showed a lot of reverence and compassion for the Hawaiian culture, as they sadly did their job. They are victims of the occupation of Hawai‘i, just like the kanaka and all the rest of us who have a Hawaiian heart.
When mass consciousness raises to a higher level, will be the time when workers and citizens will begin to throw off the shackles of those who are most responsible for all the misery and for all the blood on our hands.
America would be so beautiful without their dark energy. They are the oppressors, the greedy capitalists, the military occupiers, those career bureaucrats and gutless politicians who enslave all of us for their enrichment, their legacies, their paranoid lust for wealth and power and control over us.
Until the light of justice shines brightly, working class heroes like Jimbo Alalem and Ray Catania will continue to inspire the rest of us to resist, to organize and to educate. And, to truly honor and respect the ancestors and the ‘aina.
Fred Dente
Kapa‘a
Loss of Hawaiian culture
No cultural practitioner would do Building Division Chief Doug Haigh’s bidding and bless the destruction of the ahu shrine at Wailua Beach. Instead he authorized extra expenditures so four Kaikor Construction workers would do it for him.
From the beginning of bike path construction in January, all the workers carefully avoided disturbing the ahu, knowing as they did the cultural significance of Wailuanuiaho‘ano and the heiau Mahunapu‘uone. They joined hands in a pule around the ahu before disassembling it one pohaku, or rock, at a time and relocating them a short distance makai.
Now Prosecuting Attorney Justin Kollar has dropped charges against James Alalem and Ray Catania, arrested for defending the heiau on Feb. 7, and with that acknowledging that Mahunapu‘uone is indeed spiritually sensitive land that should have never been disturbed.
The ongoing shameful hypocrisy of Hawaiian culture abandonment in service to development is on full display, as Kaua‘i’s rich indigenous history and the bike path are pitched as marketing assets for tourism just as the bike path paves over an ancient heiau location.
For most of us, the location of this most recent struggle to preserve Hawaiian lands and culture, and in fact the entire length of Wailua Beach and its shorebreak will soon be lost from view from our car windows, blocked by the bike path barrier wall. It will, in a real sense, effectively go away.
When places go away, so does the memory of those places and so does the culture that lives through those memories.
Kip Goodwin
Kapa‘a
