CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES

My first reaction to this anthology left me irritated at the fact that, once again, Hawaiians have been systematically excluded from yet another major discourse on Indigeneity – this time, however, from the Climate Change and Pacific Rim Indigenous Nations Project along with its aim to create an “Indigenous Nations Treaty – an independent compact among sovereign Native governments around the Pacific Rim” (17).  Last week’s Corntassel reading discussed the politics of perception, and I wonder how/why the so-called Indigenous people of the Pacific Rim do not recognize the Hawaiian people as belonging to that group.  This is problematic because the continued non-recognition of Hawaiian Indigeneity by other Indigenous governments severs us from international Indigenous solidarity – which I believe is necessary for an effective countermovement against the colonial Settler-State of Hawai‘i.  Am I just being pessimistic, or are others concerned about exclusionist discourses on Pacific Indigeneity? Does it matter that this book doesn’t concern the Hawaiian people?

Some of you have read Hegel, and it seems as if this anthology promotes that philosophy.  In the introduction we read, “The actions of Indigenous nations should create integrated, holistic solutions” (16).  It also promotes the goal of “politically unifying the representation of Indigenous nation concerns [on climate change]” (18).  In Jeannette Armstong’s Sharing One Skin, the underlying theme of Okanagan philosophy is “oneness,” “wholeness,” “reverting back to a larger self,” and, of course, the sharing of “one skin.”  This is Hegelian in that the Whole is more significant than the constituent parts.  The dialectic posits that “progress” is a unification or a forging of difference.  When applied to Indigenous studies, this means that assimilation and compromises give rise to progress.  Internalizing certain colonial aspects while discarding certain Native ones, then, is necessary to move forward.  I disagree with the Hegelian solution to the Indigenous/colonial dialectic and agree more with the Nietzschian perspective – where life is essentially irreconcilable difference.  Unfortunately, over the semester we haven’t encountered too many writers of that sort.  However, when applied to Indigenous identity, it means that assimilationist policies are destructive.  The inherent dichotomies that create Indigeneity apart from colonialism cannot be merged into the whole.  Those aspects of Indigeneity that assert its difference ought to be promulgated.  I think we need to move past the fairy tale ideal that the colonizer and colonized can live in harmony through assimilation.  The current socio/political/economic status of Hawaiians today indicate that the policy of assimilation has failed miserably.  Indigenous people ought to affirm their differences as that which makes them as such.  A compromise with the colonizer, then, isn’t an option because it’s simultaneously a compromise with identity.