Native Hawaiians are protesting the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea. Where do we go from here?
This article by Sarah Emerson and Becky Ferreira was published in Vice.com on July 26th, 2019.
Thousands of people including Native Hawaiians—Kanaka Maoli or Kanaka ʻŌiwi—gathered at Mauna Kea last week to protest the construction of an enormous, $1.4 billion telescope on Hawaiʻi’s tallest mountain.
With this telescope, astronomers could spot the universe’s oldest stars or potential signs of life on exoplanets; its giant mirror rendering images that are 12 times sharper than the Hubble Space Telescope. But to many Native Hawaiians, the project has become a pinnacle of colonialism on the island.
“At Mauna Kea last week, we were a line of women standing face-to-face with police forces,” said Noelani Goodyear-Kaʻōpua, an associate professor at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and guardian of the sacred mountain.
“We were preparing for them to use pepper spray and batons,” she said. “But we knew that whatever happens on the mauna, [there is going to be] a reckoning.”
Last Wednesday, police arrested 33 kupuna (elders), some in wheelchairs, for peacefully opposing the mountain’s desecration. The arrests sparked an outcryof support for the Mauna Kea protectors, or kiaʻi, as the movement’s activists are broadly known.
From Auckland’s Aotea Square to the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, people across the world are now pressuring Hawaiʻi to halt construction and listen to its native voices. On the national stage, representatives Tulsi Gabbard and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, along with Senator Elizabeth Warren, have each expressed their solidarity for Mauna Kea protectors. Hawaiʻi’s own delegates, Representative Ed Case and Senator Mazie Hirono, defended the movement as well.
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