Promises, Promises

by Cliopatria

Slade Gorton and Hank Brown have written an attack on the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Bill (aka Akaka Bill) (thanks to reader Joseph Tumpap; it's also available here) which is getting a fair bit of press, but lacks much of a leg to stand on. WSJ has not deigned to publish my reply, which was

Former Senators Gorton and Brown view the history of Hawai'i and the Native Hawaiian Recognition Act through ideological blinders rather than a fair reading of the history and law. From the fallacy about the Fourteenth Amendment (Congress has plenty of authority to define race and use it as a meaningful category in policy) to the denial of US involvement in the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawai'i (US troops were involved, on the authority of local commanders) to the confusion between the 1993 Apology and the actual history of Hawai'i (the Apology has no legal force, nor do backroom"assurances"; it merely serves as a source for the history which has been acknowledged by Congress), this article is completely one-sided and without merit except as an exercise in partisan rhetoric.

They even cite the 1959 plebiscite, which was flawed under international law because independence was not an option: statehood was the _best_ option presented, perhaps, but using the results to justify anything else is a logical error. The absurdities about secession are frankly weird: the bill in question creates an election and negotiating process, not a sovereign entity with territory. The"scrupulous" protections of the Constitution actually have failed to protect programs and institutions which predate statehood and which are very important to the Native Hawaiian people.
The Kingdom of Hawai'i was, as the senators note, a multi-ethnic state: that openness was exploited by Americans to dominate, undermine and annex the territory. Ironically, the Akaka bill is going to provide for Native Hawaiians the protections and institutions which would have been provided them if they had been territorially resistant and forcibly removed like Native Americans. The generosity of spirit and forward-thinking nature of the Hawaiian monarchy was abused, and the apology and the Akaka bill would, in a small way at least, rectify that injustice.

The section of their screed which is getting the most attention around here is the one about the assurances they supposedly received that the 1993 Apology would not lead to demands for compensation, etc. The problem is not that Akaka and Inouye went back on their word, but that the Apology wasn't sufficient. It did not erase the history or settle the question of the status of Hawaiian programs under law and therefore did not succeed in blunting the Hawaiian sovereignty movement.

The bill (most of the objections to which I discussed here) comes back up for debate (at least, if Frist and co. can keep their party mates in line) the same week that the Roberts hearings start. Then there's the House....

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More Comments:

David T. Beito - 8/20/2005

Doesn't Grover Cleveland's renunciation of the annexation treaty in 1893 count as an apology?

Van L. Hayhow - 8/20/2005

Thanks to both of you for your comments. I am now half way into the book and am enjoying it but at 360 pages it is written with very broad strokes. Much of it I did not know. It appears to be written for the general reader and not as a text.

Jeremy Dupertuis Bangs - 8/20/2005

Thanks. I had not seen your first survey, which gives a useful over-view. My interest is to see whether there is much analogy to issues of Native land claims in southeastern Massachusetts (not much). I haven't read all of Conklin's postings, but the few I read didn't seem to qualify as ranting, despite the typographical unrest. I was interested in his report about the artefacts (from Forbes Cave, I think), that were "re-patriated" and then offered for sale.

Jonathan Dresner - 8/19/2005

If you pick one, I'll look at it, but I'm not going to spend my next several months picking at Conklin's ranting. I did an initial survey of the Akaka bill and pro/con arguments here and updated it recently here. That covers a lot of the ground.

There's two major problems I have with Conklin's position: he mistakes fairness with sameness, and he fails (deliberately, I think) to distinguish between majority/moderate and fringe/radical Hawaiian positions. The Senators make the same mistake when they talk about seccessionism: my readings suggest that the people who want a Hawaiian entity to secede oppose the Akaka Bill precisely because it provides for a non-seccessionist sovereignty.

Jeremy Dupertuis Bangs - 8/19/2005

Professor Dresner,
Being largely uninformed on this topic (and neutral), I'd be curious if you have published opinions that respond to the positions taken by Dr. Kenneth R. Conklin (under the title "Hawaiian Sovereignty: Thinking Carefully About It")at www.angelfire.com/hi2/hawaiiansovereignty/

Manan Ahmed - 8/19/2005

Prof. Cook does broad-strokes quite well. His field is early Islamic history. His recent A Very Short Introduction to the Koran is quite good as is his bio of Muhammad. I haven't read this book [or knew of its existence] but I have always enjoyed reading him.

Jonathan Dresner - 8/19/2005

Nope, never heard of it, sorry.

We just switched from Bentley/Ziegler to Brummett/Edgar/Hackett/Jusbury/Molony (which I'm going to call by its title, Civilization: Past and Present for obvious reasons), and I'm pretty impressed with the density of information, but still struggling with their online tech support....

Van L. Hayhow - 8/19/2005

Prof. Drezner:
This is off topic, but as you teach world history part of the time I thought I would ask. I recently picked up a book by Michael Cook (of Princeton, I believe) called A Brief History of the Human Race. I have read the first couple of chapters and it seems interesting. Are you familiar with it and if so, what is your take on it?
Thanks.

Rebecca Anne Goetz - 8/19/2005

I see. I've just always been interested in the differences between Alaskan claims settlement and what happened on the continent. Of course, ANSCA was also fueled, so to speak, by the need to have the oil pipeline cross tribal territory...I'm really interested in what happens next with this; maybe you could keep us posted?

PS. I read the piece you linked to; even without understanding all the details it seems like those two wrote a very one-sided and not very understanding article.

Jonathan Dresner - 8/19/2005

It's not irrelevant, exactly, but the issues are different. I don't know much about ANSCA, honestly, but my impression is that that Alaska natives were already recognized tribal entities. In the case of Hawai'i, the tribal entity became a monarchy, which became a modernizing state, which was overthrown, and there was no reconstitution of a tribal structure after annexation. So the Akaka Bill is a necessary first step before Claims Settlement could even begin. One of the issues in the Akaka bill is the negotiation of claims settlement, and the presumption in the Bill is that there will be no claims to settle at this point: the Hawaiian Homelands and OHA and the trusts have quite a bit of resources; if they could be protected, there'd be no need for claims settlements.

Rebecca Anne Goetz - 8/19/2005

This might be a completely irrelevant question, but I'm wondering if the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act could be used as a precedent for the Akaka Bill? I don't know the specifics of the Hawaiian bill but it seems to me that Congress has passed similar legislation in the past...just a thought.