What we as a society now face brings comparison with the coming together of all sectors of our country in the Great Depression. An era with which we as a nation are still deeply connected.
However, what has ” now come round at last”, is an increasing lack of inclusion by the ruling class of those most in need. A representative and social democracy has its foundation in the everyday lives of our communities; a viable republic needs the shared inspiration and goals of its peoples.
The obvious disparities between rich and poor and those under considerable pressures simply to “get by,” has deepened. The undue haste with which the rezoning for the Makena Resort was passed–even with strong and salient public criticisms–shows the deference given to the very rich, and how compromised we are as community, given the great financial pressures on nearly all of us.
If we asked–aside from the promise of construction work–how we felt about wholesale destruction of numerous cultural sites, and, as importantly, our access to the ocean again being severely limited, I sense most of our community members would not want these things to happen to us as a community. Like it or not, our ability to adapt to these pressures, will depend on our ability to listen to each other, our commitment to help one another, and our ability to include. The F.A.C.E. endeavor of cooperation among religious and social action groups seems positive.
What we presently lack, and what is at the core of our dis- empowerment, is engagement in the political and other community systems. What we give away now to inappropriate development, cannot again be retrieved.
Maybe we need to look toward the future with more of a sense of place, both of what has been and what will be here for our children. We aren’t looking forward in any real sense, we are simply desperate for immediate(and temporary)answers to our present needs. Maybe we need to look deeper, yet most of what needs to be done, must come from here, from us. We are our own best strength, but to move forward, we must start from a position of social equity–the enduring privileges of class must begin again to bend with the demands of these times–otherwise the separation between classes in our society will become unendurable, and lead to further deterioration.
I would point here to the disposition of public trust waters throughout the County of Maui. Time and again the Hawai’i State Supreme Court has ruled that the rights of all waters within the State of Hawai’i are vested in the State as trustee for its’ peoples. Not HC&S, not Wailuku Water Company, not Maui Land & Pine. Water in trust for us. For all those waiting sometimes for decades for minimal public water supplies, for access to land, and for access to financing for building homes. What are we waiting for? For those in power to exercise enough political will to help those in need, those who have waited, those whose needs must at last be met.
Social justice in our communities is based upon restoration of these rights, guaranteed by our laws and affirmed by our courts, not more favors for the special few. Unfortunately, we don’t seem to have the seemingly glib slogans of the Sixties, which helped a generation begin to “fall awake,” toward a movement of harmonization and mutual generosity. Maybe we simply didn’t have the emotional maturity to help realize these ideals. Certainly, the United States as a society turned toward an imperialism, which we now see waning.
We cannot go on as before, and we may be foolish to depend upon the largesse of a Federal Government which is in many ways, already bankrupt.
It often seems that we have the choice to “fall awake” and get down to the work that needs to be done, i.e., building community, or we can choose to remain asleep. These times call for a rare and priceless sense of community, a commitment to agrarian reform, and an end to poverty everywhere.