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Protecting Mauna Kea: “We Are Satisfied With The Stones”

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Editor’s note: Contributor Will Falk has been working and living with protesters on Mauna Kea who are attempting to block construction of an 18-story astronomical observatory with an Extremely Large Telescope (ELT).  Opposition in Hawaii to the building of the telescope is based on concerns about potential disruption to the fragile alpine environment and the fact that Mauna Kea is a sacred site for the Native Hawaiian culture.  On June 24th, agents with the Department of Land and Natural Resources abandoned an attempt to escort construction workers to the proposed location after discovering the only road up the mountain was not navigable.  

By Will Falk

The pohaku stopped the Thirty Meter Telescope construction last Wednesday. They began appearing on the Mauna Kea Access Road like raindrops. First, they were sprinkled lightly underfoot. A small rock here. A larger one there. The cops cussed and swore as they tried to remove them from the path of their seemingly unstoppable paddy wagons.

As the cops ascended, washing over the lines of Mauna Kea Protectors standing in their way, small piles grew into a drizzle of stones formed in the gathering fog. Then, the pohaku became a downpour. Looking up the road half-a-mile, I saw heavy boulders standing up, marching to meet us, making it impossible for the TMT construction crews and their police escort to climb any higher.   [Read more…]

Protecting Mauna Kea: This Is A War

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By Will Falk

Sitting outside the 10 by 20 foot makeshift tent that has served as my home for the last 34 days on Mauna Kea, I watch the tent poles shudder to the concussion of US Army howitzer cannons firing live shells at their training grounds below. When the wind blows just right, from the south, the rattle of automatic rifle fire reaches the occupation. There’s no denying it: A war rages in Hawai’i.

It’s a war on native peoples, a war on women, a war on the land, a war on life itself. The war did not start in Hawai’i. The war began thousands of years ago with the dawn of civilization when some humans chose to live in population densities high enough that they overshot the carrying capacity of their homelands and turned to dominating other peoples in other lands. Imperialism was born, and one-by-one land-based, truly sustainable human societies were either eradicated or forced into assimilation.   [Read more…]

Protecting Mauna Kea: Vocabulary for Haoles

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By Will Falk

I write these words from the floor of a warm corner of the men’s restroom at the Mauna Kea visitor center. The temperature outside is too cold for my laptop battery to take a charge and the restroom houses the only active plug, so I huddle in this corner to combat the words used by those who seek to destroy what I love.

I’ve been on Mauna Kea for the last 24 nights standing in solidarity with Kanaka Maoli as they protect their sacred mountain from the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) project that would dynamite an eight acre patch two stories deep at the pristine summit of Mauna Kea.
  [Read more…]

Protecting Mauna Kea: Pule Plus Action

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By Will Falk

I went up to Mauna Kea’s summit a few days ago to pule (to pray) with some of the protectors on a ridge inside the Thirty Meter Telescope’s (TMT) proposed construction site. When we reached the site, we were confronted by half a dozen large men in orange vests and hard hats brandishing cameras, audio recorders, and notebooks.

The boss told us we were trespassing on an active construction site and subject to arrest. I looked around and saw nothing but a handful of back-hoes, the open sky at 14,000 feet above sea level, and a sublime, obsidian-colored cinder field stretching to the clouds. Of course, as I’m writing this, construction on Mauna Kea has been suspended for more than two months.

Kaho’okahi Kanuha explained that we were simply here to say some prayers. The boss told us again we were subject to arrest, mumbled into a hand-held radio, signaled to his men, and began recording us with a camera.   [Read more…]

Protecting Mauna Kea: Notes From the Summit

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I went to the Thirty Meter Telescope construction site near the summit of Mauna Kea for the first time, today. Four-wheel drive is recommended for the road that twists steeply with hairpin turns up the Mountain, so ten of us piled into a Kanaka uncle’s (older native Hawaiian man’s) pick-up truck to go see the summit. Leaving from the visitor center parking lot at 9,200 feet the road ascends over 5,000 feet to an elevation close to 14,000. While my ears popped, my sense of wonder grew. Conversations around the truck bed stopped as the Mountain’s power over our senses intensified.   [Read more…]

Protecting Mauna Kea: Talking Story

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Looking up at the still, lingering morning stars from the best stargazing location in the world early on the third day since my arrival at the occupation on Mauna Kea, my personal velocities catch up with me and I listen. I stand at 9,200 feet above sea level. North and above me, Mauna Kea’s shoulders broaden as they rise into the heavens. Down and to the east, a thick cover of clouds hides the valley below and deadens the rattle of rifle fire coming from the US military training center on the Mountain. Wind scatters the volcanic dust at my feet.

I have never been to a place like this, never looked down on the clouds from any where other than a plane seat, never marveled at the feel of lava pebbles in my palm and I wonder what it all means. Dawn’s thin air only offers my own reflections back to me.   [Read more…]

Protecting Mauna Kea: They Hate Hawai’i

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Trigger warning: This piece contains graphic descriptions of sexual and colonial violence.

Hatred is one of the most misunderstood processes at work in the world today. Cops are killing young people of color while simultaneously maintaining they’re not racists and do not hate the people they’re killing. A growing number of men watch pornography claiming they do not hate women. Millions of tourists visit Hawai’i annually – despite pleas from native Hawaiians to stop – and feel they are so far from hating Hawai’i, it’s their favorite place to visit.   [Read more…]

Protecting Mauna Kea: Stopping Murder-Suicide

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By Will Falk

When people have asked me why I am going to Hawai’i to help protect Mauna Kea and my answer involves words like “sacredness” or “spiritual,” I am surprised whenever I see the grimaces.

I often get an explanation like this, “I support indigenous people, of course, but the telescope is for science. Isn’t it a little…superstitious to block an astronomy project for a mountain?” I said I was surprised, but I shouldn’t be. Spirituality, I forgot, is anathema in many leftist circles.

It shouldn’t be.   [Read more…]

Protecting Mauna Kea: History for Haoles

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By Will Falk

In the first essay of my Protecting Mauna Kea series, I made a mistake. I wrongfully described the ongoing, illegal American occupation of Hawai’i as an “annexation.”

Hawaiian friends of mine pointed this out to me and gave me a thorough history lesson. I was referred to documents, books, and websites that tell the truth. For the last several days, I’ve been reading everything I can on the subject.

The more I read, the more convinced I become not only that the Thirty Meter Telescope project lacks any legal right to build on Mauna Kea, but that international law, indeed American law itself, demands that the United States end it’s occupation of Hawai’i.   [Read more…]

Protecting Mauna Kea: Why the Mountain?

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By Will Falk

I am preparing to leave for Hawai’i to offer myself in support of resistance to the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) project that would place a large telescope and stadium-sized structure on the peak of native Hawaiians’ most sacred place – Mauna Kea.

The project, funded by a partnership including the University of California, the California Institute of Technology, and the Association of Canadian Universities for Research in Astronomy among others, would also place a 5,000 gallon chemical waste container above the largest freshwater aquifer on Hawai’i Island.

I first heard about this struggle from the brilliant documentary film-maker Anne Keala Kelly when she spoke at the Earth at Risk conference in San Francisco organized by the Fertile Ground Environmental Institute last fall. I was beyond excited when a friend recently put me in touch with Keala explaining that the Mauna Kea protectors seek more support from the mainland.   [Read more…]

The Dead Write No Poems

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By Will Falk

National Poetry Month happens to mark the year anniversary since I set out on the road to dedicate my life to the struggle against this dominant culture hell-bent on destroying the world.

Questions arise on this road, questions that I must answer if I am going to continue on this way.

One of the questions I seek answers for involves poetry. I love poetry. I love reading poetry, I love listening to poetry, and I love writing poetry. But, the hour is extremely late, and poetry means nothing if it is not used as a weapon in defense of the real world.   [Read more…]

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