The problem: tourists
The problem: tourists
So, Mauna Kea is sacred. I buy that. Unfortunately, I really don’t think the Thirty Meter Telescope is the largest enemy the Hawaiians face.
The last time I visited the peak, I was appalled to see the hoard of foreigners desecrating the mountain. I see the 15-passenger tour vans driving up to the mountain with loads of tourists every day to look at the sunset.
Those foreigners literally crawl all over the mountain. You cannot get a photograph of the sunset without tourists coming into view. They are rude! They are selfish, and the tour guides are not from here.
Tourism is a self-destructive industry we are trying to promote because it is easy. We don’t have to create anything. We don’t have to manufacture anything. However, the once-desirable location that attracts tourism is no longer attractive when you have to “enjoy” it by fighting an increasing number of other tourists. Just look at Hanauma Bay on Oahu. It was such a pristine place, and now … you can’t even find parking.
Look at the beaches on the Kohala Coast. It reminds me of the segregation between “whites and colored” from the ’60s. They have beach access for the locals, but they also have signs that say “This area is for hotel guests only.”
The tourist industry is run by foreigners catering to foreigners. How many local jobs can tourism create?
If Hawaiians want to keep the mountain sacred, they should pick their guardian with diligence. Stop the tour vans from going up there and running amok. TMT might not be a very bad thing.
Hansen Tsang
Hilo
Aloha trumps cosmos
For centuries, European “science” has promised enrichment while facilitating impoverishment for colonized and exploited peoples.
Hawaiians and allies have every reason to be circumspect of these current purveyors, attempting to invoke ruling-class largess (to whom they owe everything) as some kind of legitimacy for their intentions to add “value” by building on Mauna Kea.
How could they imagine, knowing full well the history of deceit that litters the social landscape of these islands, that their plans to exploit the natural advantages here could be procured at any price from a dignified and experienced people, grounded in a culture of nurturing and protecting the ‘aina?
This is a potent measure of their hubris and exposes to the world the bankruptcy of their system. Those who stand for pono and truth courageously invite all to experience aloha, an understanding infinitely more expansive than the cosmos some claim a desire to observe.
Stephen Paulmier
Hilo