What Would Queen Liliuokalani Do?

       If you call Hawaii your home, eventually you have to deal with the overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom. You can choose to ignore it, and that is one sort of reaction, you can choose to make a stand politically, or you can live somewhere in the uncertain in-between and try to articulate a position, which is what I am going to try to do now .

The Hawaii State Library is touring a program called "He Lei, He Aloha: This is a lei of Love, the Legacies of Queen Lili'uokalani," in honor of the 100th anniversary of the Hawaii State Library. This is an interactive event; some participants are given significant sections of the Queen's autobiography to read. A few of her songs are also sung. After the readings, there is a discussion, with a volunteer from the I'olani Guild, Uncle Fred, facilitating and  asking us to talk story and share our responses to the work.  

How agonizing it must have been for the Queen to abdicate. But she did so to save the 40,000 Hawaiians who had thus far survived decimating diseases, and also because she believed that the U.S. Government would intervene eventually. After all, the British government undid the British occupation decades earlier when a renegade captain had claimed Hawaii for his country. 

It occurred to me that it must have been depressing for the Queen to realize that the US would not intervene, that the US Congress and President allowed the overthrow to be sustained which led to annexation and eventually current statehood. I asked how she was able to cope with this - the loss of the kingdom, the injustice of it all. Uncle Fred responded that the answer can be found in the Queen's prayer, which she wrote when she was imprisoned under house arrest in I'olani palace. Uncle sang a verse of it, some of us sang with him:

'O kou aloha nô

Aia i ka lani

A `o Kou `oia `i`o

He hemolelo ho`i

 

And he explained, emotionally, solemnly, that it was about forgiveness and having aloha, and once you lose that, once you don't have aloha, you are lost. In the beloved song, she referred to "truth" of "the heavens" as a way of coming to peace with "malevolence" and the "sins of man."

There was nothing pono about the overthrow. There is no way that one can justify it except in terms of power, money, arrogance, capitalism, colonialism, racism, greed. Nothing pono about that. There are those who believe that sovereignty is the only pono solution. There are those who say that having too much aloha has hurt the Hawaiians. 

In the end, though the days of outright colonialism are over, we still live in a world of meanness, injustice, dishonesty, and greed. It is so much to wrap your head around. It is hard to be all peace, love, and harmony, when there is so much to be angry about. So we all have to be like the Queen in dealing with it. Sometimes the result will not be what you thought or hoped it would be, but if you can hold the ugly truth in your brain, speak the ugly truth when you are given opportunities to, and still be beautiful in your aloha for all, then maybe maybe maybe, there will be a just reaping of what you sowed at some point. But if nothing else, you brought grace, beauty, and aloha to those who you encountered. And that is a magnificent legacy. 

       The last part of the program was read together by all of us: 

"I could not turn back the time for the political change, but there is still time to save our heritage. You must remember never to cease to act because you fear you may fail. The way to lose any earthly kingdom is to be inflexible, intolerant, and prejudicial. Another way is to be too flexible, tolerant of too many wrongs and without judgment at all. It is a razor's edge. It is a width of a pili grass. To gain the kingdom of heaven is to hear what is not said, to see what cannot be seen, and to know the unknowable - that is Aloha. All things in this world are two; in heaven, there is but One."