cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/5705452
This is a great presentation by two members of Hui Aloha Aina:
Ka ʻAhahui Hawaiʻi Aloha ‘Āina (a.k.a. Hui Aloha ʻĀina), the Hawaiian Patriotic League, is a grassroots community-driven organization committed to preserving Hawaiian independence and heritage. Reconstituted in 2016, the League was formed to follow in the footsteps of the original Hui Aloha ʻĀina of 1893, a Hawaiian political organization formed to restore Queen Liliʻuokalani, after Hawaiʻi’s government was illegally overthrown by American businessmen. Following the COVID-19 Pandemic of 2020, KAHAA once again launched Hui Aloha ʻĀina with new members, updated bylaws, a new central body and a new sense of purpose. Hui Aloha ʻĀina o Honolulu is a branch of Ka Ahahui Hawaiʻi Aloha ʻĀina.
There is an overview of the history of Hawai'i pre-and-post-colonization that goes well beyond the extremely superficial story Americans are (maybe) familiar with, and the video is worth it for that alone. At its lowest point, the Hawaiian population was reduced by 95% in a terrible genocide that (as always) is necessary for the carrying out of a settler-colonial project.
Today, the Hawaiian nation remains occupied by the US military, who perform continuous terrible crimes against the island in service of maintaining their Pacific empire, which depends heavily on both the location of Hawai'i as a staging ground/waystation for the Pacific fleet, providing the most important link in the chain of islands that allows the US to project power against Asia and as a training area, being the only part of the US proper with a tropical climate and with some islands reduced to nothing but weapons testing grounds.
The Hawaiian people's struggle for sovereignty, though relatively small in scale compared to the crises around the world today, is an incredibly important component of the struggle against imperialism and colonialism. The Hawaiian national liberation movement has won many struggles, taking back control of their land from the military piece by piece and securing essential cultural and linguistic rights. There is still much to struggle for, and total liberation of the islands, restoring full Hawaiian sovereignty and independence, would be as much an act of justice for that specific nation as it would a blow to global imperialism.
Without the occupation of Hawai'i, the US could not effectively threaten China and Korea. The defeat of settler colonialism in the metropole goes hand in hand with the defeat of imperialism abroad.