07/22/2019
From Margaret Leahy-Conner
Some people say to me, “why are you in this Mauna Kea thing? How does this have anything to do with you?''
I want to take a few moments to name some of the answers.
The media has framed this situation as a struggle between science and tradition. This is incorrect. Line up any ten of the Hawaiians leading the movement and nine of them will have PhDs. I know these people. They are highly educated and deeply scientific. This struggle is actually between science and business. Science teaches us the importance of watershed, biological diversity, and habitat. None of us can survive without these things. And here stand the Hawaiians laying down their lives to protect their watershed, biological diversity and habitat. When an organization is willing to trample over thousands of people to achieve their goal, that is not science, it's business. When a government arms itself against its own unarmed citizens, that is not science, it's business. We have come to a critical juncture as a species. All of us need to take stock and decide where we stand. Business has no end to its appetite. Business will take every tree and every drop of water. Business will destroy every landscape to extract what lies beneath it. Business puts a price on everything, including children. Business tells us that if we stop business, we will all die a terrible death in chaos and misery. The truth is, business must begin to take no for an answer. Some things are not for sale. Some things are not for development or financial gain, human entertainment or other marketable agendas. Some things are for watersheds, for beauty, for biological diversity, for habitat, for prayer or wonder. The Hawaiian people know this truth. All indigenous peoples know this truth. In all the centuries of their suffering as business has attempted to eradicate them, indigenous peoples have continued to cry out to all of us the true science of life. It is not because indigenous people are somehow better or different from other people. We all began as indigenous, it's simply that the indigenous peoples alive today have not forgotten the truths we all once knew. I stand with Mauna Kea because this, the tallest mountain on earth, is calling us all to remember that we cannot live without our mountains, they sustain us and provide for us. I stand with Mauna Kea because she calls us all to employ everything we are and everything we have to participate in turning the tide. I stand with Mauna Kea because the people who are standing on Mauna Kea are showing us how to choose life. Together we rise.
