Further inna it, big island end of third week.
Hey all, well I finish up at the farm tomorrow. Time went fast, it wasn't the farm I had hoped it would be but I at least got some time to readjust following the end of the internship.
Work at the farm and infact the analogous situation to the larger picture is that fact that while the farm can "Produce" it is a false production.
The land where the farm is was previously is ex cane lands. In Hawaii foreign advisers to king Kamahama the third convinced him to give up the traditional system of land ownership and adopt a "European" (Capitalist/Millitarist/Expansionist/Colonial) Model of land ownership. Previously, entire water catchments were lived in an cares for by the community. The system was known as Ahuapua'a and is named for the markers that hawaiian used to demarcate the edges of these catchments. Within the catchment the upper forest was left undisturbed to perform its function in the cycle, catch and recycle rain and nutrients and wash this into the river. Then in the upper and lower levels Taro, the staple crop, was grown using intricate aquaduct systems known as lo'i. This had the advantage over the roman aquaduct system that it didn't cause brain degeneration due to lead poisining. This caught a huge amount of silt and nutrients in the lo'i and used this to grow edible food. Water then flowed down to the river mouth where Hawaiians built loko.
Loko were hawaiian fish ponds that were constructed at the place where the river met the sea. By building rock walls out in the sea they created ponds that would fill at high tide. A gate could be opperated to let fish fill the pond and then closed. The carniverious fish were removed and the herbivores lived in the pond eatting Limu (seaweed). This grew fish and prevented silt from flowing onto the reef and killing the reef ecosystem which was another resource which fishermen would work and bring food in to the lower village that could then be traded with people living upstream. Hawaiian society had a complex social system with various roles for different individuals. Each Ahuapua'a had a Konohiki who was a individual that was the "Guardian of the 'Aina" the protector of the land, water, island.
The Konohiki was an individual who was uniquely tied to the land and understood the cycles of the island ecosystem and who knew when different fish and sea mammals were Kapu (forbidden) and could not be hunted and when they could. They would also resolve things between different parties in the watershed and ensure people were doing their bit. Not shiting in the river upstream and letting enough water through for the lower farmers/fishpond.
This complex land/social managment system has how land was managed. It was not owned, the people belonged to the land not the other way around. So this was an issue for expansionist colonial empires who wanted islands to fuel their empires with sugar, coffee, etc which earned a premium because of their luxury status and were termed cash crops. So the advisers convinced the king to abandon this system like the monarcy had previously done with the old religion and social protocals as european monarcy structure took hold. This event was termed "The Great Mehele". Mehele is Hawaiian for "to divide". This term was for social division of a shared resource that many people helped capture. So when one person provided the net and another the canoes and others went and put the nets out, the captured fish would be "Mehele" Between the participants. Within 50yrs of the "Great Mehele" 90% of hawaii was owner by foreigners.
In 1893 an overthrow of the Hawaiian monarcy was then orchestrated by the sugar barons and missionary decendants who were american and they convinced the american army and navy forces that were stationed in Hawaii to threaten to attack unless the queen ceded her kingdom. The US has subsequently appologised for their role in this on the 100yr aniversary of the event with a non-binding resolution appologising for the wrongdoing and theft). Thus was born the Hawaiian Republic run by the sugar barons and missionary decendants. In its inititial establishment the US President Grover Cleaveland ordered the monarcy to be restored but this fell on the deaf ears of millitary men and millionares thousands of miles away in the pacific and when a new president was elected he expediated the process of annexxing the islands as an American territory. This helped the sugar barons avoid trade tarrifs and gain an advantage in the sugar import markets over other collonial sugar production enterprises in South America, the Carribian, Asia.
Sugar barons and missionary decendants gained massive tracts of land and spun massive profits using slave labour from various parts of Asia. Fillapino Workers were brought in from the land that the American empire had just gained from the Spanish Empire where they had been similar style collonial barons for 500yrs. The workers were brought to hawaii as the native hawaiian were seen as being not interested in this model of work and would rather keep living in the ahuapua'a. Then followed Japanese, chinese, korean workers. Racial tensions were encouraged between the different groups as it prevented them forming a union. Portoguese workers were brought in from the Azores, island colonies of Portugal, to be "European" suporvisors over the workers, cause at least they were catholic.
So then as Hawaii was capulted into the modern era with Statehood in 1959. At this time the Americans had begun using Hawaii as a military base to stage agression in the pacific. Hence the shipyards in Pearl Harbour that we've heard so much about. Anyway, today Hawaii as a state is extreamly militarised and the other industry is tourism. The logic of the global economy has resulted in a complete collapse of Hawaiian Agriculture due to cheaper imports where slave farm labour can still be practiced and standards less rigourous. Further, Hawaii appeared a great place for speculative property development in the 1980's and a huge influx of mainlander haole (litterally, Death Breather or without breath) looking to buy land and a second wave of new age haole and ex-flowerchildren, no longer fighting but escaping. Babalonyian Refugees. Meanwhile the people cleaning rooms, customer service, stack shelves are all locals who now have a hard time paying rates and cannot afford land for their growing families and the community is broken up.
This situation seems particularlly more obvious here on the Big Island due to the large tracts of land. Local people are really poor and have been given shitty land on lava flows or old cane land while the missionary decendants are billionaries through selling land off to hotel developers, condo complexes and other "Development". Naturally the people are pissed off as more and more people move here looking for their piece of paridise and retreate. Lots of free Tibet stickers but few that say free Hawaii. This has been intensifying in the last 6 months as the global economy slows up and all the imagined wealth evaporates and so development projects stop. This is coupled with the increasing cost of living. as 90% of hawaii's food is imported, all goods, fuel, etc. The Farm I've been work exchanging on grows food to feed the poor in the area and has gone from feeding 50 families one year ago to 150 families today. The farm grows Taro, Bananas, Oranges, Sweet Potato, Avocados and is on catchment water and minimal solar and propane.
The guy who runs the place which is listed as a not for profit enterprise and so every week he puts together boxes of food made up of some fresh produce and stuff from the food bank. Supermarket leftovers, damaged goods etc. Now this is a great service, but...
Firstly the land is fairly fucked. It was poisioned continually and the soil is fairly broken and there are weeds everywhere. The manager doesn't really know how to farm, he is an old peace activist but he is also a hard headed catholic and while talking about meaningful change, he misses the bigger picture in many respects. He has become more symbolic rather than implementing on a personal level the change he speaks about. I've tried to discuss with him what might be good to do or grow but "We can't do that, not a priority, weed the taro patch" To truely heal the land, and he has had 20ys, he needs secectional crops and wind breaks and multi-croping and invasive control but he just ploughs the land and buys "Organic" off farm inputs like chicken manure and crumb and puts petrol in the weed wacker or tractor, and lets the orchard get overgrown. But it will take more man power and a less heirarchical control network in order to put in enought work and managment to develop a self-regulating system. The work I have done in 3 weeks, reclaiming a banana grove from weedy vines and clearing the oldest orchard so the trees can be accessed, will regrow with weeds with time becuase it wont be tended.
In addition to learning about the limitations of land rehabilitation (and Jim's big issue is an unwillingness to learn from others, or accept his rightious self as failable, and so he fails to see the big picture or affective routes to positive action over waving signs on the side of the road to uncaring motorists. The charity system he has is totally dependant on the functioning of a failed economic system as so if the imports stop, his land and system is not sustainable and it doesn't empower the community as a community garden would. However, its been great to meet the community and help out on the island and talk story.
The other interesting experiance for me has been eatting like the poor of the industrial world eat. Processed crap that kills the planet and people. "Enriched" flour, high fructose corn syrup, colour agent red 4, sodium EDTA, nitrosamines etc. I avoid it as much as I can but that is what people in the pacific has access to as a food source, canned, processed. No one should be hungry on a tropical island like hawaii, there is enough land and a year round growing season to provide food for everyone and healthy fresh stuff too. Instead prime farm land is turned into condos and those with money and power continue to manipulate and oppress the people and overturn environmental legeslation if it gets in way of buisness. Further depleting peoples ability to survive on the islands, fish, hunt etc. However, people seem to recognising the need for community autonomy and sustainability at least on a Retorical level, so I hope that pulls them through. An interesting farm experiance, learned a bunch about hawaiian history and militirism (a nother ranty blog post in the making) and current contaminations and threats. Also, through the peace farm I've been talking to a bunch of vietnam veterans and subsequent drop outs/revolutionaries and its been really mind opening to talk with them about the war, time after the war and the world now (Third ranty blog post). Anyway, its interesting to experaince other colonial legacies to help me contextualise things in Australia and the world at large. (4th ranty blog post)
I leave Hilo tomorrow for a bike ride up the dormant volcano that is also the largest land mass in the world. Taller than everest if you count what is below the sea. It is overdue for an eruption. Manua Loa. I'm goning up there and might ride past the military base afterwards but thinking not as it is contaminated with Depleted Uranium. Then probably down to the lava sea flow to watch boiling hot lava meet the ocean and find some vagabonds for new years. Then off to the Kona coast for my plant medicine course. Stay well, happy solstice, enjoy the summer, dance as much as possible, change from within is change without but direct action is required on all levels. Also, i'd recomend heading to Boarders in Civic and getting the Adbusters big ideas of 2009 issue and having a read. It has articles about the need to move to a steady state economy and the unlimitted growth model pushes up against the bio-physical realities of the world and stops working.
Mahalo, the life of the land is purpetuated in Righteousness. (Hawaii Kingdom Motto). Stay well, miss you all.
H
Work at the farm and infact the analogous situation to the larger picture is that fact that while the farm can "Produce" it is a false production.
The land where the farm is was previously is ex cane lands. In Hawaii foreign advisers to king Kamahama the third convinced him to give up the traditional system of land ownership and adopt a "European" (Capitalist/Millitarist/Expansionist/Colonial) Model of land ownership. Previously, entire water catchments were lived in an cares for by the community. The system was known as Ahuapua'a and is named for the markers that hawaiian used to demarcate the edges of these catchments. Within the catchment the upper forest was left undisturbed to perform its function in the cycle, catch and recycle rain and nutrients and wash this into the river. Then in the upper and lower levels Taro, the staple crop, was grown using intricate aquaduct systems known as lo'i. This had the advantage over the roman aquaduct system that it didn't cause brain degeneration due to lead poisining. This caught a huge amount of silt and nutrients in the lo'i and used this to grow edible food. Water then flowed down to the river mouth where Hawaiians built loko.
Loko were hawaiian fish ponds that were constructed at the place where the river met the sea. By building rock walls out in the sea they created ponds that would fill at high tide. A gate could be opperated to let fish fill the pond and then closed. The carniverious fish were removed and the herbivores lived in the pond eatting Limu (seaweed). This grew fish and prevented silt from flowing onto the reef and killing the reef ecosystem which was another resource which fishermen would work and bring food in to the lower village that could then be traded with people living upstream. Hawaiian society had a complex social system with various roles for different individuals. Each Ahuapua'a had a Konohiki who was a individual that was the "Guardian of the 'Aina" the protector of the land, water, island.
The Konohiki was an individual who was uniquely tied to the land and understood the cycles of the island ecosystem and who knew when different fish and sea mammals were Kapu (forbidden) and could not be hunted and when they could. They would also resolve things between different parties in the watershed and ensure people were doing their bit. Not shiting in the river upstream and letting enough water through for the lower farmers/fishpond.
This complex land/social managment system has how land was managed. It was not owned, the people belonged to the land not the other way around. So this was an issue for expansionist colonial empires who wanted islands to fuel their empires with sugar, coffee, etc which earned a premium because of their luxury status and were termed cash crops. So the advisers convinced the king to abandon this system like the monarcy had previously done with the old religion and social protocals as european monarcy structure took hold. This event was termed "The Great Mehele". Mehele is Hawaiian for "to divide". This term was for social division of a shared resource that many people helped capture. So when one person provided the net and another the canoes and others went and put the nets out, the captured fish would be "Mehele" Between the participants. Within 50yrs of the "Great Mehele" 90% of hawaii was owner by foreigners.
In 1893 an overthrow of the Hawaiian monarcy was then orchestrated by the sugar barons and missionary decendants who were american and they convinced the american army and navy forces that were stationed in Hawaii to threaten to attack unless the queen ceded her kingdom. The US has subsequently appologised for their role in this on the 100yr aniversary of the event with a non-binding resolution appologising for the wrongdoing and theft). Thus was born the Hawaiian Republic run by the sugar barons and missionary decendants. In its inititial establishment the US President Grover Cleaveland ordered the monarcy to be restored but this fell on the deaf ears of millitary men and millionares thousands of miles away in the pacific and when a new president was elected he expediated the process of annexxing the islands as an American territory. This helped the sugar barons avoid trade tarrifs and gain an advantage in the sugar import markets over other collonial sugar production enterprises in South America, the Carribian, Asia.
Sugar barons and missionary decendants gained massive tracts of land and spun massive profits using slave labour from various parts of Asia. Fillapino Workers were brought in from the land that the American empire had just gained from the Spanish Empire where they had been similar style collonial barons for 500yrs. The workers were brought to hawaii as the native hawaiian were seen as being not interested in this model of work and would rather keep living in the ahuapua'a. Then followed Japanese, chinese, korean workers. Racial tensions were encouraged between the different groups as it prevented them forming a union. Portoguese workers were brought in from the Azores, island colonies of Portugal, to be "European" suporvisors over the workers, cause at least they were catholic.
So then as Hawaii was capulted into the modern era with Statehood in 1959. At this time the Americans had begun using Hawaii as a military base to stage agression in the pacific. Hence the shipyards in Pearl Harbour that we've heard so much about. Anyway, today Hawaii as a state is extreamly militarised and the other industry is tourism. The logic of the global economy has resulted in a complete collapse of Hawaiian Agriculture due to cheaper imports where slave farm labour can still be practiced and standards less rigourous. Further, Hawaii appeared a great place for speculative property development in the 1980's and a huge influx of mainlander haole (litterally, Death Breather or without breath) looking to buy land and a second wave of new age haole and ex-flowerchildren, no longer fighting but escaping. Babalonyian Refugees. Meanwhile the people cleaning rooms, customer service, stack shelves are all locals who now have a hard time paying rates and cannot afford land for their growing families and the community is broken up.
This situation seems particularlly more obvious here on the Big Island due to the large tracts of land. Local people are really poor and have been given shitty land on lava flows or old cane land while the missionary decendants are billionaries through selling land off to hotel developers, condo complexes and other "Development". Naturally the people are pissed off as more and more people move here looking for their piece of paridise and retreate. Lots of free Tibet stickers but few that say free Hawaii. This has been intensifying in the last 6 months as the global economy slows up and all the imagined wealth evaporates and so development projects stop. This is coupled with the increasing cost of living. as 90% of hawaii's food is imported, all goods, fuel, etc. The Farm I've been work exchanging on grows food to feed the poor in the area and has gone from feeding 50 families one year ago to 150 families today. The farm grows Taro, Bananas, Oranges, Sweet Potato, Avocados and is on catchment water and minimal solar and propane.
The guy who runs the place which is listed as a not for profit enterprise and so every week he puts together boxes of food made up of some fresh produce and stuff from the food bank. Supermarket leftovers, damaged goods etc. Now this is a great service, but...
Firstly the land is fairly fucked. It was poisioned continually and the soil is fairly broken and there are weeds everywhere. The manager doesn't really know how to farm, he is an old peace activist but he is also a hard headed catholic and while talking about meaningful change, he misses the bigger picture in many respects. He has become more symbolic rather than implementing on a personal level the change he speaks about. I've tried to discuss with him what might be good to do or grow but "We can't do that, not a priority, weed the taro patch" To truely heal the land, and he has had 20ys, he needs secectional crops and wind breaks and multi-croping and invasive control but he just ploughs the land and buys "Organic" off farm inputs like chicken manure and crumb and puts petrol in the weed wacker or tractor, and lets the orchard get overgrown. But it will take more man power and a less heirarchical control network in order to put in enought work and managment to develop a self-regulating system. The work I have done in 3 weeks, reclaiming a banana grove from weedy vines and clearing the oldest orchard so the trees can be accessed, will regrow with weeds with time becuase it wont be tended.
In addition to learning about the limitations of land rehabilitation (and Jim's big issue is an unwillingness to learn from others, or accept his rightious self as failable, and so he fails to see the big picture or affective routes to positive action over waving signs on the side of the road to uncaring motorists. The charity system he has is totally dependant on the functioning of a failed economic system as so if the imports stop, his land and system is not sustainable and it doesn't empower the community as a community garden would. However, its been great to meet the community and help out on the island and talk story.
The other interesting experiance for me has been eatting like the poor of the industrial world eat. Processed crap that kills the planet and people. "Enriched" flour, high fructose corn syrup, colour agent red 4, sodium EDTA, nitrosamines etc. I avoid it as much as I can but that is what people in the pacific has access to as a food source, canned, processed. No one should be hungry on a tropical island like hawaii, there is enough land and a year round growing season to provide food for everyone and healthy fresh stuff too. Instead prime farm land is turned into condos and those with money and power continue to manipulate and oppress the people and overturn environmental legeslation if it gets in way of buisness. Further depleting peoples ability to survive on the islands, fish, hunt etc. However, people seem to recognising the need for community autonomy and sustainability at least on a Retorical level, so I hope that pulls them through. An interesting farm experiance, learned a bunch about hawaiian history and militirism (a nother ranty blog post in the making) and current contaminations and threats. Also, through the peace farm I've been talking to a bunch of vietnam veterans and subsequent drop outs/revolutionaries and its been really mind opening to talk with them about the war, time after the war and the world now (Third ranty blog post). Anyway, its interesting to experaince other colonial legacies to help me contextualise things in Australia and the world at large. (4th ranty blog post)
I leave Hilo tomorrow for a bike ride up the dormant volcano that is also the largest land mass in the world. Taller than everest if you count what is below the sea. It is overdue for an eruption. Manua Loa. I'm goning up there and might ride past the military base afterwards but thinking not as it is contaminated with Depleted Uranium. Then probably down to the lava sea flow to watch boiling hot lava meet the ocean and find some vagabonds for new years. Then off to the Kona coast for my plant medicine course. Stay well, happy solstice, enjoy the summer, dance as much as possible, change from within is change without but direct action is required on all levels. Also, i'd recomend heading to Boarders in Civic and getting the Adbusters big ideas of 2009 issue and having a read. It has articles about the need to move to a steady state economy and the unlimitted growth model pushes up against the bio-physical realities of the world and stops working.
Mahalo, the life of the land is purpetuated in Righteousness. (Hawaii Kingdom Motto). Stay well, miss you all.
H
posted by Angel Ironhead at 2:34 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home