Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio Instagram – Free Palestine ✊🏾
Hawaiʻi as been an “essential” and “strategic” component of the United States military operations since the United States first leased Pearl Harbor in 1875. Following the US BACKED overthrow of our sovereign constitutional monarchy, US military operations have only expanded. With a rigorous eye towards the mechanisms of that proliferation, it is hard to imagine that any expansion of American (or western empire) has been achieved or maintained since the 19th century without some sort of connection to Hawaiʻi’s ongoing Military Occupation and the training readiness and weapons testing taking place in our home.
With this history and present in mind, as Kanaka, we must face every aspect of US military violence and US backed military intervention (including the ongoing genocide in Palestine) as being intimately connected to the creation and maintenance of Hawaiʻi as a military state. Our liberation as Kanaka Maoli is intimately tied to the liberation of our Palestinian ʻohana— and any other ʻohana struggling under the weight of American and western military prowess. Understanding this history (and studying at the feet of my beloved Kumu, Haunani-Kay Trask and Teresia Teaiwa) has informed my own internationalist approach to the liberation of our peoples. We must learn that in the specters of war and death we should be both concerned with where and how weapons are used for war to kill and control– and where and how they were developed, tested, and trained. At both end of this spectrum are Indigenous people suffering under the violent power of imperial forces. This violence is cyclical. Our intimate connection and commitment to each other through an international approach – is the only thing that can transform the world and save our lives. In the brilliant words of Maya Angelou, “none of us are free until all of us our free”
It is from this position that I say unequivocally and without reservation— we must not only end the genocide but also commit fiercely to ending the ongoing occupation in Palestine.
From Hawai’i to West Papua, from the Congo and Sudan to Palestine— liberation for all peoples living under oppressive regimes. | Posted on 01/Nov/2023 22:21:41
