Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio Instagram – This is the closing section of my keynote for the Moananuiākea symposium at FESTPAC. I think insome ways nicely sums up what I tried to deliver.
Throughout the keynote I spoke about Kamehameha and his legacy is expanding the institution of the puʻuhonua and institutionalizing principles of refuge and sanctuary into his governance. I asked the audience to consider what it would mean for those principles to again be applied at the core of our practice of sovereignty. I asked us to consider what it would mean to then extend that practice beyond the domestic, and even beyond the moana into our conceptions and practices of sovereignty globally. I asked us to consider the urgency of this work as genocides continue to ravage on in West Papua, Palestine, the Congo, Sudan… I asked us to consider what sovereignty means if it isnt pursued and practiced towards the liberation of all peoples. I offered that perhaps this means we need to entirely rethink and re-imagine what self determination means.
I understand many of the reasons that this is not the “mainstream” position of many of our peoples. But I believe this moment is asking us to take a far more radical approach to our self governance. Let me be clear, no one is more equipped to lead hawaiʻi than Hawaiians. No one more prepared to lead oceania than our Indigenous pacific peoples. and still without a radical reimagining of sovereignty and self governance — our own people can lead us into a practice of governance that sacrifices the “unrecognized” to the ravages of genocides, rising seas, raging fires, and extractive capitalism. I am still asking that as we continue to take back our kuleana to manage our resources and govern our Aina and moana that we also take back our basic principles of refuge and sanctuary. i am asking that we do, what @joyenomoto so clearly called us to in 2020, “become puʻuhonua for each other” towards a genuinely secure and abundant future. | Posted on 14/Jun/2024 02:41:08
