(c) Copyright 2002 - 2006 Kenneth R. Conklin, Ph.D. All rights reserved
The Reverend Charles Kauluwehi Maxwell Senior, often called simply "Uncle Charlie," is sometimes also called the Rev. Al Sharpton of Hawai'i. Maxwell, like Sharpton, demands racial reparations in the present for racial grievances from a distant past. He (ab)uses a position of trust within his ethnic community, and a title indicating spirituality, to try to extort concessions from others.
Below are four items: (a) a published newspaper article reporting a speech Maxwell gave at the Honolulu Rotary Club on April 5, 2000 warning that ethnic Hawaiians might go back to their warrior ways unless they get what they want; (b) a published "viewpoint" essay Maxwell wrote himself on June 26, 2002 repeating the same threat more than two years later; (c) a reply by Ken Conklin published on June 29, 2002; (d) a news report from Fiji that the military takes Maxwell-style threats very seriously -- the Fiji military has issued a stern warning to a native Fijian politician running for re-election as President, who threatened that if a non-native wins the upcoming election there would be social and political upheaval just as happened several years previously when that happened (President Qarase was installed after staging a native-Fijian military coup that overthrew a new government headed by a democratically elected Asian Fijian).
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http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/2000/Apr/05/localnews11.html
The Honolulu Advertiser, Wednesday, April 5, 2000
Hawaiian 'warriors' possible, activist says
By Walter Wright
Advertiser Staff Writer
Hawaiian activist Charles Maxwell warned yesterday that Hawaiians once were
warriors and could become warriors again if no one listens to their concerns.
Maxwell took his people's cause to a middle-class crowd of predominantly
haole members of the Rotary Club at their luncheon in Waikiki.
Maxwell, a Maui resident who is chairman of the Hawaii Advisory Committee to
the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, said he pledged allegiance to the flag at the
luncheon but refused to sing "God Bless America" because he considered
what America had done to Hawaii — from the overthrow of the monarchy
through annexation and statehood — to be "despicable."
He received 10 seconds of polite applause and one question after his
23-minute talk at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. Did he really think Hawaiians
would be justified in becoming warriors again "if there is no redress?"
"I tell you what," Maxwell said, "I will be in the front of the line.
"I am trying my damnedest right now to use our congressional means, any
way, because I don't want to go there, I really do not want to go there. My
kids will suffer, my grandchildren will suffer, you will suffer, your
grandchildren, everybody will suffer.
"I'm trying my damnedest not to go there. But if I am alive when the time
comes, I will be on the front of the line."
Maxwell said his remarks were "not a threat."
"I started the Kahoolawe movement," he said, "I've been involved in many
protests, been in the front of the line, I been there and done that. Answer
your question?"
Island businessman Connie Conrad, 90, who moved to Honolulu in 1938, said he
could not imagine creation of a sovereign Hawaiian nation as a solution to "a
very deep, very complicated situation," nor could he imagine Hawaiians
"becoming warriors" to obtain such a result.
There should be programs to help Hawaiians deal with the problems that
Maxwell cited, including the worst education, health and crime statistics
among all residents, said Conrad.
But, Conrad said, "The island people owe an awful lot to the United States of
America. We could have been invaded here by the Japanese, and many
Hawaiians could have been killed."
Maxwell urged his audience to "get involved in getting people down here to
take care of us."
"We are in stress," he said. "We are only 250,000 worldwide, not a big amount
of people, but the U.S. Civil Rights Commission is coming down here and we
want to bring worldwide coverage, publicity, to this point of the Native
Hawaiians, because everyone ... wants to come to Hawaii.
"If we want Hawaii to be the same, then we all got to prosper, not only the
businessmen, not only the foreigners making big bucks and taking it back to
Japan, China, whatever.…
"Always remember this: At one time our people were warriors. We do not
want to go back to the days of being warriors."
Maxwell said: "Please, please help us. It is not a Hawaiian thing, it's all of our
thing."
=============================
*** No permanent internet URL was available for articles in The Maui News in 2002 ***
The Maui News
Wednesday, June 26, 2002
VIEWPOINT
People of Hawaii should rise against attack on Hawaiian entitlements
CHARLES K. MAXWELL
John Goemans, with the use of the laws of America (The Maui News,
June 22), is trying to add the list of na hewa (crimes) against the
kanaka maoli, beginning when Capt. James Cook "stumbled" on these
Hawaiian Islands 224 years ago.
Cook brought in all of the diseases known to modern man and decimated
the Hawaiian race which had no immunity to these diseases. After the
Hawaiian population had dwindled by one-third, enter the missionaries
who completely overturned the culture and lifestyle of the kanaka
maoli while establishing the Christian religion in Hawaii.
Because of the kindness of their hearts, the confusion of land tenure
and the deceitfulness of some missionaries, their children and
grandchildren, the kanaka maoli became alienated from Hawaiian lands.
Prince Kuhio and others, who saw how the Hawaiian race was slowly
diminishing, created the Hawaiian Homes Act of 1920 to actually put
the Hawaiian people back on the land. From the start, this act was
meant to fail because one of the requirements of the act was that
lands to be used would not be fit for agricultural purposes and would
not contain water rights. It also was not funded.
William Hyde Rice, the great-grandfather of Freddie Rice, was elected
a commissioner to set aside the land for the Hawaiian Homes Act. His
son, Harold W. Rice, leased Hawaiian Homes Land in Waiohuli for 50
years at 25 cents an acre for the Rice Ranch. Efforts were made by
the Hawaiian people to prevent a new lease of these lands, and today
Hawaiian people are building on this land as lessees under the
Hawaiian Homes Act.
The Hawaiian people suffer from the long list of social ills of
Hawaii as a direct result of being colonized, and having their land,
culture and identity taken away. Now the Goemans, Rices and others
driving to take away all the entitlements of the Hawaiian people is
the "straw that breaks the camels back."
As a kahu who has been involved in forefront of the Hawaiian movement
for the last 30-plus years, I find it frightening to imagine what
could happen. I cannot understand why business leaders are not up in
arms against these people who want to create havoc for the tourist
industry and all of the economy that depends on tourism.
These court actions attack the Hawaiian Homes Lands, Kamehameha
Schools, Alu Like, Hawaiian language immersion programs, University
of Hawaii, and many other institutions trying to help Hawaiians be
self-sufficient. It is traumatic to us as native people of this land.
We all must remember that once we were warriors and as native people
we cannot be continually attacked, culturally, socially and
economically, without responding in a desperate manner
Just to show everyone in Hawaii and around the world that we mean
business, every Hawaiian in these United States should conduct a
one-day "brown out" by staying home and not going to work. Every
Hawaiian in the islands and on the Mainland should stay at home for
one day to show commitment to the cause of the Hawaiian people and
how we are being attacked by the Goemans, Rices and all others who
are trying to say that we are in violation of the Civil Rights Act.
What about everything that was done to us as Hawaiian people? Where
were the American laws then? Are the laws of America only applied to
people of color, and that if you're a lawyer who has influence with
the Bush administration, you can stick it to the Hawaiian?
If this trend continues and Hawaiians are removed from their
entitlements, I predict that the Hawaiian people will rebel and take
to the streets, causing Hawaii's economy to drop like a lead weight.
This is not a threat, it's reality. We can be pushed only so far.
Ku'e, kapo'e o Hawaii. ["Resist, Hawaiians"]
Charles Kauluwehi Maxwell Sr. is a consultant on Hawaiian culture. He
lives in Pukalani.
======================
*** No permanent internet URL was available for articles in The Maui News in 2002 ***
The Maui News
VIEWPOINT
Saturday, June 29, 2002
Hawaii should rise in defense of unity, equality and brotherhood
KENNETH R. CONKLIN
Kahu Charles K. Maxwell, an unordained reverend without a church, was given that usually
honorable title by a former minister. Now he does a very dishonorable thing by threatening
the people of Hawaii (Viewpoint, June 26).
He says if we don't knuckle under to his demands for racial entitlements and race-based
political power, there will be trouble. Referring to people fighting for equality and unity, he
says: "Now the Goemans, Rices and others driving to take away all the entitlements of the
Hawaiian people is the 'straw that breaks the camels back.'" In other words, Maxwell is
admitting he has a ton of racial entitlement programs already in place (more than 160
according to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs), and threatening that there will be trouble if
everybody else gets to share these programs equally.
"We all must remember that once we were warriors and as native people we cannot be
continually attacked . . . without responding in a desperate manner." Thus the reverend
gives his flock forgiveness in advance for the violence he clearly threatens, on the grounds
that they can't help themselves because it's something that runs in the blood of these
warrior people.
It is clearly a threat when he warns: "This is not a threat, it's reality. We can be pushed only
so far . . . I predict that the Hawaiian people will rebel and take to the streets, causing
Hawaii's economy to drop like a lead weight." And then he urges Hawaiians to gear up for
the inevitable confrontation by staging a one-day racial boycott for practice. This guy is a
real piece of work!
Maxwell "cannot understand why business leaders are not up in arms against these people
(Goemans, Rice, et al.)." Here's why. Business leaders understand the need for a level
playing field. They do not want passage of the so-called Akaka bill, which would recognize
Native Hawaiians as an Indian tribe and thus allow a checkerboard of special economic
zones on all "tribal" lands where untaxed, unregulated businesses could compete against
their heavily taxed and regulated neighbors.
Money for all those government programs Maxwell loves comes from taxes. The tax base will
be destroyed when untaxed businesses drive out taxpaying businesses and when people
focus their energy on grabbing government benefits rather than producing goods and
services.
Native Hawaiians have a proud history and a chance for a wonderful future. Shall we follow
Maxwell's path to Bosnia, Rwanda, Zimbabwe and Fiji - the path of racial separatism,
bitterness, grievance, victimhood, and government wardship? Give Uncle Charlie the lei hala,
hang his spear on the wall of a museum, and join hands as we move forward in unity,
equality, and brotherhood.
Hawaii loa, kulike kakou, kupa'a me ka lokahi.
Kenneth R. Conklin, Ph.D, is a retired professor of philosophy and teacher of mathematics
who has studied Hawaiian sovereignty issues for 10 years. He lives in Kaneohe on Oahu.
============
** The following article was published in Fiji on April 30, 2006. It is copied here because it shows that the same sort of fear-mongering and implied threats used by Charles Maxwell in Hawai'i are taken very seriously in Fiji and produced a strtong response from the Fiji military that it will protect democracy and will not tolerate such threats. **
http://pidp.eastwestcenter.org/pireport/2006/May/05-01-01.htm
PACIFIC ISLANDS REPORT
Pacific Islands Development Program/East-West Center
With Support From Center for Pacific Islands Studies/University of Hawai‘i
FIJI ARMY WARNS QARASE OVER CAMPAIGN TACTICS
SUVA, Fiji (Fijilive, April 30) – Fiji Army Commander Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama today threatened to round-up caretaker Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase and Soqosoqo Duavata Lewenivanua party director Jale Baba if they continued to incite fear amongst the voters ahead of polling.
Bainimarama, who had just returned from overseas, said Qarase and Baba were telling voters in their pocket meetings that there would be instability if a non-indigenous individual were to become Prime Minister.
"Such an act has been sighted by the military as threatening voters to choose the Soqosoqo Duavata Lewenivanua party during voting next week, which is not democratic," he said.
"People have the right to vote for whichever party or individual they want to, and no one should intimidate them into doing otherwise. We'll take care of any such threats and the people should not fear," said the army commander.
Bainimarama said what people should rather fear is failed promises, lying and radical/ racial policies if the Soqosoqo Duavata Lewenivanua were to return to power.
"If politicians do not have any meaningful issues to talk about then they should not stand for the election," he said.
A comment from Qarase is expected soon.
Fiji caretaker Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase says he stands by the comments he made in public recently that there was no guarantee the country would not face instability if the Fiji Labor Party were to return to power.
Reacting to today's threat made by Army Commander Voreqe Bainimarama, Qarase said he never intended to incite fear amongst voters but was merely stating the facts.
"I was trying to explain to the people in Soqosoqo Duavata Lewenivanua's pocket meeting in Waituri, Nausori that whenever the Fiji Labor Party came into power there has been an upheaval. I was merely telling the truth and relating facts to the people," he said.
The Fiji Labor Party said Qarase and the Soqosoqo Duavata ni Lewenivanua party were using the fear tactic to win votes.
The race for the single Rotuman seat up for grabs in the 2006 general elections in Fiji is heating up with all five candidates pledging to do more for Rotuma if elected into government.
Soqosoqo Duavata ni Lewenivanua party candidate Sosefo Kafoa said one of his first tasks would be to improve shipping service to the island from a monthly service to fortnightly interval.
He said he also wanted to improve the road conditions as well ensure that there was electricity in every village on the island.
National Alliance candidate Sosefo Inoke said the problem was that it did not have good governance.
He said the National Alliance had a formula for success for the people of Rotuma, which were peace, order and good governance.
The two were speaking at a rally organized by the Rotuman community in Suva.
Also present were Independent candidate Jioji Konrote and United General Party candidate Mua Taukave as well as outgoing Member of Parliament Marieta Rigamoto.
May 1, 2006
Fijilive: http://www.fijilive.com
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