Mauna Kea celestial

Partilho um artigo curioso sobre uma polémica que podemos tentar “dissecar”, no sentido duma análise mais aprofundada…

Há quem se esteja activamente a opor á construção dum telescópio. Superficialmente, parece ser (apenas?) um choque entre a ciência e a religião… No fundo pode tratar-se sobretudo dum modo de se dar “visibilidade” a questões políticas (locais?) ligadas ao conflito entre os Democratas e os Republicanos, visto o actual presidente ter nascido no Hawaii.

Science Needs a New Ritual
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/05/mauna_kea_telescope_protests_scientists_need_to_reflect_on_history_and_culture.html

Há inúmeros comentários, e saliento alguns que “são mais próximos” a minha opinião:

1)

It’s about power.

Do the newly radicalized hawaiians actually believe there’s gods living on the top of Mauna Kea? No.

Do they feel they should have the last say in any development on the island? Yes.

2)

Pay attention folks. Here we have a scientist encouraging a logically fallacious appeal to emotion based on a skewed form of collective guilt.

If that’s not enough to ignore his sililoqy there’s always the fact that the Hawaiian language was not outlawed or banned as he clumsily suggests. Or the fact that thousands more would have surely died had the atomic bomb not been used to make the Japanese army and Emperor acquiesce.

People of science don’t demand others believe what we believe but we do demand they play by the same rules of logic that even non scientists have agreed constitutes sound reasoning.

And instead of setting aside a whole day for science atonement how about we just keep encouraging logic and reason.

Newton didn’t invent or discover gravity he explained it. Should we denounce him because gravity played a part in the bombs reaching their targets? Einstein didn’t build the bomb but his equations led to its completion. Do we vilify him now on this proposed day of scientific atonement?

The author’s intentions while probably pure, are misguided and will be misused by the group he seeks to placate.

Those in the scientific community that he hopes to reach will see the backwards logic and ignore I’m sure.

3)

If the purpose of this ceremonial mea culpa is to get spiritually oriented Hawaiians to allow a scientific facility to be built on a sacred mountain, and I would imagine that all major peaks in Hawaii have spiritual connotations in believers of this particular cosmos, it will fail.

Astronomy as a science is not “pure and clean” in relation to Hawaii by the way.

Renaissance and Enlightenment astronomers only had primitive telescopes, so they also turned their studies into more practical and remunerative fields like map making and navigation of the oceans. Navigation on the open ocean relied heavily on the position of the stars.

Without their work, Europeans and Americans couldn’t have even have found Hawaii.

Mais artigos sobre os protestos:

Native Hawaiians Arrested in Protests of Massive Telescope
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/native-hawaiians-arrested-protests-massive-telescope-n336176

World’s Largest Telescope Faces Opposition from Native Hawaiian Protesters
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/world-s-largest-telescope-faces-opposition-from-native-hawaiian-protesters/

Protesters Block Construction Of Thirty Meter Telescope On Hawaiian Volcano
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/01/thirty-meter-telescope-protests_n_6989050.html

Construction Of Giant Telescope In Hawaii Draws Natives’ Ire
http://www.npr.org/2015/04/21/400390724/construction-of-giant-telescope-in-hawaii-draws-natives-ire

The protests, which have attracted international attention, arose from the indigenous rights movement.

For many activists on the mountain, Mauna Kea has come to symbolize a fight for native knowledge, land use and Hawaiian sovereignty.

Earlier this month, 31 people were arrested for blocking the road to prevent construction crews from reaching the summit.

One of them was 26-year-old Kaho’okahi Kanuha, a preschool teacher at a Hawaiian charter school. He says the battle over 5 acres atop Mauna Kea is about more than just land. It’s about a clash of beliefs.

“Curiosity should not supersede the values and the traditions of the host people and the host culture,” he says.

Kanuha says he’s not against the science.

He points to his Polynesian ancestors, celestial navigators who charted their course to Hawaii by following the stars.

“It’s the basis of us, the foundation of our kupuna [elders], being able to find new land and create new life,” Kamua says.

“However we did not desecrate and destroy things to do that.”

And Kanuha says that’s the biggest philosophical difference between the protesters on the mountain and supporters of the telescope.

The Struggle For Hawaiian Sovereignty – Introduction
http://www.culturalsurvival.org/ourpublications/csq/article/the-struggle-for-hawaiian-sovereignty-introduction

Languages

The world’s languages are disappearing at a rate even faster than that of biological diversity, with more than half of the world’s 7,000 predicted to disappear in the next 90 years. The vast majority of those disappearing languages are Indigenous. In the United States alone, 70 Native American languages will disappear in the next five years unless tribes’ revitalization efforts are supported vigorously. These languages are disappearing because of assimilation pressures and government programs like boarding schools.

Lands

Indigenous lands and environments are under assault on every continent. A recent World Wildlife Fund study named the 200 places on earth that have the highest and most fragile biodiversity, and found that 95 percent of them are on Indigenous territories. Yet those same Indigenous lands are routinely raided for minerals, timber, farmland, oil, and other resources.

United Nations : http://undesadspd.org/IndigenousPeoples.aspx

The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) is an advisory body to the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), with a mandate to discuss indigenous issues related to economic and social development, culture, the environment, education, health and human rights.

Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act of 2009
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akaka_Bill

The bill proposes to establish a process for indigenous Native Hawaiians to gain federal recognition similar to an Indian tribe.

Democratic Party of Hawaii
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_of_Hawaii

Hawaiian nationalism has been one of the Democratic Party’s founding principles.

The Democratic Party of Hawaii, in part, was founded on bringing Hawaiian representation to government. The Democrats advocated for the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act. During the Revolution of 1954 and rising to power Democrats had shifted toward racial equality and left-wing nationalism, while marginalizing the nationalist right especially over Anti-Japanese sentiment and racism.

Under left-wing nationalism, the Democratic Party has focused on preserving Hawaiian culture and traditions while tolerating and recognizing those of other groups in Hawaii.

The Democratic Party has also focused on preserving Hawaii’s individuality from “Mainlandization”.

The Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) was formed during the 1978 Hawaii State Constitutional Convention.

Part Hawaiian Senator Daniel Akaka proposed the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act (Akaka Bill) to create a native government.

Right-wing nationalists have accused the Democrats of being too mild

Hawaii Republican Party
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii_Republican_Party

Recently, the Party has been hesitant to associate itself with religion in general, with members citing the negative effects of the party’s association with the Hawaii Christian Coalition formed by Pat Robertson in 1988.

The Coalition swelled Republican membership by 50% but at the expense of infighting and by 1993 the party had lost more legislative seats than it started with.

Republicans have been supportive of big business plans and commitments to allow companies in Hawaiʻi to rival and compete against large businesses in other states. Republicans have also been supportive of interstate and international commerce.

Former Governor Linda Lingle proposed tax reduction incentives to businesses to hire and encourage work, such as hotel renovations.