Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 15, Number 8, 1 August 1998 — ON TWIGG-SMITH [ARTICLE]

ON TWIGG-SMITH

"Hawaiian Sovereignty: Do the Facts Matter?" is a masterpiece eelebrating arrogance. Thurston Twigg-Smith's ongoing defense of Lorrin A. Thurston and the 1 893 overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy is not likely to abate. Supporting outdated theories like socialpolitical Darwinism, consigning world dominion to Germans and Anglo-Saxons, Twigg-Smith feels his forbearer were naturally destined to dispossess weaker races and "assimilate others and mold the remainder" until they Americanized Hawai'i and Hawaiians. While Twigg-Smith minimizes 100 years of Hawaiian genocide, consider, then, the horrors of the Jewish holocaust. Let's add the almost eomplete, systematic extermination of the indigenous people from the American continent. And let's not forget the incarceration of Japan-ese-American families during World War II. These illicit deeds carry seeds of hate geared to the debilitation of certain races. "Man's inhumanity to man" feeds the egotistical arrogance of select individuals. What a sickening eommentary on the human experience and we, of the 20th century, are heirs to this sordid legacy. But how wonderful for Twigg-Smith whose

own reality allows him to publish without restraint his revisionist history where facts do not matter. Kaha'i Topolinski Waipi'o, O'ahu