Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 31, Number 10, 1 October 2014 — The Hawaiian digital nation [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The Hawaiian digital nation

As Hawaiians struggle with the politics of nation building in the frustrating process of seeking a eommon vision of a political nation, we sometimes need to stop and smell the flowers. See the glass as half full instead of half empty. Nation building is not for sissies and the pain of our political activism too many times blinds us to the blessings of our Hawaiianess.

Since the mid-1970s, Hawaiian culture has experienced spectacular growth both in the perpetuation of traditions as well as in the evolution of new cultural expressions of ancient themes. Hawaiians by the thousands practice every traditional diseipline. The Hawaiian community has emerged in an unprecedented celebration of itself in profound manifestations of a cultural identity unique in the world. We are living our culture as a way of saying, "This is who we are!" The communications revolution of the Internet presents a historic opportunity for the Hawaiian community to roll itself out to, first, ourselves, and second, a global audience, as a vibrant cultural nation. Let us bui\d a Hawaiian Cu\tura\ Nation in The Commons of cyberspace. A digital nation will showcase our culture by presenting our institutions, organizations, cultural leadership structure, art forms, societal networks, authors, scholars, poets, painters, composers, performers, cultural disciplines and our values. Launching a Hawaiian Cultural Nation would be a powerful statement that we already exist as a nation. We do not need anyone's permission to exist as a Cultural Nation. We don't need legislative bodies debating whether or not we are entitled to nationhood status. We are a nation. We have been here for hundreds of years and we will be here for as long as there is a Hawaiian living

the culture. While we continue to work toward socio-economic self-determination and politieal recognition, we continue to exist as a cultural nation. Further, the Hawaiian Cultural Nation is experiencing dramatic global growth. The words Hawai'i and aloha are recognized in the most remote places on earth. Hawaiian culture deserves its own stage, its own light, its own prism to the world. To be clear, the digital nation must be more than a simple

indexing of art forms, chants, cultural leaders, intellectual properties, learning centers, publications, events and so forth. The nation, or lāhui, springs from the 'āina (land) itself beginning with the Kumulipo - the Hawaiian creation chant. The cultural nation is spiritually based and has its origins in the gods, in the sacred places and in the mo'olelo (story chants). It is from this spiritual wellspring that the drama of the cultural nation would rumble forth as a wave that tumbles through time, connecting past to future, in a dazzling mixed-media matrix of sights, sounds, images and people. This cultural nation is inclusive of cultural leadership open to all, ethnic Hawaiian or not, as long as the cultural contributions of the individuals are verifiable as upholding the spiritual and cultural integrity of the discipline from whieh it springs, is presented with dignity and creates value. Beyond these broad strokes, the emergence of the Hawaiian Cultural Nation will eome out of the process. I believe we stand on the brink of world leadership. The opportunity is before us. My hope is that some institution or benefactor will step forward and take leadership of this initiative. The culture of aloha, of peaee, of tolerance, of human values, of beauty, of compassion, of respect for all things, of personal honor, of the notion that we are what the rest of the world would like to be. Our opportunity is here. We have only but to seize it. ■

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