Pacific Traditions Gallery - Makua Valley & Eyes Wide Open

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First Friday Hawaii
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Pacific Traditions Gallery - Makua Valley & Eyes Wide Open
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Type: Exhibit
Date: Friday - 4/4/2008
Time: 6PM - 9PM
Location:
19 N. Pauahi Street
Chinatown
(808) 741-4612
Cost:

It is with great pride and totally admiration that we present two exhibits on First Friday. April the 4th of the 40th anniversary of the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Martin Luther King, Jr said, "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death." Therefore we want you to experience two different views of what is going on.

Eyes Wide Open this Friday, April 4, 2008

Eyes Wide Open: The Cost of War to Hawaii, AFSC's widely acclaimed war casualties' memorial illustrating the human cost of the Iraq war.

Makua Valley:The Beauty, and Tragedy of the historically sacred land

Fred Dodge, Malama Makua spokesman, presents photos and paintings of Makua Valley at the Hawaii Peace Center.

Makua Valley
Makua Valley is a 4,190-acre valley located on the leeward side of the Waianae Mountains. The valley contains more than 40 endangered plant and animal species. Abundant archaeological evidence suggests that Makua Valley had a thriving Hawaiian community during pre-contact days. Makua Valley is said to be a sacred place to native Hawaiians, the mythic birthplace of the Hawaiian people.

For decades, the Army and the other services carried out training exercises in Makua Valley. In recent years, however, the training has drawn protests from residents and, increasingly, the attention of federal regulators.

The fires that prompted the Army to suspend training in September 1998 raised concerns among officials with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service about the threat posed to 41 endangered species of plants and animals in or near the valley. Hui Malama O Makua, a group of concerned citizens, and the Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund, filed a lawsuit demanding that the Army comply with the National Environmental Policy Act and conduct a thorough review of the impact that training was having on the valley.

The Army ultimately settled the lawsuit, agreeing not to resume firing weapons in Makua until it had reviewed any potential impact and notified the public in advance. After more than two years of study, the Army announced in December 2000 that it planned to resume training, though in a more limited way, with units of more than 100 soldiers conducting operations and firing weapons in narrowly drawn zones.

The 25th Division's commanders argued that they had designed the training to minimize, if not eliminate, the effects on Makua Valley's historic sites and environment, but the plan provoked a new round of protests and a new lawsuit.

Hui Malama contended that the Army had failed to conduct a more rigorous and expensive environmental impact study. The less time-consuming environmental assessment, they said, did not consider a variety of issues, including whether there were alternative sites for military training.

After protests that included a raucous community meeting in Waianae in January 2001, the division's commanders withdrew their plan, saying they wanted more time to consult with residents and others. The Army also tried to have the lawsuit dismissed, but on March 1, 2001 a federal judge in Honolulu refused.

Eyes Wide Open this Friday, April 4, 2008

WHAT: Eyes Wide Open: The Cost of War to Hawaii, AFSC's widely acclaimed war casualties' memorial illustrating the human cost of the Iraq war

WHEN: April 4, 2008, Friday, We will be reading names of lives lost in the war including American military service members from Hawaii and Iraqi civilians. Blessing and reading of the names ceremony at 11:30 am. Exhibit on display until 9:00 pm.

WHERE: The corner of Pauahi and Nuuanu Sts. directly across from "the Peace Center, " 19 N. Pauahi St. (Mauka side of Pauahi, `Ewa side of Nuuanu)

WHO: American Friends Service Committee, Hawaii Peace Center, Hawai'i Labor for Peace and Justice, Iraq Veterans Against the War, DMZ Hawai'I-Aloha Aina, Ohana Koa/NIFP, Military Families Speak Out-Hawaii, Buddhist Peace Fellowship-O'ahu and all those who care to come

For more information about the exhibit, please visit the website:
http://www.afsc.org/eyes

WHY?:
-Recently, the number of American military casualties in Iraq has surpassed 4,000. The estimated number of Iraq civilian casualties range from 600,000 up to 1 million.

-We are entering the 5th year of the war in Iraq, and our sincere hope is to remind people in Honolulu of the human costs of war, not just in Iraq but everywhere.

-The date is significant as it is the death anniversary of MLK Jr. and the anniversary of his "Beyond Vietnam" speech, which called for an end to the Vietnam War in 1967. For free text & audio download of this relevant speech visit: http://www.vetvoice.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=424

-According to MoveOn.org "while this war drags on into its 6th year and its costs continue to mount, media coverage has actually declined sharply- falling from about 15% of news output last August to just 3% in February of this year. The difference is even starker on cable news networks: 24 percent of the time spent on Iraq last year, just 1 percent this year."

-The economic cost of war will exceed $3 trillion dollars.
http://www.accuracy.org/newsrelease.php?articleId=1675

some Dr. King's "Beyond Vietnam" excerpts you won't hear on TV :
"The truth of these words is beyond doubt, but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world...

Perhaps the more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population...

They ask if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent...

I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as one who loves America, to the leaders of our own nation: The great initiative in this war is ours; the initiative to stop it must be ours...

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin...we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered...

This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death...

Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism...

We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation. We must move past indecision to action..."

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First Friday Hawaii Event Calendar Item

Pacific Traditions Gallery - Makua Valley & Eyes Wide Open

First Friday Hawaii
Event Calendar Item