KENNETH CONKLIN (Sparring with the devil)

the devil and the finger lady






The interview behind the interview heard on the Hawaii Radio Project at http://www.thehawaiianlonegunman.com/



fractured memories and dubious extrapolations.

I needed to witness it myself. After perusing the blogs, I now believed, there in the shadows of the Ko'olaus evil lurked, a loather of things just and sacred. After nearly 15 years on the windward side of Oahu I wasn't unfamiliar with evil. Not old white men in Colonel Sanders suits; but villagers who dump leaky batteries by the road side, keep roosters in tiny cages or tied to trees , speed along Lilipuna, run over hapless ducklings for fun then peer over blacked out windows with disgusted pout, raised eyebrow and frown known collectively as the "stink eye". That was nothing, I feared, compared to the ordeal I must now face.

The surroundings appeared innocuous, the abode unassuming. I would not falter in THE quest, I said out loud for courage as I ventured on the last elevator ride to Hades.

"Nice view you've got here" I said, nodding toward the mountain. The handshake was firm but cordial, the eye clear yet not defiant." a glint of humor in the demeanor. I recoiled. El trickster suprimo? Nahhh this was no prince of darkness, no angel of light. "I'm JP", "Yes I know, welcome to my house."

"So, you want me to talk about my book" he said.
"I skipped the last couple of chapters" I confessed. "That's quite alright none of the critics have read it". "Perhaps they didn't feel they needed to", I ventured, suggesting he had put in print (and at his own expense) years of web publishing begun long before the world had heard of the word "blog".

There was more Hawaiiana here than at Bishop museum; a tiki-like trinket, scattered about the room, an assortment of nick knacks of vague oceanic provenance, on the wall a painting evoking some Hawaiian legend. I had rescheduled the interview due to Conklin's prior engagement: some Hula and falsetto event the day before. "Do you like Hula?" he asked. "Uhhh it's attractive done by ladies particularly when they smile" I said but didn't find it necessary to opine about men in dangerously ill-fitting diapers who sway hips and play scissor-knees. "as to falsetto, it's an acquired taste beyond my acquiring abilities I'm afraid". He almost looked hurt despite my awkward dabb at diplomacy.

"You might be the only one who's read the book" he said, breaking the uneasy silence.

I had read the reviews on Amazon.com. I had also written one, critical of Conklin for appearing to trivialize the overthrow of the monarchy and the annexation. He might well have a point. There was one review by a guy who gave the book five stars and admitted he hadn't read it. Here, was another by someone in Minneapolis too incensed and self-absorbed by his own "Hawaiianness" to actually write about the book; there, a rambling re-hashing of stuff against Conklin readily available everywhere on the web.

"you see", he began as if reading my mind "Hawaiian Apartheid" is available by print-on-demand only from the e-publisher and Amazon.com. If stores and libraries don't carry it, detractors have to fork out 20 bucks for the privilege. What's the likelihood do you suppose?

I pondered the unassailable logic.

This exchange was getting uncomfortably chummy. Time to kick it up the odd notch. "I saw you try to bite the Hawaiian lady's finger on YouTube" I blurted. It came out shrill. The eye lit up "ahh yesssss, they're still showing it are they?" "they sure are and that's all everyone's talking about" "what possessed you?", I was going to add but didn't. "I just warned the good lady I didn't have breakfast and I might just eat her finger if she stuck it in my face. I thought I might inject some humor into these proceedings. She was angry because I said something in Hawaiian. She said the language is sacred and Caucasians have no soul." "Oh!" I said "So now the whole sovereignty movement's got Caucasians pegged as anthropofagists on top of everything else." I wanted to say "and....on top of everything else, you had two American flags, not one mind you, two, I counted them. Have you any idea what message you send?" I thought better of it and instead said "why couldn't you just say, Madam, it's not the done thing and leave it at that. She's still upset I'm sure." "Oh dear, do you really think so? Would it help if I told her I have never bitten anyone I didn't love? oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. if only I hadn't skipped breakfast". The devil was slowly morphing into G.K.Chesterton's Father Brown.

Screamers would be furious with the man. He's immune to harangues. Invectives bounce off the outer walls of his intellectual bubble. I can see how pro Hawaiian sovereignty detractors of dimmer wit, of whom there are a few, would find him a frustrating sparring partner; but a racist? a hater of things Hawaiian? as likely as his biting off a finger as claimed on blogs from Iwalei to Las vegas and bantered across the valley from hill to mountaintop like a Ricolah commercial.

Dusk was setting on O'ahu's Borgo Pass. The Pali highway a blurr past the window of my old Ford pick up, I cursed my own temerity and foolishness. In my quest to get to the bottom of this sovereignty thing, I had overstepped my boundaries as mere observer and offered to convey to the finger lady an invitation to a rematch with Satan. The rules were simple: no yelling, no shoving and as far as Conklin was concerned, a one-flag limit and for Pete's sake, no sarcasm! In the light of day it sounded tame, but now, as darkness fell? I wasn't so sure. I had seen the finger lady on YouTube, that was true. But in person? brrrr. What if she turned the all-admonishing digit on me, pout, raised eybrow and all?. Would I be strong, would I be weak, could I turn the other cheek? The resolve grew weak. Shadows fell. Van Helsing I'm not.

I had become a player but did I really want to play umpire in an epistemological joust between the deaf and the blind?. Could I go back on my word? Mine was a quest for things sacred and just indeed. All sides matter, all voices count, deserve respect. Can't we all get along?, I yelled shielding my eyes from some jerk's high beam in the oncoming traffic. I reached out and pressed "play" on my favorite cd. As it had many times, the disembodied voice of wisdom again rose, reassuring in the night. Professor Longhair live in New Orleans; first the unmistakable opening to "Big Chief"; cheers from the crowd; then, Fess's truth, frozen in time on a tiny silver disc for eternity, the prophet's word devastatingly, metaphysically relevant: " Yeahhh righhht!"

QUI A TUE AKIRINA? avec l'invite special PATRICK CERF

PATRICK CERF est l'invite de JP MUNTAL dans le cadre du JP MUNTAL HONOLULU RADIO SHOW a Hawaii. Cerf qui sera a l'university d'Hawaii le Jeudi 4 Octobre 2007 parlera a JP Muntal de son livre "La Condition Des Femmes A Tahiti"(editions du vent, Papeete). L'entrevue faite en Francais et en Anglais est MAINTENANT disponible en "audio sur demande" sur le site officiel de l'emission http://www.thehawaiianlonegunman.com/
De plus amples renseignments seront egalement disponibles sur le site officiel de Christine Bourne http://www.tahititoday.com/
e-mail transpac_info@yahoo.fr

WHO KILLED AKIRINA? VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IN TAHITI

During the night of May 5 2006, a young Tahitian woman, AKIRINA, 18 suffered a brain hemorrhage and died as she was raped repeatedly by a gang of 11 men, some, teenagers as young as fifteen, as well as by her 42 year old uncle. As Akirina lay dying, the men continued abusing her inert body while as many as 20 onlookers watched without intervening. The incident has refocused law inforcement and sociologists' attention on the problem of sexual violence against women in Polynesia.
Patrick Cerf is the author of the controversial book "The Domination Of Women In Tahiti". He is JP Muntal's guest on Muntal's Honolulu Radio Show.. Interviews in French and English are currently streaming on the net and available via podcast. at www.thehawaiianlonegunman.com and www.hawaiiradioproject.podcastpeople.com
Cerf has written a complex in-depth analysis of the condition of women in Polynesia, its deeply-rooted cultural history and by extension of the Polynesian psyche. It contradicts the widely accepted notion of a matriarchal society corrupted by western influence, a notion frequently invoked as the basis for anti-colonial political posturing. More information soon available on the radio show's website and by contacting transpac_info@yahoo.fr

MILKING IOLANI PALACE (WRONG PLACE,WRONG TIME)

Keep your stars and stripes under wrap or be a Yankee doodle dandy fool. Every year, Iolani palace, symbol of nationalist rebirth, plays host to anti-American grievances by activists with a thing for Hollywood and Cecil B.deMille . The Queen was once held under house arrest here. But it's old Union Jack flapping today, louder than a chorus and verse of "Rule Britannia", testament to the submissiveness of the monarchs to British rule and today's nationalist movement's obsession with nobility. It is subconscious inherited behavior going back to the dawn of Polynesian aristocratic thought. If, as Hawaiians are told from birth and reminded through life, the "white man" brought disease and pestilence, he also helped create the royal icons revered today throughout the Pacific by those who call for its decolonization. In Tahiti, Wallis enabled Pomare to crush Te Fana, his arch rival . Here, it was the English flint that put Kamehameha on the throne. Without instructions from Isaac Davis and John Young the "great" warrior whose first glimpse of a wheel was of one under a canon wouldn't have known which end of the fuse to light. The British gun helped a self-appointed "descended-of-the-gods" marauder subjugate a people under one iron fist and proclaim himself absolute ruler. In Hawaii, history books call that "unifying". Even Julius Caesar writing about his victory over Vercingetorix called it a "Conquest". The one responsible for the deaths of six thousand Oahu warriors in one day as they tried to push him back is worshipped by school children today, many of who, under his rule, would have been infanticized for being of the wrong gender or lineage. Yet, the British flag waves as a symbol of Hawaiian pride; Hawaiian royalty, of benevolence and wisdom. Noblesse oblige. One doesn't question the logic of icons. Nevertheless, whatever inexplicable sense of national fervor the royal abode may stir in the common man, it's a curious choice as symbol of redress for the destitute, displaced and marginalized. Iolani Palace is about privilege and power, ordained by God, unquestioned by man. It still resonates with pump, circumstance and the fatal consequence of sleeping with the enemy. Here, portrayed in full Masonic regalia is "Merry Monarch" King Kalakaua; There, the echo of crystal toasts to wolves in sheep skins, the frivolity of the ruling classes, the curse brought down on a voiceless people. It can be argued whether or not, with or without the back-alley shenanigans orchestrated by the US, the monarchy would have ended. It can be disputed whether during her visit with Victoria, Lili'uokalani failed to grasp the distinction between reigning and ruling. One may speculate that not enough effort went toward establishing a constitutional monarchy and thus prevent the overthrow. We will never know. The guilty and the innocent are long gone. One thing is certain about today though: the poor, destitute and displaced bussed in from Waimanalo and Wainae to worship the ground monarchs once trode are used as poster child by those who know or should know better.
The hapa Hawaiian grandiloquent and tenured elite behind the sovereignty movement is obsessed with caste with good reason. It too, is privileged, self-aggrandizing and aristocratic. Let them eat cake.

FAIRNESS IN NEWS - Of Lies And Trooz

Alicia C.Shepard "Image Problems" (Honolulu Star Bulletin insight editorial section, Aug 12) makes a good case for journalistic fairness. She fails, however, to mention the public's responsibility to get the real story and not be taken for the proverbial ride down B.S. alley.
The proliferation of news sources gives a bird's eye view of the marketplace of ideas those of us who grew up on shortwave radio could never have foreseen. But news origination has become, to paraphraze Frank Llloyd Wright, "mob-ocratized" with the advent of home grown and grass root initiative. The influence of blog-journalism has rendered the Fairness Doctrine virtually irrelevant. Now more than ever do sources require healthy scrutiny.
Why should one Hawaii newspaper agree to publish "Broken Trust," and not the other? Why should National Public Radio, despite an ombudsman, regurgitate official slogans (Operation Iraqi Freedom) without disclaimers during their newscasts in the early days of the war? By the way did anyone ever ask Juan Williams why he carried (literally!) Condee Rice's books on the way to her 9-11 testimonial? (run that MSNBC footage please).
To demand rather than expect journalists to justify the how and why of what they do is no mere academic curiosity. Caveat emptor.