The Value of Hawaii: The Military by Kathy E. Ferguson and Phyllis Turnbull
09/07/2010
University of Hawaii Press
As chair of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, Sen. Daniel K. Inouye is able to bring home remarkable levels of federal funding: according to the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism (DBEDT), federal investment in Hawaii in 2007 was over $14 billion.
As Native Hawaiian and Waianae Harbor Master William Aila has remarked, “We have an artificial economy” because of the military’s presence, and we can expect about a 30 percent decline in federal funding when Inouye’s career ends.
The military’s investments here will probably become tenuous, because the training of troops can be done more economically elsewhere. For many decades, criticism of the military in Hawaii has been the province of a small, hardy band of peace activists, environmentalists, and Native Hawaiians, whose critiques are often met with skepticism and patriotic outrage.
The predictable decline of military holdings in a post-Inouye era will require a different approach. The ongoing environmental, ethical, and cultural controversies surrounding the military are therefore intensified by a looming practical consideration: since our second biggest industry is very likely to shrivel in the near future, what are we going to do?
What can we do now?
The first thing that people in Hawaii can do is to face the reality that sooner rather than later the military is likely to scale back, or even terminate, its extensive training here and its corresponding claims on land and water. It is foolhardy to face this huge change by holding blindly to the current situation rather than developing alternatives.
When the military has withdrawn from other major training sites, such as those in the Philippines, it has left toxic environmental, economic, and social conditions behind. Planning for mitigation of these predictable consequences, and developing needed alternatives, cannot wait.
Second, we could listen to those who have carried on the analysis and critique of the military for many decades. The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), Malama Makua, Earthjustice, and others are our historians. We need to learn about the history of their protests, and to teach others.
Malama Makua utilizes available legal tools to put continuing pressure on the military, resulting in small but significant improvements to the treatment of land and water. An earlier example of this approach is the Protect Kahoolawe Ohana, which insisted on cultural preservation and local control over the recovery of the damaged site.
We must insist on generational planning, not limited five-year programs. We need to learn from past mistakes. William Aila, for example, stresses the importance of putting funds that may be forthcoming for the clean up of Makua Valley into local rather than military hands, to limit waste and to provide employment locally.
Third, we could make better use of the procedures for Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) to contest ill-conceived expansion. We could insist on EIS’s and refuse to accept waivers, as in the poorly handled case of the Superferry.
Currently, EIS hearings are often contentious events where the military’s plans are called into question, but they are poorly reported and most people pay little attention. Yet committed local groups often succeed in using the EIS process to delay military expansion, thus allowing them more time to articulate alternatives. For example, live fire training in Makua Valley has been successfully curtailed by patient, persistent legal challenges. If local news outlets were less deferential to military interests and carried daily accounts of proposed changes, upcoming hearings, and relevant data, public involvement in the EIS process could be vastly expanded.
Fourth, we could make stronger use of parental authority to challenge military recruitment in the schools. Under a provision in the “No Child Left Behind” law, public schools that want to keep their federal funding must turn over the names, addresses, and phone numbers of high school students to recruiters.
The local AFSC office has developed materials to support parents who want to remove their children’s names from these lists. Concerned parents could organize larger, more public protests against this invasive outrage, and make more widespread use of their parental right to intervene. Like the EIS hearing, the “opt out” procedures are already in place; they do not have to be created, but they need to be more vigorously used.
Fifth, we could use the commitments of educational institutions to oppose violence and discrimination toward women to put pressure on the military. Some universities have used their anti-discrimination policies regarding gays and lesbians to protest the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.
Now that “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” seems to be in the process of changing, the same tactic could be used to call attention to sexual discrimination and assault against women. The antiviolence provisions of schools and universities could be used to reveal and publicize the high rates of rape and sexual assault on women soldiers by their colleagues. While a 2006 Supreme Court decision (Fair v. Rumsfeld) upheld the military’s right to recruit on campuses, it also upheld the rights of students and faculty to protest.
Lastly, it is vital for our state to develop economic alternatives to the military. We could invest much more substantially in clean energy, making use of our sunshine, wind, and waves to reduce our dependence on oil. We could develop sustainable agriculture, invest in food stuffs meeting local needs, and keep more consumer dollars within the local economy.
We could explore the transformation of Pearl Harbor into a civilian shipyard, as was done at Subic Bay in the Philippines after the withdrawal of U.S. troops there. We could more fully explore niche tourisms that focus on environment, culture, or health, rather than the mass form with which we are familiar. We could invest in cleaning up and redeveloping land used and polluted by military activities.
We need a better future than the one that will no doubt come if we cling to the ways of life that our military dependence has fostered.
DISCUSSION: This essay is part of a 14-week series of excerpts from the book, "The Value of Hawaii: Knowing the Past, Shaping the Future." What do you think about this essay on the military in Hawaii? Do you have any questions for the authors? They'll be online every day this week. Join the conversation about the future of the state in our online forum dedicated to the book.
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE BOOK: The Value of Hawaii: Knowing the Past, Shaping the Future
ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
Kathy E. Ferguson is Professor of Political Science and Women’s Studies at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa. She is co-author of Oh, Say, Can You See? The Semiotics of the Military in Hawaii (U of Minnesota P, 1999). She is currently writing a book on Emma Goldman.
Phyllis Turnbull is retired from teaching in the Political Science Department at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa. She is co-author of Oh, Say, Can You See? The Semiotics of the Military in Hawaii (U of Minnesota P, 1999).
