#recognize the effects of colonization on this place and this population and seek to avoid making it worse

[alolanlan]

i agree, people mourning places in maui lost to fires as vacation spots and not places where people have lived for generations is seriously fucked up. it shows a complete lack of empathy for those who lost their lives, who lost their homes, and/or who lost family and friends.

however, to the ones in the reblogs saying don’t visit hawai’i:

yes, tourism is bad. it’s had a History of fucking up hawai’i and its native culture and by no means do i condone it. you should definitely stay away while we’re in the midst of dealing with and recovering from the fires, both because we need the space to put up maui residents that evacuated here to oahu and because we need to give what resources we have to maui.

but you also have to acknowledge that the tourism industry is now the backbone of our economy. most locals work in the industry in some way and stopping tourism for hawai’i would mean the loss of jobs and overall revenue for our islands.

hawai’i was originally a sovereign land that was fine on its own. the native hawaiians didn’t want hawai’i to be taken over by the US or for it to be turned into a tourist spot. but this is our reality now. tourism is how we’re able to get by and make money and telling people to stop coming completely is just going to fix one problem only to create another.

what we actually need to do is do stuff like petition the local government to limit how many tourists there are at a time, ensure locals are prioritized resources-wise (because we fucking LIVE HERE, tourists can always go home), and set specific rules for tourists about places you can and cannot go and things you can and cannot do (and enforce these rules). those are just random ideas but the point is that we need to change what’s happening without bringing us economical hardship.

but anyway,

don’t forget to help maui residents however you can, whether that be spreading the news and information on where to donate, or by donating supplies (clothing, bags, food, money in the form of giftcards, health products, etc) yourself.

can white people stop boo-hooing about how they lost their favorite vacation spot because of the fires on maui? it’s vile. people lost their lives and their homes. no one gives a shit that your colonizing ass can’t go somewhere you were never welcome anyway

[hussein-allam]

Means Disconnected from Ends

Every politician worth his salt has an agenda. It could be as simple as maintaining normal daily life for the people, as complicated as the emancipation of the masses, or as frustrating as liberation from colonial oppressors. Whatever the agenda, it is important to start with the desired end and work back from there. Each end will dictate a different route connected with a set of means. Ends therefore must be well defined and always held in clear focus to ensure that appropriate means are employed, to avoid getting sidetracked into irrelevant tangents, and mired in the details of the struggle. If sight of the desired end is lost, the end-means connection will be severed and the struggle will be cast adrift on the random currents of history.

           For Gandhi, the main end of course was the liberation of India from British rule. His chosen means to achieve this was that of conquering and dominating the moral high ground. This entailed the formulation of a system of non-violent resistance or ‘Satyagraha’. By 1922 he had succeeded in rallying the population around his vision and was ready to take non-violent resistance to its highest form. However, perfect adherence to non-violence appears to have morphed within Gandhi into an end in itself. When the perfection he desired was broken (in a fatal confrontation with the police) he called off the entire Satyagraha campaign! The main end of drawing the curtain on British rule was thus blurred out of focus. The means in this example grew to such prominence that their connection to the desired end was severed. Rather than follow the shortest path to liberation, Gandhi detoured. He became a prophet of a quasi-religion of non-violence and spent many years spiritually disciplining the masses by promoting chastity, fasting, prayer, yarn-weaving, and simple living. He writes: “quite selfishly, as I wish to live in peace in the midst of a bellowing storm howling round me, I have been experimenting with myself and my friends by introducing religion into politics” (109). Applying Antonio Gramsci’s terminology (though not quite his definitions) to this situation, Gandhi initially had the upper hand by waging a ‘war of movement’ against the British. He had a dynamic campaign on his hands and attentive masses applying his instructions. By choosing to stand-down however and focus on uplifting the spiritual lives of his compatriots, he gave up this fluid mobility and opted instead for a static drawn-out ‘war of position’ — one in which the entrenched British were at an advantage.

Gandhi’s focus on absolute non-violence as an end in itself further causes him to issue statements that confuse rather than sharpen and focus the struggle. Statements such as “the movement is not anti-English”(Gandhi 116) and “I am no enemy of Britain” (222) remove the sense of urgency, tamp down mass enthusiasm, and lower the anxiety of the colonialists. In contrast, Gramsci has no qualms about confronting adversaries and does not categorically rule out violence against them. His justification of the use of force is based on a rational calculation: “Force can be employed against enemies, but not against a part of one’s own side which one wishes to rapidly assimilate, and whose goodwill and enthusiasm one needs” (Gramsci 168). That is not to say that Gandhi should have called for open war against the colonizers. Rather he should have kept the end goal clearly in sight, not confused it with the means, moved past perfection, and maintained crucial momentum.

           Ironically, Gandhi is keenly aware of the connection between means and ends: “The means may be likened to a seed, the end to a tree; and there is just the same inviolable connection between the means and the end as theres is between the seed and the tree” (10). It is therefore perplexing that he did not see where his religion-based politics were headed. By recognizing differences between Indians along religious lines and calibrating his politics to appeal to their religious sentiments, he was clearly sowing the seeds that would result in an end result of sectarianism. A concrete example is his alliance with the Khilafat movement which professed allegiance to the Ottoman Caliphate instead of the Indian nationalist cause. Rather than follow a secular approach, he tuned in to their grievances and pledged to aid their politico-Islamic cause. In one letter he stated: “I would advise joint meetings of Hindus and Mussalmans… urging the Khilafat question be decided in accordance with the just Muslim sentiments” (103). By so doing he explicitly enlisted Muslim support for his first Satyagraha campaign. It was inevitable that sectarian ends would sprout out of such seed (an obvious result to anyone even including those unfamiliar with Indian history and lacking the benefit of hindsight).

           For clues as to what means could have been used to create and sustain Indian national identity, we can look again to Gramsci. Gramsci tackles the issue of creating a “collective man”. For him the state plays a major role:

“its aim is always that of creating new and higher types of civilization… hence of evolving even physically new types of humanity. But how will each single individual succeed in incorporating himself into the collective man, and how will educative pressure be applied to single individuals so as to obtain their consent and their collaboration, turning necessity and coercion into freedom?” (242).

Therefore, rather than calling for the Satyagrahis’ fanatical unquestioning obedience as Gandhi did (80), Gramsci’s way entails having a motivated central authority seeking to mold and form the people into new individuals by securing their consent and collaboration. Reform here is done via a top-down approach to achieve the national cohesion and unity necessary for a successful liberation campaign. Contrast this with Gandhi’s description in his letter to the British viceroy of the Indian people as the “dumb millions” (100) and his bottom-up strategy of building unviable consensus and unsustainable unities by appealing to fundamentally divisive religious instincts[1].

           Another crucial point of divergence between Gramsci and Gandhi lies in the identity of the entity leading the way. Gramsci argues that in modern times it is no longer feasible for a “dominant personality” to lead (194). The idea of a figurehead is rejected. Political parties are now the new ‘prince’. The party is “the first cell in which there come together germs of a collective will tending to become universal and total” (129). The process of building up the party, its internal workings and its ideology, “gives birth to a collective will with a certain degree of homogeneity…” (194). It is of course true that there existed the Congress Party in India and that for some time Gandhi was its president (Britannica). However, he later withdrew entirely from the party and his actions had an undermining effect on its leadership — an example of this being the organization of the salt march free from Congress’s control (221). Gandhi’s politics were built around his person and, with his unquestioning Satyagrahis, resembled a cult.

In summing up the Indian experience, the desired end was independence and self rule but the means employed were sectarian, long-winded, and cultish. These inappropriate means negated the possibility of a ‘blitzkreig’ campaign of liberation, created years of frustration, and fanned religious tensions. Ultimately divisions reached boiling point and resulted in an actual “end” of religious civil war and partition.

Works Cited

Gandhi, Mahatma. Non-Violent Resistance (Satyagraha). New York, Dover Publications Inc., 1961.

Gramsci, Antonio. Selection from the Prison Notebooks. New York, International Publishers, 1971.

“Gandhi.” Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/place/India. Accessed 20 Apr. 2020.

“India – Prelude to Independence.” Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/place/India. Accessed 20 Apr. 2020.

[1] Eventually his Muslim allies withdrew from the Congress Party due to Gandhi’s overly Hindu tendencies and formed their own party which sided with the British during WWII (Britannica).

[jansegers]

Simple English Word List

SIMPLE1540 : a simple English wikipedia word list based on the XML export of all articles related to the nine major groups: Everyday life, Geography, History, Knowledge, Language, Literature, People, Religion, and Science and retaining all word forms appearing 7 times or more in this corpus. The total number of words in this corpus is well over the 100.000 words. a A.D. ability able about above absence abstinence abstract academic academy accent accept access accord account across act action active activity actual actually ad add addition adherent adjective adult advance advice affect after again against age agnostic agnosticism ago agree agreement agriculture air alcohol all allow ally almost alone along alphabet also although always amateur amendment among amount an analysis ancient and angel animal annals anonymous another answer anthropomorphism any anyone anything aphasia appear apple apply approach archaeology architecture area argue argument around arrange art article artificial artist ask aspect associate association astronomy at atheism atheist atomic attack attempt attribute audience author authority available average avoid award away B.C. baby back background backpack bad bah balance band baptism base basic basis battle BCE be bear beautiful beauty because 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China, March and May made this list because china, march and may are on it and I didn't want to decide in favor of the common noun or the proper noun; all other proper nouns have been omitted (even the ten other months that met the criterium of appearing more then 6 times). #SimpleWikipedia #SimpleEnglish #wordlist #English #words #level1540 #Inli #nimi #selo1540