Na Mahina Ai: Y2K GARDENS OF THE HEART FOR HAWAII'S CHILDREN

Aloha from the Big Island of Hawaii.

During this century the generous people of Hawaii welcomed millions of visitors from the 49 states and the rest of the world to their island home, forgiving America's unfair takeover of their islands and patiently bearing persecution and damage to their beautiful culture.

On the north coast of the Big Island of Hawaii an entire population of plantation workers was abandoned jobless by the sudden termination of the sugar industry. After years of ravaging the soil and exploiting the lives of these people for the disproportionate enrichment of a few, the sugar barons sold the land to foreign absentee landlords. Today the poverty of dispossessed Hawaiians and other multi-ethnic unemployed plantation workers is concealed behind a glamourous facade broadcast to the world by the travel industry. Now more misfortune is approaching for good families who deserve assistance to make ready for difficult times ahead.

The small community (4,500 people) of North Kohala on the Big Island will gratefully receive any assistance generous souls will give. Urgently needed are tools and equipment for farming, gardening, fishing, hunting, construction (new or used) before the expected isolation of the Hawaiian Islands in view of the U.S. Senate Year 2000 Report.

The Senates Special Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem stated:

[It is] widely believed that [ports] are far behind in their Y2K efforts. While Y2K impacts on the maritime industry may potentially interrupt commerce...[t]he most disturbing findings in this sector that the Committee has found are: * Domestic airports have (on average) started very late to get ready for Y2K. * The FAA, although it has made great strides in the past year, has a long way to go to be ready for Y2K and remains a high risk. * The situation with international air traffic control and airports is much worse than in the U.S. and some level of flight rationing is highly possible for some foreign destinations. * The maritime shipping industry has not moved aggressively on Y2K. Disruptions to global trade are highly likely.

Clearly the above portends unemployment in Hawaii and the urgency of preparing soil and planting seeds now to prevent hunger. Hawaii now imports 80% of all its needs. Hawaiians want to take care of themselves and for this reason they seek tools and seeds that liberate, not hoards of canned food that bring sickness and enslavement. North Kohala can provide the example for Hawaii's return to abundant self-sufficiency that was once a reality and is still a rightful heritage of sovereignty, uplifting hearts before Y2K and feeding families perennially after Y2K.

Aloha Aina - Hawaiis love of the land - gardens of life and of the heart on the Big Island of Hawaii directly ask for help and open their hearts to you if you need refuge. Mothers, fathers, sons and daughters, friends and neighbors, entire families are gathering together to work on a first six-acre community victory garden, called Na Mahina Ai, sponsored by United Eco-action Fund (please visit http://www.uneco.org). Other community gardens are being organized. UEFs humanitarian and ecological vision has drawn the attention of Vice President Al Gore, who is now an honorary UEF American Wilderness Heritage Guardian. UEFs children's environmental education group, the Eco-Kids, is part of the project and a precious investment in a better future.

Big Island families send this appeal to your goodness, ready to welcome you in the spirit of aloha.

Heart greetings from the children of the rainbow,

UNITED ECO-ACTION FUND

P.S. Kindly send your contributions to United Eco-action Fund, P.O. Box 73, Kapaau HI 96755. Please indicate the value of your gift as all donations are tax deductible. Mahalo nui (thank you greatly) for your support.

-- United Eco-action Fund (kamaaina@uneco.org), April 06, 1999

Answers

you know folks, I'm not sure but we may have a yourdonite first here...some of us can remember this forum being spammed by entrepreneurial types, but I do believe this is the initial instance of a charity spam...

Obviously this guy didn't read the forum, or he'd realize that most of us aren't exactly wealthy ourselves...

Arlin

-- Arlin H. Adams (ahadams@ix.netcom.com), April 06, 1999.

At least it is polite ...

-- Hhuh? (a@polite.thread?), April 07, 1999.

Some of us may want to help such lovely island. After all Hawaii has been taken by the US illegally and sugar has devastated their land. These people are asking for tools new or used I am going to help and I cannot understand Arlin meanness of spirit. I guess he never was among the real Hawaiian people. Well explore that posting further before you waste time dumping on people the US has colonialized and robbed.

-- David Carrigan (David@Buckingham.uk), April 07, 1999.

David, are you an American living in the UK? I ask because your post is phrased in American English, particularly the use of "I guess," which in Britain would be replaced by "I suppose" or "I expect." Additionally, "dumping on" people is a peculiarly American colloquialism.

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), April 07, 1999.

JUST A MESSAGE THAT WAS POSTED ON THE ISLAND NET BY A WISE HAWAIIAN - IT MAY HELP SOME TO GLIMPSE WHAT ALOHA MEANS:

Jan 30th 7:37 PM

My home is the Big Island. This crisis has the capacity to inflict death and suffering upon our ohana. This crisis will open a door to the rediscovery of our historic and forgotten aina. Our ancient records reveal an aina that supported near 300,000 people on the Big Island alone, nearly twice our current population. The cane sugar legacy of the US Civil War has now departed our lands, leaving them free to feed us in return for our aloha aina. We need some interim supplies to provide for us as we begin to plant and begin the rebirth of our bountiful, self sufficient paradise. The year 2000 will visit empty grocery shelves upon our land, but the land, seas, and skies will sustain us if we love and care for them as we love and care for our children.

The knowledge contained in our chants and oral tradition can fill both our hearts and stomachs. Like a dormant seed our cultural heritage, if tended, can provide knowledge and wisdom that has developed and has been purified over thousands of years of Polynesian History. We lived beautiful, rewarding, and loving lives thousands of years before man began to play cat and mouse games with the electron. We will now have gentle encouragement to talk, teach, embrace, love, work and worship rather than watch television and play computer games. We will now have the opportunity to sit and be together in the soft, warm, glow of the kukui nut rather than the intrusive light of the incandescent and fluorescent light bulb.

Our oral tradition is a virtual Farmers Almanac, telling us how to tend our land, seas, and skies in this our Polynesian home. The European and Asian resources, knowledge and customs have served us well for two centuries. We have learned to love, work and play within their cultural traditions and knowledge base. Many have died and many have lived as a result of our contact. We must be grateful for their contribution and forgive their detraction as we do with our ohana in pursuit of a life of peace, happiness and pono.

Many of us have become so dependant, through habit upon our visitors ways, that we have lost both knowledge and confidence in our own Polynesian Culture. Now that the boats may stop coming we say, "What can I do? How will I survive? The end is coming."

It is time for us to listen to Tutu. It is time for us to ask Auntie. It is time to question our Kahuna. It is time to return to the Kumu. It is time to embrace ALOHA.

If you think you are fearful with a distant but environmentally relevant cultural heritage that has withstood the test of thousands of years, imagine how fearful your brothers and sisters without such a heritage must be. Some must fear being trapped on an island thousands of miles from home. "Where is the water?" "Where is the food?"

"Where is the medicine?" "How will my family survive?" It is time for ALOHA. It is time to show how to find the colder but less salty water along our shores. It is time to reveal the Taro root. It is time to teach about the herb. It is time to share the Awa. It is time to calm the frightened hearts of our Malihini brothers and sisters by sharing our Polynesian Cultural Heritage and ALOHA so that they can hoe with us. The quality of our island life will be greater if everyone paddles together. It is too late for the Malihini to pack up and go home. Our home must also be their home as our ancient teachers have always said. The aina will love and care for us all if we all love and care for the aina.

It is important that we all teach the motto we learned in our early years, "Ua mau ke ea o ka aina i ka pono" Aloha pumehana, KK

-- Pono (pono@aloha.hi), April 08, 1999.

Think about it...this place could become the seed of the future, if things get really bad.

Sounds like a soulful, intelligent investment, if you have the discretionary $. I went to the Eco-Action site. It's truly inspiring.

The people there are mostly Y2K aware (more than on the mainland).

This is the kind of place that "beyond Y2K" dreams are made of.

-- aloha (aloha@paradise.com), April 08, 1999.

Mahalo for Kona Kanaka and for the great discovery of wisdom on the net at www.uneco.org .

ONE CAN FEEL HEART AND TRUTH IN IT.

- OUR GIFT FOR TOOLS IS ON ITS WAY ALOHA

-- Kahealani (Hawaii@sovereignty.now), April 08, 1999.

Beauty, simplicity, wisdom,directness ....all things lost in the last century. I welcome Y2K and may Hawaii return to what it must have been when the human race was still sane.

-- Hamlet (Tobe@notobe.lost), April 09, 1999.

I have sent a gift. I am a working hawaiian whose ancestors were robbed by missionaries who traded their bible for our land.

There are plenty of rich guys on this board we do not see much response to Hawaii's plea for help.

Hawaii ia a colony in disguise and we have no hope of justice here any more than Albanians can have hope under Serbia.

Y2K will level the playing field.

Come and help now that we really need you, you makebelieve Christians or better Christianoids. Pono

-- Pono (pono@aloha.hi), April 09, 1999.

PONO!!! Y2K will make us all realize we are all human. It is not race, it is the nobility of spirit that counts. Kamehameha was not above killing his own people to achieve power.

Mercy is a flower that is rooted in virtue. Above all we must cultivate mercy if we want to survive.

-- ZORRO (Zorro@swordogbosis.net), April 11, 1999.

We thank those generous souls who have sent gifts and words of Aloha to us . Those who expresses any doubts could have easily found plenty of references and links to advisors and sponsors to reassure themselves.

Y2K is a clear cut reality. When you drive 50 miles an hour without brakes you may not know the exact extent of the damage you will suffer when you hit the wall -- but it will not be fun. These people in North Kohala have taken in several refugees and are ready to share no questions asked. They are not asking for welfare but for tools to work with.

Mahalo (thanks) to all who have given. UEF

-- United Eco Action Fund (kamaaina@uneco.org), April 12, 1999.