Student protests and sit-ins are not new. I remember years ago, professors at the University of Hawaii at Manoa saying they could always count on getting students for protests against government entities, no matter what the subject was. Students liked the feeling of community rapport, being in on something potentially newsworthy and maybe getting their picture in the newspaper. An excuse for being out of class was a good idea, too. Student protests are not news we need to hear.

Unfortunately, protests are about all there is to publish now about the Thirty Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea. Although the governor hasn’t taken action as needed, the status of TMT is more than one island’s concern. It is a statewide and even nationwide matter. If TMT isn’t built on Hawaii island, it won’t be built in the United States at all.

Before annexation, new trade routes, shipbuilding improvements, European nations expanding their colonial empires in Asia and the Pacific, Asian countries advancing their economic interests, the U.S. looking for security in the Pacific Ocean. A small kingdom on its own in the middle of the Pacific Ocean was not a sustainable entity at that time. The kingdom of Hawaii was fortunate that the U.S. stepped in at that time. Do the protesters think some other country would have been better?

Mary Caywood

Kuliouou

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