We are travelling around the islands of Polynesia.
The Struggle, it's universal
Today we met Chief Miko, an organizer with the Polynesian Kingdom of Atooi, an Indigenous Polynesian organization expanding the Kingdom of Atooi movement that seeks to restore the occupied Kingdom of Hawai’i: https://www.businessinsider.com/hawaiian-sovereignty-movement-atooi-kingdom-2014-1 We biked down the Western coast of Tahiti, hoping to see a couple of ancient temples. The first, smaller one, Marae Marae Ta’Ata was empty and we did the tourist thing and moved on. At the bigger one, Marae Arahurahu, some 10km down from our place, we saw three policemen barring the road – and I swear they were the whitest people we saw here so far. Like, fresh off the plane kinda look. So we turned our bikes to the sidewalk and chatted about what to do next and a dude sitting in the back, covered head to toe in ritual tattoos was like “Are you guys Canadian?” Honestly, no idea how he guessed. He claimed it was the accent but we don’t really sound Canadian – we think he just thought it was more friendly than calling us American. Anyway, turns out 40 or so Indigenous land defenders had just been evicted from a camp at the temple earlier today. Here’s a news report about that: https://www.radio1.pf/le-pkoa-expulse-du-marae-arahurahu/
So Chief Miko was just chilling, waiting for the police to leave so he can go back. And was very generous with his time and told us about the struggle, and getting recognized by the UN, working with Canadian First Nations etc. We might go back in the next days to visit the camp, hopefully they will be back at the Marae. After we got home, I did some research. It seems the Kingdom of Atooi is mostly concerned with making its head (some dude named Dane) the King of Hawaii. He appears to be making a living selling Atooi IDs and security badges. Not a single one of their websites mentions any policy issues or any kind of struggle faced by the people. Ah well. Miko seemed genuine, it would be a shame if he is being scammed. Anyway, if you don’t know anything about how Hawai’i is illegally occupied by the US and deserves better, here’s a primer.