Culture Watch Book Reviews — Against All Odds: Resisting Oppressive Cultures, Political Violence and Natural Catastrophe

Queen Lili'uokalani

Julia Siler'’s history of Hawaii, The Lost Kingdom, introduces us to Hawaii’s last queen, Lili'uokalani, who is not very widely known to Americans, perhaps because her fight for Hawaiian independence was ultimately unsuccessful. Nevertheless, Lili'u's story deserves the attention Siler gives it, and Siler documents it well. Using a great wealth of sources, Siler sets the Queen's story in the transition of Hawaii from a chiefly Polynesian society to a Western influenced monarchy, beholden to the growing influence of American sugar kings, and finally, to an American protectorate, the result of a late 19th century coup which overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy, including its last queen. The history is perhaps too dense for the nonspecialist reader, though there is a helpful "cast of characters" in the introduction.

Like many indigenous Hawaiians, Lili'uokalani converted to Christianity as a result of American missionary activity in Hawaii in the 1820s, and she married a non-Hawaiian. Though she had no children of her own, she was closely tied to Hawaiian royalty through an extended family network, so central to Hawaiian culture. Although Lili'u, like other members of Hawaiian royalty, adopted Victorian dress and absorbed Western values, she strongly supported the resurgence of Hawaiian culture, especially hula dancing and music. She wrote over 100 Hawaiian songs, including the Hawaiian national anthem, and Aloha Oe, the song for which she is most famous. The many different, and sometimes conflicting, threads of Lili'uokalani's personality and character are woven by Siler into a sympathetic portrait, but it becomes clear early on that the Queen was no match for the political machinations of the American sugar kings and the 19th century ideology of manifest destiny. Lili'uokalani's pragmatism may sometimes seem like waffling, but she was no match for the politicians pitted against her. Ironically, admiration for Lili'ukalani and support for a Hawaiian monarchy, is again surfacing in the contemporary Hawaiian sovereignty movement.

In each of these compelling narratives, the authors have either implicitly or explicitly noted the role of Western imperialism in shaping the lives of their central characters. US support for Saudi Arabia is well known, and although the recently deceased Saudi King Abdullah was praised among American politicians for (slightly) relaxing religious restrictions on women, the Saudi government remains culturally conservative, and indeed, has no movie theatres in which Wadjda could be shown. Western imperialism has made Haiti one of the poorest countries on earth, and after the earthquake money provided by the United Nations and Western NGOs actually enabled political corruption and increased men's power over women. America's support for Pakistan enables Pakistan's support for the Taliban, contributing to the violence and repression in tribal territories like Swat and in Hawaii's case, the dominance of mainland political and economic interests are reflected in Hawaii becoming a state 1959. Against these odds the courage of the women described here is truly amazing.

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Culture Watch Book Reviews — Against All Odds: Resisting Oppressive Cultures, Political Violence and Natural Catastrophe

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