With the many year-end reviews and perspectives on the closing of the decade that I feel inundated with, I’ve tried to play catch-up with the 21st-century and realize that it’s a little like chasing the tide; futile, and at the end of the day, unrewarding.

Tonight, as many of us prepare to celebrate the new year, let us remember to read our futures in the champagne bubbles and discuss the past year/decade without the maudlin sentiment that like gravity, is so difficult to escape.

For me, I’ll be looking at the 50th anniversary of Hawaii’s statehood and remark how 2009 officially drew to a close with very little ceremony or consideration for what has been a very effectual year.

In 2009, the big issues of self-determination, decolonization and de-occupation brought to the mainstream a refined definition of Hawai’i and statehood. In 1959, the United States, through surreptitious and deceitful means had finally absorbed the once independent nation-state of Hawai’i into the nation’s 50th state. Like a huckster’s shell game, the processes have become exposed and we see the sleight-of-hand.

Glancing at the supermarket tabloids, this has been an eventful decade, one defined by both 9/11 and the collapse of our financial institutions, which, neither inappropriately nor coincidentally are the imperial bookends monumentalizing the Bush administration.

As we move into 2010, let us make note that we have inherited this debris and as 2010 marks the 200th anniversary of the kingdom of Hawaii, let us be inspired to come together and reinvent, restore and realize the vision that the kingdom of Hawaii had for its people before it was cut short in 1893.

And as we are still wrestling with the two issues that this second decade has inherited: the Akaka Bill and the issue over the “ceded” lands, let us remind ourselves of the simple adage, that it is people that make history. Adding to that, it is active people working in cohesion that drive that change.

Also, we need to remind the world that 200 years ago Hawai’i was officially recognized as an independent kingdom that was brought under rule by Kamehameha I. In celebration of this, a makahiki– a march and festival– is being organized by Ho’okahi Lahui Hawai’i on January 16th and 17th at ‘Iolani Palace.

Ku’e in 2010