Forum

I Knew Queen Liliuokalani

Bernice Piilani (Cook) Irwin

Forgiveness

     Liliuokalani's power of forgiveness, I believe to be unequalled in history.  She forgave those who had dethroned, imprisoned and humiliated her.  For this magnificent attitude alone, Liliuokalani deserves to be placed in the Hall of Fame as one of the world's great women.

     Liliuokalani had lived all her days under the threat of the loss of Hawaii's independence, and, for five years under the governments of the PGs and the Republic, she had kept up a ceaseless struggle to gain back the rule of the country for the Hawaiians.

     In spite of this great desire for the continued independence of her nation, she made a most magnificent gesture shortly after annexation in allowing the younger members of the Annexation Commission to be entertained at a luau given at her home, Washington Place.  She graciously received the older members who called at her birthday reception on September 2, a bare three weeks following annexation.  It is not difficult for the victor to be magnanimous to the vanquished, but for the vanquished to honor spontaneously the victor is rare indeed in the annals of history.

     There is a well known picture taken a few years before Her Majesty's death in which she is shown seated with Sanford Dole--Dole, who had been chosen to head the PG Government, the group that had dethroned her.  Captain Berger, famous leader of the Royal Hawaiian Band, is seen standing behind the Queen.  It was said to have been through Berger's influence that these two became reconciled.  However, perhaps this reconciliation had not been so difficult to effect.  I feel certain that the Queen sensed Dole's own personal conviction that the islands should remain, as they had for centuries past, under the rule of the Hawaiians.

     Liliuokalani was not a saint, but one is inclined to place her among the saints when one considers all the suffering she underwent and her remarkable reactions.  Insults, malicious falsehoods, slander of every description had been heaped upon her head, both at the hands of the PG Annexationists in the islands, and, fed by these island Annexationsits, in the Republican newspapers in the United States.

     The Queen never could quite forgive one of the most rabid of the island Annexationists although at a reception given by Prince Kuhio Kalanianaole years after the overthrow where she was in the receiving line, she had recognized him with no sign of animosity whatever.  He had inflicted unforgivable injury on her--slander which he had the bad taste to continue even after her death.  Her sensitive nature had suffered greatly throughout this ordeal of "mud-slinging," but she grieved most deeply for her people who no longer would rule in their land, but would be ruled henceforth by the foreigner.  (After the overthrow of the monarchy, no Hawaiian headed the Island government and since annexation, only one of our governors, Samuel Wilder King, has had a drop of Hawaiian blood in his veins.)

     The Queen had been very bitter at first, a state shared by her subjects of Hawaiian blood, but, in spite of the deep ache that remained in her heart to the end of her days, she rose magnificently above it all in forgiving many who had transgressed against her.

 

 

Note:

 

I've always had a resistance to 'forgiveness', 'mihi' and 'apology' because of the Christian side of me, I never bought it fully, although, my family thrived off 'hooponopono' especially my grandmother.

 

I practice forgiveness all the time, however, I also know that one cannot let one's guard down on the 'sick minds' for they know not what they do.  Yeah right!