Alternative History
Register
Advertisement
Free State of Hawaii
(Mokuʻāina Kuʻokoʻa o Hawaiʻi)

Timeline: 1983: Doomsday

OTL equivalent: Hawaii
Flag Coat of Arms
Flag Coat of Arms
Capital
(and largest city)
Hilo
Other cities Kihei, Hana, Kailua-Kona, Waimea, Naalehu
Language
  official
 
English, Hawaiian (official)
  others Japanese, Tagalog, Ilocano, Chinese, Spanish, Korean, Maori, Samoan
King Andrew Piʻikoi Kawānanakoa
Governor Elle Cochran
Area 29,558 km² (claimed)
19,523 km² (actual)
Population 152,600 (as of 2020)
Independence May 1, 1995
Currency Commonwealth dollar ($)
Organizations DD1983 OO Flag Oceanic Organisation

The Free State of Hawaii (Mokuʻāina Kuʻokoʻa o Hawaiʻi) is one of the remnant survivor states of the United States of America. It is an associated state of the Commonwealth of Australia and New Zealand; as such it is an independent nation that is committed to aligning its defence and foreign policy with the larger power.

Hawaii has restored its monarchy to a symbolic and ceremonial status as a sign of its independence; otherwise, it mostly follows the forms of government that it inherited from the United States. In the 2000s it expanded its territory through the annexation of the uninhabited atolls of Johnston and Midway and the former Japanese islands of Ogasawara.

Hawaii is known today as a crossroads for Pacific trade and a growing destination for tourists, mostly from New Zealand and Australia but increasingly from the Americas.

History[]

Background[]

The Hawaiian islands were settled by Polynesian settlers sometime around 300 BC. Captain Cook's arrival in 1778 is the first documented contact between Europeans and native Hawaiians. He called them the "Sandwich Islands" in honor of his sponsor, the 4th Earl of Sandwich. In Cook's wake came many traders, whalers and missionaries from Europe and North America.

Kamehameha the Great formed the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1795 and brought the islands as a whole by 1810. Under his reign, Hawaii adopted a Western model of government and more Western customs would soon follow through his successors such as a written constitution and a legislature. Over the years, the kingdom gained diplomatic recognition from the United Kingdom, France, the United States and Japan with immigrants from not just Europe and North America but Asia to work on the sugar and pineapple plantations. American businessmen, backed by a company of US Marines, overthrew the monarchy in 1893 and established a Republic - which was annexed by the United States five years later. Hawaii was the last state to join the union before Doomsday. It was admitted on August 21, 1959, following a referendum.

The islands were among the most militarized parts of the USA before Doomsday. The most populated island, Oʻahu, was home to Pearl Harbor, infamously attacked in 1941, together with over two dozen Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force installations. The island served as the headquarters for most American military operations in the Pacific. The Pacific Missile Range on Kauaʻi was a key launch site and testing area for American missiles. The island of Hawaiʻi, called the Big Island, was home to Pohakuloa Training Area, a large tract owned by the Army. Molokaʻi had smaller training areas for jungle warfare. The Space Surveillance Complex on Maui was an important observatory and radar station. The Navy owned the island of Kahoʻolawe but only used it as a blasting range.

Doomsday[]

Four separate Soviet thermonuclear warheads struck Oahu on Doomsday, 26 September 1983. A fifth struck the Missile Range and devastated western Kauaʻi, while its fallout covered Niʻihau. The military facilities on the other islands were not considered key targets. Much of their equipment was rendered inoperable by the missiles' electromagnetic pulses. The Pohakuloa Training Area on the Big Island was left intact. It housed around 2000 permanent troops, plus some additional units there for training. It was not a target as an isolated force of strictly ground forces posed no threat to the Soviet Union. The personnel and vehicles at Pohakuloa would play a key role in the next decade of Hawaii's history.

Therefore, Hawaii after the war consisted of only four habitable islands: Hawaiʻi, Maui, Lanaʻi, and Molokaʻi. The island of Kauaʻi was half destroyed and struggling to care for the injured and the displaced.

Response[]

Hawaii(1983)

Most of Hawaii's population and almost all of its urban land had been located on Oʻahu and caught between the blast zones of four thermonuclear weapons. The radiation from the attacks made the island inaccessible for years. The direction of wind spared its neighbors from the immediate threat of fallout, but in the ensuing years and months some contamination would be carried to Lanaʻi and Molokaʻi, whose people would be exposed to a heightened risk of cancer and other diseases. Nearly all of the state's political and economic leadership was lost.

The two strongest remaining county governments, that of Hawaii (Big Island) and Maui, took charge of recovery and rescue operations. Mayors Herbert Matayoshi (Hawaii) and Hannibal Tavares (Maui) met hours after the attack. They immediately traveled together to Hilo and Wailuku, the respective county seats, and announced that they would be sharing administrative power for an unknown amount of time. Kauai County's mayor Tony Kunimura was happy to defer to them to create an emergency state government - though he was alive and eastern Kauai was safe, his island had been devastated and would rely on the larger islands for the foreseeable future.

Hawaii's economy had depended on military money, tourism, and imports, so food was an immediate crisis, due to trade and communication to the Mainland apparently cut off. The islands' main crops were sugarcane and pineapples, neither a strong foundation for a good diet. Fortunately, the islands in the 1980s still had the remnants of a diversified agricultural economy, with plenty of livestock and poultry on the Big Island in particular. In addition, the Hawaiians realized that they would have to imitate their ancestors and depend on fish for much of their diet.

A labor union government[]

Lou Goldblatt

Governor Louis Goldblatt in 1985

The age-old conflict between Hawaii's landowners and farm laborers was bound to re-ignite in this time of crisis, with the added element of people who had never worked in agriculture before but suddenly depended on local produce. The landowning companies were largely based in Oʻahu, and within a month nearly all the agricultural land was in the hands of the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union (ILWU), Hawaii's powerful leftist labor union. The mayors worked closely with the ILWU, prioritising the need to feed the population over fighting further change to the political status quo.

Many people resented ILWU's control over rations. A food riot broke out on Maui as hundreds of hungry people stormed a field and began taking food for themselves. ILWU and County security forces were unable to put the riot down. The rioting spread to the Big Island, where military vehicles from the Pohakuloa Training Area were employed, using up much of the precious remaining petroleum.

The riot was finally put down in February 1984. Union leader Louis Goldblatt was in firm control of the the islands' government and agriculture, officially styling himself Interim Governor of Hawaii. He essentially collectivized Hawaii's entire economy. Officers on each island assigned agricultural or fishing work to people who had served in defunct service industries. Production and consumption were tightly controlled. In addition, Goldblatt began the gradual evacuation of the most heavily irradiated islands, Niʻihau and Kauaʻi. In short, Hawaii under Governor Goldblatt achieved stability, at the cost of political liberty.

Meanwhile, Hawaii's medical supplies were running out. The increased reliance on traditional remedies, the fish- and pineapple-based diet, the sporadic violence, occasional repression, and chronic radiation poisoning were all taking their toll on the population. The military, in need of food, participated in Goldblatt's ration system, providing security and receiving rations.

Arrival of American officials[]

The first federal official to arrive in Hawaii was Secretary of State George Shultz, who touched down at General Lyman Field on May 7, 1984. Upon arrival, he was told by officials at the airfield that contact with Reagan's plane was lost over the Pacific and that the President was presumed dead. Soon after, in the absence of both Reagan and Bush, Shultz was transported to his new residence at the Hilo Federal Building. The following day, just a bit past midnight on May 8, he was sworn in as Acting President of the U.S. Administration - Pacific, marking the start of U.S. governance from Hawaii.

Afterwards, Shultz met with Interim Governor Goldblatt, and while the two had no choice but to work together for the sake of survival, tensions were high. Shultz was a Republican and a staunch conservative who had worked closely with Presidents Nixon and Reagan. Goldblatt, by contrast, was a leftist labor union leader whom Shultz described as socialist. Only days after Shultz' arrival in Hilo, the Acting President was quoted as saying that he had "tried to escape one batch of Reds and ended up working with another." No love was lost between the two. Goldblatt remarked privately that Shultz was "one of those motherfuckers that destroyed half the world, and there's no way he'll be my President."

Shultz soon reached out to the governments of Australia and New Zealand for support. Both nations sent a delegation of official staff, and embassies of Australia and New Zealand were set up at locations near the Federal Building. New Zealand also sent a transport plane with supplies and military officials, which was warmly received. Shultz also began the work of establishing his cabinet, composing it partially of American officials with whom he had evacuated, and partly of local officials disillusioned with the Goldblatt government. His decision to include former landowners in his cabinet earned him further ire from Goldblatt and other ILWU officials, who saw this change as a direct attack on their interests and on the people of Hawaii. However, a diplomatic incident was precluded by Shultz' pragmatic decision to allow Goldblatt and the ILWU to partition the supplies amongst Hawaiian citizens. Shultz begrudgingly recognised that although Goldblatt's politics did not align with his own, Goldblatt and the ILWU did have the power to spread out supplies amongst the Hawaiian populace better than Shultz and his emergent cabinet could.

The APA and the Gathering Order[]

On May 30, now-President George Bush landed at Lyman Field, and Shultz dutifully turned control over to him. Bush would continue the work of establishing a cabinet to govern Hawaii, but recognised that a change was needed if there was to be a government capable of governing not only Hawaii, but the entirety of the American diaspora. Thus, on that very same date, May 30, 1984, the American Provisional Administration (APA) was established with its capital at Hilo. In lieu of a functioning House of Representatives, a plan was made to repurpose the existing districts of the Hawaii State Senate and House of Representatives, and hold elections in each district to elect a new United States Congress. The plan would also allow for the admission of other areas, such as Alaska. It would never be put into effect.

Only the next day, on June 1, the ANZUS Head Command was established, with Bush and Shultz collaborating with Prime Ministers Robert Muldoon of New Zealand and Bob Hawke of Australia to establish a unified military command of the three nations. That same day, the now-famous Gathering Order was issued, ordering all US and NATO ships to return to any territories governed by Australia, New Zealand, or the APA. Over the remainder of 1984, comparatively few ships entered Hawaiian territory, but those that did were permitted to dock at the port of Hilo. Those that could not find berth at Hilo were redirected the port of Kahului on Maui, in order to spread out forces and govern the entire island chain more effectively. Pohakuloa was the final destination for most of the ground troops, but a smaller base was set up on Maui near Kahului manned by a hundred or so troops, to maintain order more than anything else. Airfields throughout the islands were requisitioned for the few planes that arrived, but the only one that ever ended up receiving any military aircraft was Hilo International Airport.

Bush, Shultz, and other federal officials spent a great part of the ensuing years traveling to Australia and New Zealand. They worked to secure aid for the remaining American territories - and there was also the matter of the Third World War, which was ongoing in the Caribbean, in Alaska, and presumably in Europe. The ANZUS nations amassed a large enough force to drive the Soviets out of most of Alaska in the middle of 1985. In 1987 Shultz met with his Siberian counterpart in Sitka, Alaska to sign a formal end to the war. These were undoubted successes for the administration, but the long periods that Bush spent elsewhere meant that he continued to seem like a complete outsider to most Hawaiians.

The Crisis of 87[]

In 1987, Governor Goldblatt was assassinated. His ILWU government collapsed and the islands plunged into political violence and anarchy. The perpetrator of the crime was never found, leaving Hawaiians free to speculate wildly about it. The U.S. commander on the ground was David E. K. Cooper, an officer who had served at Pohakuloa a long time and knew the islands. He and his men were able to pacify the capital quickly enough, but ILWU supporters and opponents continued to fight in the countryside and on Maui. The conflict took on the characteristics of a civil war and required a stronger response than the local forces could provide.

Once again, Bush was off island when the crisis struck, working in the embassy in Canberra with Shultz and much of the rest of his cabinet. He decided that Hawaii needed a strong show of leadership, so he came to Hilo himself alongside the Australian and American troops. The expedition, dubbed Operation Tropical Storm, sailed in early 1988.

Once more in the Federal Building, Bush signed an order declaring Hawaii to be under emergency federal control. The reinforced federal troops restored order through a mix of force and the promise of new, free elections. For a time, he assumed direct control over the state's governance, ruling through a military committee.

Return to normalcy[]

Hawaii_Governor_Harry_Kim_on_Sustainability

Hawaii Governor Harry Kim on Sustainability

Former Governor Kim talks about the importance of environmentally sustainable development in a post-DD world (2000).

Direct control under Bush did not last long. He stepped aside in favor of an appointed military governor, who yielded to a provisional civil governor in 1989, Maui politician Joseph Souki. The emergency governments largely kept Goldblatt's rationing in place. Conditions were eased somewhat by renewed shipments of food and medicine from Australia. However, Hawaii's population continued to decline as many people left for Australia and New Zealand.

In November 1989, federal officials and troops supervised elections that brought Harry Kim of the Big Island to the gubernatorial office. Kim's personal popularity finally brought stability to Hawaii. This was still a time of hardship, but the turbulence and suffering of the war years began to subside.

The restoration of constitutional rule brought some measure of goodwill between Hawaii and the federal government, but tension lingered. The nature of the intervention - Bush arriving with a foreign armed force - did little to shake the impression that he was an outsider. And while many gave him credit for restoring order, rumors persisted that the APA had arranged for Louis Goldblatt's murder. Certainly the restored government was something more to the liking of the Feds and their conservative leaders: it was more conventional, less populist. Labor radicalism was replaced with concern for property rights.

Over the next seven years Hawaii, American Samoa, and the smaller territories in the Pacific made slow progress toward recovery. As the national capital, Hilo enjoyed a privileged position at the center of U.S. strategy. Survivors on Maui and Kauai complained about this while continuing to benefit from connections to ANZUS. When the US and Australian militaries began missions of exploration of the American coasts, Hawaii was the natural starting and end point for these voyages.

Two major incidents of violence were yet to occur during the Kim years. In 1990 food shortages again led to rioting. The military installation at Pohakuloa was targeted by bombers, and local officials on Maui attempted to sever ties with the Big Island, firing on US troops as they landed to restore order on the island. In 1992 the aggressors were the military itself, when a band of conspirators attempted to seize several ships, apparently to establish a private colony on the North American mainland. The scheme was stopped, not without bloodshed, in a showdown at the military port outside Hilo. In neither case did the unrest lead to a breakdown of the government's control, and Kim's administration helped infuse Hawaiians with a sense of shared nationhood.

Later in 1992, the USS Benjamin Franklin returned from its famous circumnavigation of the globe. Among its many stops had been the Bonin Islands, a small archipelago that administratively had been a village within the City of Tokyo, despite being located 1,000 km offshore. Cut off from the outside world for nearly a decade, the islanders were starving and impoverished. The following year, 1993, Hawaii mounted a rescue mission to bring the entire surviving population of the Bonin Islands - less than 1000 souls - to resettle on Maui.

A squadron of Canadian ships arrived at Hawaii in 1994 as part of a tour of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The same ships stopped briefly at Hilo the following year on their return voyage, which had initiated formal relations with the Commonwealth of Victoria, the most successful new polity on the west coast of North America. Together with the Franklin voyage and the Bonin expedition, the visits signaled a beginning of an end to the isolation of the Aftermath period.

The Sovereignty Crisis[]

The movement for Hawaiian sovereignty appeared suddenly and grew faster than anyone could manage it, upending the new geopolitical order of the entire Pacific. It began in the late 80s as a movement to reduce or end the American military presence on the islands. It had several strands: an indigenous rights movement that still saw the USA as a colonizer and was interested in the surviving royal family; a peace movement that blamed the USA for the nukes that had destroyed most of the state; a labor and agrarian movement with roots in the ILWU government that above all wanted more land reform; and a regionalist movement that just wanted to replace the old national loyalty with a new local focus.

These activists began to come together after 1990. When Bush's administration ignored all calls for demilitarization, the demands grew more strident. By the 1992 elections, the movements had coalesced into a loud, focused call for Hawaiian independence.

In 1993, local gangs set upon an ANZUS outpost in Crescent City, California, forcing the allies to abandon the mainland. This put an embarrassing end to the latest attempt to reestablish the states of California and Oregon. So just at a time when Bush's administration needed to project strength and unity, it was left looking weak and incompetent. Suddenly independence, an unthinkable idea before Doomsday, was gathering real support.

A bill advanced through the Hawaii State Legislature to hold a referendum on independence. APA leaders responded to it dismissively. Their line was that any such vote would be illegal and meaningless. President Bush avoided making any comments at all, leaving that to subordinates. His attitude served to strengthen the cause of supporters and sway legislators who were undecided. The House and Senate voted to add the independence question to the ballot for the 1994 election.

The APA's stance during the legislative debates furthermore hurt its ability to affect the result of the vote. Since it had dismissed the entire question as a charade, it would not do for it to actively campaign for a "no" vote. Bush avoided making any direct pleas on the question, saying only that the vote was illegal. He even arranged to be off island on election day, which only reinforced negative perceptions of him and the administration. When the vote returned a victory for "yes", no one was sure what to do - few had prepared for the measure to actually pass.

Bush wanted his allies to join him in denouncing the referendum and asked for help restoring order in Hawaii. But now he did not have their support. Tired of propping up his administration, the prime ministers of both Australia and New Zealand insisted on a meeting with APA leaders and the heads of Alaska, Hawaii, and the U.S. territories. It was time to discuss the future of their mutual relationships. The talks proceeded on and off for six months in Wellington. New Zealand's Prime Minister Mike Moore acted as mediator.

During this time, Hawaii's royal family stepped suddenly into public view. The monarchy had been deposed just over a century earlier in a US-sponsored coup. The surviving heir was Andrew Piʻikoi Kawānanakoa. At 31, he had not had a public career before, but now he was increasingly visible and signaled his openness to a restoration. Kawānanakoa happened to be descended from both of the old rival branches of the royal family, adding to an impression that he was fated to restore the old throne. Kawānanakoa staged a ceremony with supporters on January 17, the 102nd anniversary of the overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani. The event looked conspicuously like a coronation and was framed as such in the press.

Days later, Governor Kim announced his intention to step down in favor of a provisional government that would guide Hawaii to its next phase. Amid such political uncertainty and public shows of separatism, the APA left Hilo for Juneau, Alaska.

Bush felt backed into a corner. The administration was collapsing everywhere and losing the support of citizens and allies alike. In Wellington, he agreed finally to allow it to be replaced with a new political order. On May 1, 1995, the proclamation was made that the American Provisional Administration was coming to an end. An exhausted and defeated Bush returned to Brisbane to announce his resignation at the same time. Vice President Robert D. Nesen would take charge of the administration as it wound itself down.

On the same day, Provisional Governor Alan Arakawa of Maui declared that Hawaii's era of independence was beginning. He began to refer to it by its new name under the recent legislation: the Free State of Hawaii. Hawaii's leaders in Wellington now agreed to a status of Free Association with the Commonwealth, pending approval by the legislature. The arrangement would be based on what had previously existed between the United States and Belau. Hawaii's internal independence was assured, but it would remain within the Commonwealth's defensive shield.

The destruction of the United States had been tragic and traumatic, but the decision to move forward toward independence marked a new era of optimism in Hawaii. A constitutional convention opened in July. Its delegates largely followed the form of the prewar State of Hawaii and the United States, adding some changes to reflect the ideals and reality of the new postwar world. A provision for a king passed with relative ease. But the people, not the king, were held to be sovereign. Inspired largely by the constitution of Japan, the king was given no political role, to the point that Hawaii would still have a directly elected governor as its chief executive. The king's task would be to recognize rather than appoint the governor.

Elections were held in November. Controversially they included both a referendum on the new constitution and candidates for offices created by it. If the constitution had been rejected, none of the winning candidates could have assumed their posts. However, it passed, and the new governor was Big Islander John Waiheʻe, a vocal proponent of the constitution and of the royal restoration. On January 20, 1996, the new constitution went into effect. Waiheʻe and the first Congress of Hawaii were sworn in at Hilo; King Andrew Piʻikoi was crowned on the same day.

The early Free State era[]

Hawaii saw positive growth in the next dozen years. The population had stabilized as a more diverse range of staple crops had been planted from Australian seeds. In 1997, production began on the Big Island of sugarcane-based automobile fuel. This has since become a major industry in Hawaii. The strict labour quotas and food rations were relaxed somewhat but remained an inescapable part of life on the islands.

In general, Hawaiians came to feel a great sense of pride in their islands during the early Free State period. For the first time in a century, Hawaii was a nation - a point of view encouraged by Governor Waiheʻe's beliefs and style. The growing nationalism proved an embarrassment when representatives of CRUSA - the anti-Commonwealth Committee to Restore the United States of America - arrived in Hilo to drum up support for a local chapter in 1999. A crowd gathered to jeer and deride their devotion to the old country. When police arrived, they took the side of the crowds, and a nasty brawl erupted between police and the CRUSA. In the end, the CRUSA "agitators" were given asylum by the Free State Militia, but were politely asked to return to Australia.

Governor Waihe'e was re-elected in 2001. At the finish of his second term, the constitutional maximum, Linda Lingle of Moloka'i was elected in 2003. She was re-elected in 2007.

2001 was also the first year since the nuclear war that Hawaii saw a rise in population. A stable food supply had finally allowed births to outnumber emigration and deaths from cancer - which remained a major drain on public health. Hawaii's growth in the 2000s remained unsteady. Better economic opportunities were still available in New Zealand and Australia, and moving there only got easier. But Hawaii's two decades of steady decline were finally over.

A long territorial dispute between Hawaii and the Commonwealth only concluded in 2005. Both Hilo and Jervis Bay claimed authority over a number of former US islands. All were remote and uninhabited. They were neither part of Hawaii nor the territories that had joined the ANZC in the mid-90s. Hawaii claimed that they were abandoned and should pass to the nearest independent power, namely the Free State. ANZ considered them to have passed from American to Commonwealth control by default. The islands were: the Midway Islands, Wake Island, Johnston Atoll, the ruined air base on Okinawa, and the US Miscelaneous Pacific Islands (Howland Island, Baker Island, and Jarvis Island, Kingman Reef, and Palmyra Atoll). The dispute dragged on for years and became a running joke: none of the islands were inhabited and both governments admitted that they did not have the means to administer them. In 2005 it was finally agreed that Okinawa, Wake and the Miscellaneous Islands would go to the ANZC, while Hawaii would get Midway and Johnston. The claim to Okinawa was later dropped.

On February 12, 2009, Linda Lingle resigned, citing a skin cancer condition that prevented her from fulfilling her duties as governor. Like so many Molokaʻians, she suffered from long-term effects of nuclear radiation. Her very visible scars had helped her identify with many of her constituents, but throughout 2008 and 2009 the cancer had grown steadily worse, forcing her to spend days at a time in the hostpital. After an emotional farewell press conference, King Andrew Piʻikoi greeted as the new chief executive First Deputy Governor Kaʻapikapika Angel Pilago, a Big Islander.

During her first term, Lingle began the process of resettling Kauai. Goldblatt had begun its evacuation during his rule, and the US miliary had taken nearly all remaining residents to Maui, leaving only some small settlements on the eastern end. The decades since Doomsday had made it safe again, and in 2006, at Lingle's urging, Congress commissioned agricultural scientist Lani Weigert to head a program to plant and settle Kauaʻi and Niʻihau. Called Imua Kauaʻi (Forward Kauai), the project took three years to plan. Actual planting and construction did not begin until June 2009, after Lingle had resigned. Still, the restored settlement at Kilauea is considered a crowning achievement of her administration.

Bonin islands flag

Ogasawaran flag, first flown months before Doomsday, now used by the survivor community

In 2008, Lingle had sent a delegation to Japan to discuss resettling the Bonin Islands (in Japanese, Ogasawara) as a territory of Hawaii. For sixteen years, the Ogasawarans had lived on Maui as a distinct survivor community. In recent years many Ogasawarans had begun to fear that their community was losing its cultural distinctiveness, and they also began to express the wish to return home. Dr. Kyoichi Mori, an Ogasawaran-born marine biologist at the University of Hawaii, helped found the Ogasawara Community Alliance in 2000 and spoke with members of Congress about creating a new Hawaiian colony in the Bonins. The ANZC government was upset that Lingle had begun discussions on her own, but they joined in three-way talks anyway, eventually allowing Hawaii to annex and settle the Bonins. In October 2009, the Ogasawara Bill authorized the creation of the new settlements; the bill's sponsor, Congressman Dennis "Danny" Mateo, explains the details of the agreement and the law in this interview, "Resettlement of Ogasawara".

The 10s and 20s[]

The restoration of the United States of America, announced in 2010 by nine western states, was greeted as a momentous event in every part of the USA's former territory. It gave new life to the American restoration movement, represented by the CRUSA, the organization that had sparked a violent backlash in Hilo a decade earlier. But the actual restoration of the country gave hope to those in Hawaii who still felt loyal to the United States. These included surviving military veterans from the prewar era as well as refugees from the mainland. Some of these loyalists finally organized an active local CRUSA chapter in Hawaii. It now has branches on each island. A political party was organized a few years later and competes in state elections today.

This time, Hawaii's American loyalists did not spark a backlash. This bespoke a general opening-up of political life in the state as its status became more settled. By the early 2010s, there was little doubt that Hawaii was a secure democracy with a stable relationship with the ANZC and its associated nations. An organized Americanist movement no longer seemed such a threat to these arrangements.

Nevertheless, the majority of Hawaiians still supported the status quo and opposed close ties to the new USA. Memories of the U.S. government, from the overthrow of the monarchy in 1893 to the nuclear war of 1983, are largely negative.

Hawaii's economy has also inexorably become more tied to Australia and New Zealand. In the decade of the 2010s, most Hawaiians were able to attain a higher standard of living thanks to trade with ANZ. Most notable of all has been the gradual return of tourism, this time mostly from those two countries. Maui and the Big Island are not swarming with tourists like they were before, but growing crowds of visitors have brought new money and new construction.

Territory[]

Hawaii's claimed territory covers the entirety of the old US State, plus Ogasawara and the uninhabited Midway and Johnston Atolls.

The populated part of Hawaii now consists of seven islands. Maui and the Big Island still house a very large majority of the people. During the 80s and 90s, Kauaʻi and Niʻihau were totally abandoned, while Molokaʻi and Lanaʻi saw steep declines because of the risk of radioactive contamination. But all four have begun to rebound. Most members of Niʻihau's distinct community have returned, while resettlement is progressing in Molokaʻi, Lanaʻi, and eastern Kauaʻi. A small fishing settlement was built on Kahoʻolawe during the Goldblatt era, so that island is no longer uninhabited.

For administrative purposes, these seven islands are subdivided into 29 districts, replacing the counties and municipalities from before 1983. They were created by Goldblatt as "work areas" for ensuring that everyone was doing meaningful work and receiving rations. Today the Work Committees remain on paper, but they are a power that the government reserves for itself in case of another emergency. The districts vary greatly in size and population. Hardly anyone lives in Kahoʻolawe or Pohakuloa Districts, for example, while Hilo District is a bustling city with a large infrastructure to provide services and oversee rations.

Ogasawara is governed as a special autonomous area. Its population live on two islands, Chichijima and Hahajima. About thirty other islands in the group are uninhabited.

Hawaii cannot be said to have effective control over its uninhabited island territories, which include Oʻahu, the northwestern islands, and the atolls of Johnston and Midway (Kauihelani). The prospect of cleaning up Oʻahu for resettlement remains impossible with available resources; access to the island is restricted. The outlying northwestern islands of Hawaii likewise remain wild and untouched. Johnston Atoll was hit with a nuclear warhead and is essentially worthless. The airstrips on Midway remain intact; ANZ and Hawaii have cleaned them off and use them for occasional exercises, but Hawaii has not established permanent bases there. The uninhabited islands are formally administered by a five-person department within the Free State Marine Militia.

People[]

Hawaii's population remains one of the most diverse in the world. A look at its last five governors illustrates this well: Kim (Korean), Arikawa (Japanese), Waiheʻe (Hawaiian), Lingle (Jewish), and Pilago (Filipino) represent only a part of Hawaii's ethnic spectrum. English and Hawaiian are both official languages. The Japanese and Filipino languages have increased in prominence owing to the resurgence of the Diaspora communities.

Since Doomsday, some immigrants have arrived from mainland North America and other Pacific islands, but this has been offset by Hawaiian emigration to Australia and New Zealand. Hawaii's net losses due to emigration only began to reverse in 2001, the first year that the population increased.

Military[]

As an associated state of the ANZC, Hawaii hosts a few Commonwealth Army and Navy bases. Hawaii also maintains the Free State Militia, divided into Land, Air, and Marine divisions. The FSM uses a combination of US equipment salvaged from its own territory, US equipment brought to Australia, and new equipment bought from the ANZC.

Nothing was salvagable from the blast sites on Oʻahu and Kauaʻi. A number of tanks, jeeps, and Humvees were left in Pohakuloa Army Training Area in the center of the Big Island. Today many have been moved to other locations on the other islands. The ANZC has expanded the former National Guard post at Keaukaha, near Hilo, into a combined air-sea base. It has become a crucial link between Australia and the Americas. Most usable equipment from the small Midway naval facility has been brought to the main islands.

The World Census and Reclamation Bureau, an ANZC-led organization for studying surviving societies, has its Central Pacific Command in Hilo, with offices downtown and substantial port facilities just west of the city. The Command was responsible for exploring much of North America, as well as coordinating WCRB activities in central and eastern Polynesia and occasional expeditions to the Russian Far East. The base hearkens back to Hawaii's historic role as a military center, although the WCRB's goals are exclusively peaceful. As the Bureau became more internationalized after its transfer to the League of Nations, the Central Pacific Command was reduced in size and importance, since more of the North American work came be done by units based in Victoria and Latin America.

Parts of the WCRB base were given to the League of Nations Peacekeeping Force, the permanent armed agency of the League. Hilo is one of only twelve permanent peacekeeping headquarters around the world. This has ensured that the city would remain an important international hub.

Government[]

Hawaii's 1996 Constitution was based on that of the USA and the old State of Hawaii. Despite the return to monarchy, Hawaii kept the modest title of "Free State" rather than style itself a kingdom. The monarch is constitutionally "a symbol of the history and unity of our isles, a living link to our past, and a voice of counsel to our elected officials." He has no political authority. He has a residence in Hilo and one on Maui but most of the time lives in the restored Huliheʻe Palace on the Big Island.

The Congress of Hawaii has one chamber and is led by a Speaker. The chief executive is elected independently of the Congress. She still has the title of Governor rather than President: this is a tribute to Hawaii's American past and a sign of symbolic deference to the king. Hawaii continues the American practice of November elections and January inaugurations.

Hawaii's relationship with the ANZC is based on the past relationship between the pacific trust territories and the USA. Hawaii has full sovereignty over its own internal affairs, and the Commonwealth has some say over foreign trade and defense. Hawaii sends one non-voting delegate to the Commonwealth Parliament. Hawaii sends a voting delegate to the League of Nations. Although Hawaii depends on Australia-New Zealand for support, it is considered a sovereign nation with its own foreign policy.

Business[]

Tourism is a huge industry in Hilo. Aloha Islands is based in the capital, and has flights to and from Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Victoria, Alaska, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Japan and Taiwan. The Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Corporation also has its offices and factories in Hilo. Maui's main industries are agriculture and tourism. Its largest businesses are the Maui Pineapple Company, Ltd. and the Hawaii Sugarcane Company, Inc.

Culture[]

Hilo is the kingdom's cultural center. Several museums, art houses, galleries, and restaurants, several of which date pre-Doomsday, can be found downtown. Maui has become a tourist attraction in its own right.

Attractions[]

Hilo/Big Island[]

  • Kalākaua Park is the central "town square" of Hilo and is home to a number of historic buildings, including the Hilo Federal Building. Several are used by the Hawaii government. Two memorials - one for Hawaiians who died in World War II, the other for those who died on Doomsday - also are part of Kalākaua Park.
  • The Observatories at Mauna Kea are an independent collection of astronomical research facilities located on the summit of Mauna Kea on the Big Island, and are controlled directly by the Free State of Hawaii. The facilities are located in a 500-acre (2.0 km2) special land use zone known as the "Astronomy Precinct," which is located in the Mauna Kea Science Reserve. The observatories are sometimes opened to public use, by reservation, but are most often used by astronomers from the University of Hawaii, the ANZC, Mexico and South America.
  • The Astronomy Center of Hawaii is an astronomy and culture education center located in Hilo, featuring exhibits and shows dealing not only with astronomy but also Hawaiian culture and history, and how the two intersect. Its planetarium, funded from ANZC sources, is one of the most advanced in the Western Hemisphere.
  • The Palace Theater, located in downtown Hilo, shows a wide variety of films, including popular movies shipped in from South America, Mexico and the ANZC, and films produced by Hawaiian filmmakers.
  • The (East) Hawaii Cultural Center, located in Hilo, regularly features art exhibitions and also holds workshops and classes. It was added to the US National Register of Historic Places in 1979.
  • The Lyman House Memorial Museum is a Hilo-based natural history museum founded in 1931.
  • The Pacific Tsunami Museum, also based in Hilo, is dedicated primarily to the history surrounding tsunamis that hit the Big Island in 1946 and 1960. It has been expanded, thanks to ANZC government funding, to include several exhibits on tsunamis for adults and children.
  • The Hilo Tropical Gardens is a point of interest for botany enthusiasts.

Maui[]

Haleakalā National Park is home to Haleakalā, a dormant volcano.

The Hāna Highway runs along the east coast of Maui, curving around many mountains and passing by black sand beaches and waterfalls.

Lahaina is one of the main attractions on the island with an entire street of shops and restaurants which lead to a wharf where many set out for a sunset cruise or whale watching journey. Snorkeling can be done at almost any beach along the Maui coast.

The main tourist areas are West Maui (Kāʻanapali, Lahaina, Nāpili-Honokōwai, Kahana, Napili, Kapalua), and South Maui (Kīhei, Wailea-Mākena). The main port of call for cruise ships is located in Kahului. A smaller port can be found in Maʻalaea Harbor located between Lahaina and Kihei.

National symbols[]

Hawaii uses the same flag that it has used since its days as a Kingdom in the early 19th century, combining elements of the British and US flags. It restored a form of its coat of arms that also from the Kingdom era. A newly-designed royal standard comes directly from the shield.

Hawaii still is occasionally referred to as the Aloha State, its nickname when it was part of the United States. The national motto is Ua Mau ke Ea o ka ʻĀina i ka Pono which, translated into English, is The Life of the Land is Perpetuated in Righteousness.

Hawai'i_Pono'i

Hawai'i Pono'i

Hawaii's national anthem, Hawaii Ponoi, performed at the King's Birthday celebration in Hilo, October 2008

The national anthem is Hawaii Ponoī, which in English translates to 'Hawaii's Own' or 'Hawaii's Own True Sons.' The words were written in 1874 by King David Kalākaua with music composed by Captain Henri Berger, then the king's royal bandmaster. Hawaiʻi Ponoʻī was one of the national anthems of the Republic of Hawaiʻi and the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi, having replaced Liliuokalani's compostition He Mele Lahui Hawaii. It was the adopted song of the Territory of Hawaiʻi before becoming the state symbol by an act of the Hawaiʻi State Legislature in 1967. The song became the official national anthem of the Free State of Hawaii upon its independence. The melody is reminiscent of England's anthem God Save the Queen and the Prussian hymn Heil dir im Siegerkranz.

National holidays[]

  • January 1 - New Year's Day
  • March 26 - Prince Kūhiō Day
  • March / April - Good Friday and Easter
  • May 1 - Independence Day
  • June 11 - Kamehameha Day
  • July 31 - Day of Sovereignty
  • September 26 - Remembrance Day
  • October 7 - King's Birthday
  • Last Monday in October - Labor Day
  • Fourth Thursday in November - Thanksgiving
  • December 25 - Christmas

Media[]

Print[]

The Hawaii Tribune-Herald is the nation's newspaper of record, publishing seven days a week.

Radio[]

The nation is served by seven AM and eight FM radio stations, most of which are affiliated with the ANZBC and other ANZC-based networks. The most popular include Islands 98 FM in Maui; and Honu News/Talk 620 AM, Kona FM 92 and Kapa Radio 100 FM in Hilo.

Television[]

Two television stations are based in Hilo. Channel Two, operating on channel 2, is affiliated with the Seven and Nine networks from Australia and broadcasts 19 hours a day. Hawaii One, operated by the Hawaii government and affiliated with the ANZBC, operates 24 hours a day on Channel 7. It carries sessions, speeches and other government-related business, along with Hawaiian news, music, cultural events, sports and public access programming.

Relatively few households own a television set, but numerous public meeting places have at least one for general viewing.

Sport[]

Sports in Hawaii reflects a mixture of native Hawaiian, pre-Doomsday American and pre/post-DD Australian, New Zealand and Polynesian culture.

The national government, in conjunction with various groups within the ANZC, have worked to preserve such traditional Hawaiian sports as malia (a type of canoe racing).

Surfing also is a popular pastime, particularly on the Big Island.

Before Doomsday, American football (known currently in the islands as gridiron) was a very popular spectator sport in Hawaii, with great support at the high school level and with the University of Hawaii Rainbow Warriors NCAA Division I program. Doomsday put any and all enthusiasm for sports into a long dormancy in the islands. Informal pickup games of American football, baseball, soccer and basketball between work shifts were the only signs of sport for years in Hawaii.

After Hawaii had passed through the tumultuous first decade post-Doomsday and settled into a viable nation-state associated with the ANZC, competitive individual and team sports began to be re-established and spectator interest returned to the surviving populated areas.

Officials from the Australian and New Zealand rugby union associations began to take a major interest in Hawaii after the American Provisional Administration folded into the Commonwealth of Australia and New Zealand in 1995. Over the objections of officials from the gridiron-rules American Football League, officials began sponsoring clinics to teach the fundamentals of the sport to local boys. With the approval of the Hawaiian government, the Australian, New Zealand and Tongan associations (under the guise of ANZC Rugby) helped establish the Hawaii Rugby Union Association, which oversees the sport in Hawaii.

Youth and amateur adult leagues were set up in 1997, leading to a four-club premier league which debuted in 2002). By the mid-2000s Hawaiians were actively being recruited by ANZC clubs, and rugby union found itself the premier team sport in post-DD Hawaii.

Gridiron, meanwhile, struggled just to get re-established in the islands, partly due to rugby union's head start in the region and also due to factions within the AFL disagreeing on how the sport was to be re-established and promoted.

In 2010, gridiron has emerged as a niche sport, with four youth leagues and six amateur clubs competing primarily for the love of the game and before limited crowds.

Association football - or soccer, as it's known in the islands - is becoming the region's second-most popular sport in terms of participation and fan interest.

Baseball is the third-most popular sport, especially at the youth level. Surviving enthusiasts in Hilo, and in the ANZC, helped re-establish the sport at a very modest level in the 1990s. The expected battle with cricket never came about, as Australia's cricket association never followed in the footsteps of rugby union (as expected), and ceded the islands to Australia's fledgling baseball governing body.

One sport popular in pre-Doomsday America and Oceania - golf - has survived to the present day. Primarily played by amateurs (including businessmen and senior citizens), Hawaii supports a few local amateur tournaments. The Oceanic Professional Golfers Association (OPGA) Tour sponsors a tournament held at the Hualalai course in Kaʻūpūlehu, on the Big Island.

See also[]

Advertisement