Steve Haycox is both right and wrong in his Aug. 5 column ("Debate has long focused on Tongass").
I respect Steve Haycox as a fair recorder and interpreter of Alaska history. Thus I was taken aback by his recent column on the Tongass.
I won't argue the environmental protection vs. economic development fault lines that rigidly define so much of natural resource decision-making in Alaska. Lawyers and courts often make the decisions that Alaska's residents are unable to make and we are forced to live with the result and either praise or decry "governmental interference," another Alaska political fault line. Thus, for example, we get Govs. Jay Hammond and Tony Knowles on one side of the line as leaders for a while and then Wally Hickel and Sarah Palin on the other.
The pendulum swings and most Alaskans can only hang on for dear life.
So it is with Sealaska Corp.'s effort to change its land selections to better reflect current reality in public and economic policy. Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Mark Begich and Congressman Don Young also see potential benefits for both the environment and Alaska's equally fragile economy, and try to create public policy that balances competing interests. It is not surprising that they are lambasted from all sides. Their courage to tread these Alaska fault lines gives one a sense of hope for the future.
The Sealaska land legislation is very different now than originally introduced several years ago. It will be different tomorrow as various interests intervene. If and when it passes, it will be different from tomorrow's version. That is the way of controversial legislation. Sealaska may get a bill that will require it to prove to a watching world that it was right after all. It may get a bill so different and bastardized that no one can make it work. It may revert to its current withdrawal areas and try to make them work despite what it knows of environmental passions and economic reality. The Alaska world will continue to turn. But it will be different.
Whatever happens with Sealaska Corp. and this legislation, it will go about its corporate business -- either better off or worse. But many of its shareholders, all Alaska Native people, will pause once again and wonder about their future in Alaska.
Regardless of Mr. Haycox's blithely made statement that accusations of racism have no place in this debate (in my heart of hearts I agree with him), the fact is they have been made -- with passion and belief. Alaska's long and sorrowful history of treatment of its Native peoples and to some degree their consequent place in Alaska society make such accusations a reality for far too many.
Yes, another fault line in Alaska is between Alaska's Native peoples and its government, economy and society. It is being addressed by many people in a good many ways but it is there nonetheless, deep and profound. For too many it is something to be ignored or blown off with easy words like "get over it." How it is "gotten over" will truly determine the kind of Alaska we leave to our children and grandchildren.
Future historians will be able to judge how we bridge the gaps between the needs of the people who were first here and the people who are here now. In a place of transcendent beauty, the preservation of environmental crown jewels must accompany the pursuit of equitable economic prosperity.
Despite the heart-rending beginning to Alaska's birth as a territory and then a state, we hold in our hands the opportunity to make it a place that every man, woman and child of humanity seeks.
Mr. Haycox would have us avert our eyes from our collective history as we chase this dream. We should instead stare into our past, learn from it, understand how it affects our present, acknowledge the gaps in the health of our communities, and then find common ground. That's the promise of Alaska.
Mr. Haycox should hold up a historical mirror to our avoiding eyes and help make us better.
Byron Mallott is a current director and former CEO of Sealaska Corp., former executive director of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corp. and a board member of First Alaskans Institute.
By BYRON MALLOTT