Left on Paradise (35 page)

“I agree,” Dr. Morales said, “the island’s close enough for the launch and I hope to petition the Executive Council for permission to take a look at these people with some of the professional staff—and send supplies. Once everything checks out, I’d like to initiate some visits. All of you should have the opportunity to observe the atoll. There’s nothing like it on earth”—he looked at Charles and Joan—“and with your permission, I’d like to take Heather on one of the first trips. Before anything changes. It’d be the internship of a lifetime.”

Heather seemed eager, so her parents gave their approval (though insisting she was old enough to make her own choices). When Charles updated Dr. Morales on recent crimes (both rape and arson), the anthropologist didn’t comment, but just asked when Executive Council was scheduled to meet. He was excited to learn a session was scheduled for the coming Monday, less than two days away. Dr. Morales departed for New Plymouth before breakfast, leaving behind only the steel gunner’s helmet—which Viet stored in his tent.

27

Sharing the Wealth of Nations

Deidra sat beside Dr. Morales and Karla (who had been reappointed to her post by the east village) at Executive Council. Across the table sat Cynthia Fallows representing New Plymouth and two middle-aged men representing the north and south villages. Before the meeting commenced, Dr. Morales spoke informally about his voyage during a lunch of fish and fruit. Only after the meal was completed did Deidra administer the oath to begin the session. Now the anthropologist presented his findings to those who were properly constituted public authorities: briefing that his discovery could change not only the State of Paradise, but the very manner of political and cultural interaction practiced throughout the world.

“What I suggest,” Dr. Morales said, “is a delegation that meets the needs of scholarship and the native peoples rather than the interests of our own state. I’ll return to the natives with a few of our people—a type of diplomatic entourage. We can take the motorized launch since it’s seaworthy in calm water and we can stock provisions in the empty seats. I calculate we can load maybe four hundred pounds of goods as long as our human cargo isn’t too bulky. I’m slight of frame and Deidra is medium sized. We can take a large man and another woman without any real danger. Four of us should suffice.”

“What kind of supplies?” Karla asked.

“Fish, coconuts, breadfruit, mangos, salt.”

“Why not send tins of rice and jars of jelly?” another delegate suggested, a middle-aged southerner (with gray-streaked hair and an untrimmed beard) who spoke with a heavy Boston accent. “They’d be a treat and we have plenty of both.”

“The humanitarian,” Dr. Morales said, “in me wants to give them help, as well as to send a doctor with a vaccination kit. But the anthropologist says let the native culture live out its own drama. Only the author should rewrite the script.”

“God?” the southerner asked.

“No,” the anthropologist replied. “God is also part of the script: the mythical introduction.”

“Then who is this author you speak of?” the southerner asked with a quizzical look.

“Nature. History. Culture.”

“I don’t know about that,” Deidra said, “but I agree we should only send more of what they have. We’ll increase the quantity of their supplies without changing the structure of their daily life or the economic underpinnings of their social organization.”

“I served ten years,” the southerner said, “in the Peace Corps to Ethiopia and I can tell you that hashing out more of the same isn’t enough. We can feed these people all the flour paste in the world, but they need to be taught self-sufficiency.”

Dr. Morales raised a hand to speak. “At the price of their cultural integrity?”

“At the price of ending the malnutrition you’ve described.”

“Man does not live by bread alone,” Dr. Morales said.

“Well, he doesn’t live long without it.”

“He can eat breadfruit.”

“Or cake, some say.”

Dr. Morales smiled at the riposte.

“To the point,” the southerner continued, “every one of us would wish the same for ourselves.”

“There’s no need to bring religion into the discussion.”

“Not religion, but ethics.”

“You paraphrased Jesus.”

“And?”

“And do unto others is at the core of Christian belief.”

“Sorry.”

“What if we hadn’t known any better?” Deidra asked. “Technology may work miracles, but it kills nature. Were my people better for having used the white man’s tools and eating his food? A whole continent was stolen from us in the name of progress.”

“So ignorance is bliss?”

“It’s better,” Deidra said, “than the knowledge of supposedly good white people and their social evils.”

“No one’s going to steal the little atoll of the aborigines,” the southerner said. “This time the white man pays the bills.”

Dr. Morales cleared his throat.

“We may not,” the scholar said, “steal their land, but we could steal their essence. First we’ll give them training and technology, then we’ll conclude that the atoll can’t feed them, and finally we’ll end up transferring them to our island: a trail of tears drowning out the lives willed to them by their own fathers.”

Deidra started to raise her hand.

“And mothers,” Dr. Morales immediately added.

Deidra nodded.

“From your description,” the southerner remained uncowed, “the only reason they didn’t beat us to this island was their fear of water and inability to navigate the seas.”

“And?”

“We’ll help them to correct a weakness.”

“You’re assuming,” Dr. Morales said, “aquaphobia is a weakness, as if swimming were a universal norm.”

“Even cats swim when they have to.”

“But don’t you see?” Dr. Morales said. “A culture consists of all sorts of characteristics: fear and courage, right and wrong, nature and spirit. Anything we change destroys what they themselves have become.”

“Surely,” the southerner said, “you’re not arguing that means of production never change and that human communities should remain as static as Buddhist monasteries? Or as eternal as the Christian God? Can’t a few improvements be made?”

“Yes,” Dr. Morales said, “but change must flow from the inside as indigenous peoples live out the logic and limitations of their chosen existence. No imperialism can be tolerated, no matter how well-intentioned or selfless.”

“I agree,” the southerner said, “and that’s why we didn’t try to make the Ethiopians into Americans or franchise fast food in refugee camps. We simply used our technology to permit the survival of local culture when the ravages of man and nature might have dictated otherwise.”

Dr. Morales said nothing.

“What do you propose?” Deidra said as she fixed her eyes on the southerner.

“To insure their survival.”

“That’s what the Seventh Cavalry said when Custer ordered the Sioux to reservations.”

“Let me say something,” Karla now joined the conversation. “We ourselves fled Western capitalism and industrialism and I suppose there’s not a person on this island who wishes to expose traditional peoples to their corrupting influence.”

Everyone nodded.

“And what’s been said today makes sense on both sides. Agreed?”

Everyone nodded again.

“We have to send food,” Karla continued, “since hunger doesn’t enhance the survival of any way of life and Dr. Morales has clearly described a level of malnutrition that can curtail fertility and cause starvation. Right?”

For the third time every head nodded.

“We also agree,” Karla said, “that we ought to send only foods the natives are accustomed to eating, though in larger quantities and with a nutritional balance that Cynthia and Dr. Graves can recommend. After all, even the Red Cross doesn’t send beef to India or pork to Somalia.”

“Making them wards of our state is no solution,” the southerner objected. “We might as well set up a Bureau of Indian Affairs—and then build bingo parlors and gaming casinos.”

Deidra answered with a forced smile and a sharp voice. “You’ve never been the governor of Wisconsin, have you?”

“I’m not Tommy Thompson and I’m more interested in working for their welfare than working them off welfare.”

Everyone laughed.

“Just as the study of anthropology,” the southern delegate said with a sober tone, “has rules like non-interference, so too the improvement of humanity has its codes. One of our first lessons is to teach people to help themselves. As we all know, it was foolish to hope the American government would or could sponsor humanitarian efforts indefinitely. Look at what happened to the Peace Corps under Reagan and Bush; just imagine how little Dubya will do for poverty and disease in the Third World. I doubt he can name five countries in sub-Sahara Africa, let alone the diseases that afflict them.”

“Hear! Hear!” another man said.

“What these people need are tools to make their work more productive. They fish, so we give them nets and line. They burn wood, so why not give them axes? And since they already dig holes, what harm would a few shovels do?”

“No Westernization?” Dr. Morales asked. “No vaccinations? No literacy?”

“Only a few tools,” the southerner said as he shook his head, “and a lesson on how to use them. I’ve seen it make a difference.”

Dr. Morales solicited additional feedback from the Executive Council before requesting a vote in which Deidra’s literal interpretation of multi-culturalism was rejected four votes to one. A second vote was taken which required the natives to be treated as equals and encouraged to trade for their supplies rather than be given handouts—even if the aborigines could offer little more than island visitation rights.

Afterwards, both Deidra and Karla volunteered to accompany Dr. Morales on a journey scheduled for the coming Saturday. Karla promised to find a man from her village to fill the open slot (it being decided that a man was required to balance out the gender ratio) since no one else from the Executive Council wished to travel. It also was decided all five villages should be levied a charitable contribution to the natives. The east village volunteered five crates of citrus fruit and the northern delegate promised a hundred coconuts. The base camp offered ten pounds of sea salt and the south neighborhood was assessed one hundred breadfruit—as well as enough banana leaves to line a storage pit. Deidra volunteered two hundred dried fish from the west. When applauded for her generosity, even she admitted that it felt better to be generous than culturally pure.

Dr. Morales left shortly after voluntary contributions were levied and the Executive Council had commended his efforts. Next, the council discussed the inventory of material possession—with Karla tabulating results and filling in the account books. The northern delegate, a tall man with a shoulder-length ponytail and a ragged beard, spoke first.

“We’re out of everything,” the northerner said. “Most of us are on our last set of decent clothes and some are wearing rags. Our food supply is low—down to a week’s provisions after today’s tax—and our disposable goods are completely gone. We’re rationing everything. The only provisions we have left are our condom supply, five pounds of grass, and a marijuana field that could be harvested early in the event of shortages. And we have a few razors left.”

“It says here you have wood for six months,” Karla noted.

“Wood grows on trees,” the northerner said, “and we have plenty. Who doesn’t? In fact, one of our people cut down a whole forest. I have no problem with a good buzz to make you whistle while you work, but we found out dope doesn’t mix well with saws. We lost thirty fruit trees that week.”

No one laughed.

”We’re low,” the southern delegate with a Boston accent spoke, “on wood and marijuana, but we have extra clothing since we’ve been wearing grass skirts for several weeks. We made them mandatory as a rationing measure.”

A couple delegates nodded.

“We’ve traded most of our razors,” the southerner continued, “except for a few allotted to our women for their legs. Our barber uses a straight razor on men’s faces. We can continue our routine another year or so.”

“That’s good planning,” Karla said.

“We’ve run a planned economy from the first day. Not one scrap can be used without permission. As a result, we’ve built a reserve.”

“But,” the northerner said, “your inventory says you’re living in tents.”

“That’s right,” the southerner said, “our rule has been two-thirds vote for any construction or planting since none of us wanted to risk overcrowding. Mostly we’ve chosen a nomadic life and our agriculture has been concentrated on nurturing the fruits of nature rather than creating old-fashioned farms—capitalist or collective alike.”

“Where will you stay during rainy season?” Karla asked, her expression both surprised and concerned.

“We’ll seek high ground,” the southerner said. “In fact, we’ve already begun to move provisions uphill. We break camp every week to accustom ourselves to life on the move. It’s actually rather interesting.”

“And you’ve enough food always picking without planting?”

“We store breadfruit and coconuts.”

“You sound like Sioux,” Deidra observed. “I prefer the Navajo way of life.”

“Back to the topic,” Karla said. “Inventory.”

Everyone turned to the eastern woman.

“East neighborhood,” Karla said, “has built up a three month supply of food, with some delicacies, and has completed a major housing program. We also retain most of our original tools—having broken only a single ax. Our alcohol comes to twenty bottles of hard liquor and we have a six-month marijuana reserve.”

“That’s impressive,” the ponytailed northerner said.

Deidra asked what more the east village needed.

“Well,” Karla answered, “we’re out of razors and we’ve been reduced to using flint and clam shells to shave. And we need the usual disposables: toilet paper, tampons, laundry and hygiene supplies.”

“The list says that you have a one-month supply of cleaning items.”