Ratu Joni Madraiwiwi Quotes
Not five generations distant, Fijians were cannibalizing each other. The missionaries and the colonial administration imposed a veneer of civilization on their native subjects. However, it is not apparent that they imparted to them any profound understanding of the process involved in the maintenance and upholding of the law.
Ratu Joni Madraiwiwi, Vice-President of Fiji,, Siwati Memorial Lecture, Honiara, Solomon Islands, September 24, 2004
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Hobson, like Mark Twain in America, was a major critic of imperialism.
First Published American Indian Author
This is a very important quotation because it reflects the attitude of many of the leading American expansionists and imperialists of the period—ie that American imperialism would uplift peoples around the world. This was an extension of the religious motive of many of the British imperialists who referred to the “3 Cs”: Commerce, Civilization & Christianity. Seelye himself was a missionary of the Protestant Dutch Reformed Church.
Of all the Western Colonial Powers, Spain was the worst. They took the most from their possessions and contributed the least. Worst, they killed off almost all the indigenous people.
He had concluded that Spain, who then ruled the Philippines, was incompetent, cruel and immoral in its rule, but that the Filipinos were not educated or sophisticated enough to rule themselves. However, he felt that he had to protect our commercial interests in the islands and the region, and was worried that commercial interests of other countries would take over and control the area. Another reason that this is a very important quotation is that it indicates the anti-Catholic bias in America at the time. Note that the President stated that one objective was to “Christianize” them. However, Spain had been in the islands for over 300 years and most Filipinos were already Roman Catholic. However, Roman Catholics were then a much smaller proportion of the American population and many Protestants didn’t think Catholicism was a legitimate Christian Religion. When the majority of Americans thought of Christianizing other people, they thought of Protestant missionaries much like England. At the time there was very little criticism of the President for the “error” of stating that Filipinos should be Christianized when they were so already Spanish Colonial Policy and Practice was generally terrible and particularly so in the Philippines, See {629450}.
The South had a tradition of lynching even before Reconstructon. Southern Leaders like Jefferson encouraged and justified the heinous practice. In the West there was a good bit of vigilantism justified by the fact that there was no functioning legal system and few law enforcement officers. But Jefferson and many other Southerners, although there was a law enforcement system except in the most rural areas, advocated lynching as a combination of vengeance and other emotions that are hard to identify.
Ratu Joni Madraiwiwi, Lord Madraiwiwi Tangatatonga was a prominent Fijian lawyer, legal scholar, jurist, and politician. He served as Vice-President, and also acting President, of Fiji, and Chief Justice of Nauru.
