Japanese mostly Okinawans, sort oflower- class Japanese - settled on the is-lands; that is to say, there were moreJapanese than natives. There was in-deed room for the Japanese , since theeffect of contact with the West hadbeen the decimation of the native popu-lation by imported diseases.

The Navy is tackling a puzzling taskwith professorial seriousness. It startedout with CIMA( Coordinated Investi-gation of Micronesian Anthropology)and in 1947 sent out thirty- five anthro-pologists. It opened a School of NavalAdministration( SONA) in cooperationwith Stanford University .

The governing fact of the presentexperiment is that Micronesia , likeKorea, is liberated territory. We haverestored Micronesia to the Microne-sians. We drove out the Japanese forcesand then we drove out the Japanese col-onists. It cost us many lives to do so;it costs us many dollars to feed theJapanese colonists whom we sent backto an already overcrowded Japan . Butnow the ground is cleared, and theliberated Micronesians owe us theirliberty. We ask no repayment. Godlike,we have freed these mortals, and now,with complete disinterestedness, we aresetting about to make them- gently,with as little compulsion as possible,simply because it is in our nature- tosome slight degree in our image.

There is a certain danger of vanityinvolved in the undertaking. We mightbe inclined to feel at least like demi-gods. That is the occupational diseaseof earnest administrators in foreignlands. Edward Gibbon , in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire , re-marks that the Romans" graduallyusurped the license of confounding theRoman monarchy with the globe of theearth." Greater restraint is imposedupon us by the circumstances of themodern world, and also by the disci-pline and tradition inculcated in Navy personnel.

The worry we have is concernedwith proselytizing. All civilizations are

persuaded that their manner of life isthe best. We have one way of living.The Micronesians have another. Ines-capably we are bound to share what wemost cherish; inevitably this generositydestroys before it builds. Sometimes thephase of building never comes- thereis nothing left to build upon.

The Navy 's anthropologists knowthat Micronesian civilization is built incommunal life. This does not lead tostrong personal individuality; it doesnot permit a competitive individualis-tic society; it abhors romantic love.The contrast between the Micronesianperspective and our own is as great asthat between the Communists ' andours. It is deeper, because the islanders'is not a rigid doctrine recently imposed,but is rooted in the half- rememberedmysteries of remote ages.

The Navy will teach the ABC's andimagine that it is only teaching Eng-lish; the Navy will give jobs to peopleregardless of clan or caste, instruct peo-ple in the techniques of trade andplumbing; it will try to teach Micro-nesians how to vote- as if they weremere Germans . And all the Navy doeswill be beneficent, thoughtful, andunavoidable in the eyes of the Navy ,and in our own. What the Navy will domust be done but mainly becauseafter western civilization discoveredthe islands, it became forever impos-sible for the West to leave them alone.The Navy imagines that it is in Micro­ nesia for strategic reasons only. It isthere because big civilizations cannotleave little ones alone.

-G. P.

левы

Robert Shore