Lost paradise
Sir: In his sadly touchy and ignorant review of Father Caraman's book The Lost Paradise (the author is even referred to as Mr Caraman throughout — surely he could have looked him up?) Mr Naipaul condemns the Jesuits in • Paraguay for acting on the assumption that the Indians in the Jesuit Reductions were basically stupid and had consecitlentlY to be kept in statu puPillari under a paternalistic government, Father Carat/Ian, in fact, is at pains to Point out that the Indians governed themselves: they elected their own rulers who were confirmed in office by SPanish crown; their administration 'ollovved the regulations laid down in the Laws of the Indies, which, among Other things, excluded non-Indians from the Indian towns. After the expulsion of the Jesuits, the Spanish authorities strove to maintain life in the Reductions as It had been under the Jesuits, but
failed because they did not win the confidence of the Indians. It was the triumph of the Jesuits, as both Father Caraman and Cunningham Graham point out, that they achieved so much in spite of the natural indolence of the Indians, which remains today the chief obstacle to economic progress in so many South American states. As for the stupidity of the Indians, this is superbly illustrated in Chapter 13, 'The Guarani War,' in Father Caraman's book. To crown all, the "dissenting voice" to such stupidity, of whom Mr Naipaul clearly approves, belongs to Muratori, who never visited South America at all, let alone Paraguay. Presumably Mr Naipaul is unaware of this.
On a much wider question of praise or criticism of different ethnic groups as such, why should it be permissible to state, for example, that the Jews are as a race decidedly musical (which is surely true), but not that they have as a race peculiarly unattractive qualities (also true)? Or, equally, that the Indians in Paraguay are brilliantly good mimics, but not that they are indolent or stupid? What painful hypocrisy! Is this Hitler's fault, or Mr Mark Bonham-Carter's?
Robert Lindley 9 Paultons Square, London SW3
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