Saved

Saved

‘Saved’ is a poem written by Jon Jonassen. He is a writer born on Rarotonga, Cook Islands in 1949 and he is educated in Cook Islands, New Zealand and Hawaii. The poem is written in plainspoken English and includes a lot of sarcastic language and satire. The plot is about the British and New Zealand colonization of the Cook Islands, and the locals’ perspective on it.

            The poem begins with: “God save the Queen, at last the British have come”. This is a satirical reference to the national anthem of Great Britain and to the establishment of Rarotonga, later Cook Islands, as a British protectorate in 1888. The Jack is mentioned and it says it “was flown by Ariki Nui Makea”. It’s probably a play on words, referring to the British flag, which is called the Union Jack. Ariki Nui Makea means the queen of Nui Makea, which was a chiefdom on Rarotonga. That sentence also refers to the fact that a chiefess on Rarotonga encouraged the British to make the island a British protectorate. The reason for this becomes clear in the last sentence of the first paragraph: “in fear of the French”. They were afraid of French expansionism in the area.

            In the second paragraph the satire continues with: “Praise them Kiwi men”. It refers to New Zealand’s annexation of Rarotonga in 1900. The writer also mentions the name change that took place in 1893 to Cook Islands. It is written in a way which implies that the inhabitants of the islands weren’t included in that decision: ”to lump them all together, and call them Cook Islands”. It’s a valid argument since the decision to annex the islands was taken in the New Zealand parliament and not on the Cook Islands. In the last paragraph the writer states his pity for the locals’ position: “sorry for the locals who never had a say”. Thereafter he continues to express how the colonists only used the locals as a bargaining chip.

The poem is an example of post-colonial literature that tries to write back to the center, by putting the feelings and perspective of the locals in the center of the discussion. It tries to explain how the colonization felt for the locals of the Cook Islands. From the locals’ perspective it describes that the colonists made the decisions about their country with total disregard for what they wanted. That is a well-founded argument and I would continue it by claiming that the locals were very much marginalized in their own country. One could argue that the writer agrees by looking at the last sentences, where he sarcastically states that the locals were only “a card on the table, useful when needed”. It is important to point out that this is how the colonist looked at the locals, and probably not how the writer looks at them. On the one hand I doubt that he considers them so passive since that is a typical Eurocentric view. On the other hand it is possible that the writer feels that the locals were helpless to do anything. If that’s the fact it shows how mental colonization works, even after colonialism is over. The belief that one group is considered better and stronger than themselves doesn’t disappear overnight, and could still affect the mindset of the writer.