This Other Eden by Paul Harding is a historical fiction novel set in Malaga Island between the 17th and 20th centuries. Malaga is a coastal island to the South of Mane, which was once a racially diverse fishing community from 1792 until 1912 when the government authorities from the mainland evicted the residents forcefully. Paul Harding’s main points in the novel include bigotry and the immoral theory of racial improvement.
In 1792, a Black man, Benjamin, and his Irish wife, Patience, started living in Malaga Island. Many years later, Benjamin's descendants formed a racially diverse fishing community. However, the arrival of white missionaries like Mathew on the island brought turbulence and disorganization. Mathew did not like Black people, and he treated them with disdain. The other missionaries who came to the island to convert locals to Christianity used that as an opportunity to colonize the locals and mistreat them. The dominant white government on the mainland neglected the inhabitants of Malaga Island because they were people of color. As a result, the inhabitants of the island were lonesome, dreadfully poor, and illiterate.
Paul Harding’s other important theme in the novel is the immoral theory of racial improvement. When Mathew and the government authorities from the mainland conducted a study on the behavioral patterns of the residents of Malaga, they decided to improve their breed. The government used eugenics thinking as a reason to evict the people from Malaga with a promise of institutionalizing them on the mainland. However, the government never fulfilled its promises.
In conclusion, Paul Harding shows readers how racism and flawed thinking are used to marginalize people of color in the 20th century. The immoral theory of racial improvement is white supremacy's flawed approach of colonizing people to subscribe to a particular ideology.
