Quiet American HELP

[MICKAELMORE]

Hey guys, appreciate the help.
I don't really understand the meaning of this quote from the book quiet american:
"Isms and ocracies. Give me facts. A rubber planter beats his labourer - all right. I'm against him...I've seen a priest so poor he hasn't a change of trousers, working fifteen hours a day from hut to hut in a cholera epidemic, eating nothing but rice and salt fish, saying his Mass with an old cup - a wooden platter. I don't believe in God and yet I'm for that priest. Why don't you call that colonialism?"


Thanks

[99.90 pls]

Hey guys, appreciate the help.
I don't really understand the meaning of this quote from the book quiet american:
"Isms and ocracies. Give me facts. A rubber planter beats his labourer - all right. I'm against him...I've seen a priest so poor he hasn't a change of trousers, working fifteen hours a day from hut to hut in a cholera epidemic, eating nothing but rice and salt fish, saying his Mass with an old cup - a wooden platter. I don't believe in God and yet I'm for that priest. Why don't you call that colonialism?"

Thanks

I'm not studying the text, so take my advice with a grain of salt. But Fowler is essentially saying that at the end of the day, arguing about ideologies  ("isms and ocracies") and religions is pointless. He measures a system's success by its ability to reach the endgame of most (if not all) ideologies - to improve people's quality of lives. If a system cannot achieve that, then he holds no respect for it regardless of how noble it may seem. (i.e. "colonialism)

The whole passage can be encapsulated in "I don't believe in God and yet I'm for that priest"; irrespective of ideology, a humanitarian philosophy, whereby human life is valued above all, is what will ultimately drive his thoughts and actions. Now link this in with his betrayal of Pyle, and you can perhaps start to piece together your own perspective on whether the betrayal was justified and/or honourable.