Editor,

Siosaia Mila should have checked his facts before writing his self-righteous, misquotes, illogical arguments, and stereotyping letter (Stop beating your loved one, 07 June, 2009).

First, I did not call the Police Commander a liar. If Mr. Mila wants to participate in civil public discourse, he must first be an honest writer, and debater: One must use exact quotes to avoid personal attacks on fellow debaters, to discredit them in order to make a point.

If Mr. Mila could honestly show where I called the Commander a liar, whereas I disagreed with the Police Commander's "tip of the iceberg" statement, and wrote he was "wrong," not "lying" we would have not resorted of "tau lau" in public. This is totally dishonest of Mr. Mila to paraphrase and mischaracterized my quotation. Otherwise, he should have used direct quotes.

Secondly, Mr. Mila should have provided facts, supportive data, statistics, and studies that showed that a "dark secret that has been hidden in the Tongan domestic life." Mr. Mila may be from Mars if he was not aware that American courts are overflowed with domestic violence cases, abuse and murders of women their corpses discarded along highways and in rivers.

And thirdly, to stereotype all Tongan societies with a "dark secret that has been hidden in the Tongan domestic life" is socially irresponsible, intellectually dishonest, and lack of valuable contribution to find a solution to the problem. In fact, Mr. Mila may be a participant in adding fuel to the fire.

To participate in a debate on complex social problems such as domestic violence, abuse of women and children, and even murdering of women, one must critically survey the issues as well as one's own biases before writing or speaking. Tongan-Americans also find it easy to lecture Tongans back home presumptuously based on arrogant biases, and Mr. Mila seems to be engaging in it.

To be cute and make jokes, "Domestic violence should have been abolished and loaded on the ship that Suteni and Lemea used in their discovery of Tonga 6 centuries ago," is irresponsible. This is not a laughing matter. Domestic violence was never institutionalized in Tonga, but it is an ugly social ill found in all cultures and societies.

Mr. Mila's solution, "Whosoever still practice the domestic violence should be put back in time," suggesting sending them back six centuries is also an irresponsible remark. What proof does Mr. Mila have that loading them onto fourteenth-century ships will "abolish" all domestic violence problems in Tonga, or even in America?

In my view, as Tonga makes the transition from "communal" society to a "democratic" society, I propose that the "kainga" no longer have paternalistic leadership power over the individual members of their extended families. Individualism has displaced the communal security of a close-nit family in order to adapt in a materialistic, democratic society.

Perpetrators of women abuse are to be held accountable for their own actions. This is not a Tongan societal problem. In old Tonga, the brothers or uncles of the abused women would descend on women abusers and beat the crap out of them, and may have even killed them in the process.

But in a modern "democratic" society, we provide professional help, and then prosecute them under the law of the country as a deterrence mechanism. Unfortunately, we may have to see some of the guilty murderers hung before Tongan abusive men get the message.

Sione A. Mokofisi