Papua New Guinea is caught in between

By Leonard Fong Roka

The Papua New Guinea government and its citizens, blindly today, boast of what a great nation they are, with a so diverse cultures united in the ‘green and gold’ flag. Across the country’s schools students chorus the National Pledge: ‘We the people of Papua New Guinea, pledge ourselves united in one nation. We pay homage to our cultural heritage, the source of our strength. We pledge to build a democratic society based on justice, equality, respect and prosperity for our people. We pledge to stand together as One People, One Nation, One Country  God bless Papua New Guinea’ day in day out. But, do we know what we are talking about?

On one of Bougainville’s Regional Week’s days, 15 June in 2011 I was caught in the middle of a fight between Arowes and Bulus in Kimbe. They were all equipped with offensive weapons. This was a scene so strange in Bougainville. Before this, I had to walk for hours from Lae’s main market to Tent City because there were no PMV services after the Hagens and Morobeans clashes there. And back in my late father’s desolated island, Bali Island in West New Britain, relatives were asking me for guns because they were in a long conflict since 1992. What does these scenes tells you?

This just reflects how much, the concept of tribalism and distrust within the citizens is intact in the hearts and minds of Papua New Guineans (exclude Bougainville where it is manageable). Culture drives the art of governance, official succession, crime and justice, national interest and foreign policy, foreign investment and landownership and so on.

PNG in this regard, is operating its politics and economics in two systems that are not harmonious to each other. In the book, Bougainville 1988-98, Karl Claston (1998) cited that National politics in PNG ‘has not centred on ideological or policy debates or party divisions, but rather on personal factionalism, regionalism, pork-barrel allocation of funds and squabbles over the spoils of office’.

New Guineans combine the Western art of politics with Melanesian traditions despite the fact that both oppose each other greatly. Melanesian politics is based on land, survival and relationship whilst, the European concept operates on money, contract and the written law. Since, the world is contained by the international law to the liking of the first world; Melanesians suffer by ignorantly forcing their traditional power-play into a determined and dominant capitalist globe.

This weakens the political mechanism and sells off the sovereignty of the state. In this situation, PNG is susceptible to external forces that influence the governmental hierarchy. I should conclude here that, in such a scenario, the parliamentarians are lost between two obvious forces: the people (national interest) and the foreign state and non-state actors.

When this happens, state weakens and the primary proof should come about from economic indicators. So, let me translate what we fear would happen when economic shrinks: ‘Some regional analysts fear that PNG’s economic collapse could lead to interior secession movements, indigenous terrorism, or the use of PNG as a terrorist base…’ (www.nationsencylpedia.com).

 Such a phrase like what late Saddam Hussein was promoting in the 1980s as he nationalized oil companies in Iraq that 'full bellies make no noise' will not be attained with the current inequality gap in PNG.

Signs are already out there for PNG to see and change, but irresponsibility and corruption now rules the fabric of the country that prides itself as the bridge of the Asia and the Pacific; and the natural resource pot of the Pacific.