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?

PNGeans are indoctrinated by the law as wind-socks that are blown here-and-there by irresponsible and visionless politicians.

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 is intact in the hearts and minds of Papua New Guineans (exclude Bougainville where it is manageable) and that the law of this country has no power to solve conflicts once and for all! 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 that manipulate the state mechanism for profit and extraction of raw resources to feed their home-based industrial complex. 

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).

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 Asia to the Pacific; and the natural resource pot of the Pacific, thus no economic progress is seen in the country. But foolishly, people pride the LNG driven building boom in Port Moresby and the many resource extraction industries around the country within looking under the skin of this nice investments.

Being a natural bridge from Asia to the Pacific, I fear that politicians in PNG had long being thinking about the literal side of the story by considering the geography. In fact, they are a bridge between Asia and the West in the Oceania front. Why I claim this is because the Pacific is American. Speaking in 1900, American Senator A. B. Beveridge said:

‘The Pacific is our ocean…And Pacific is the ocean of commerce of the future. Most future wars will be conflicts for commerce. The power that rules the Pacific, therefore, is the power that rules the world. And… that power is and will forever be the American republic’.

In this circumstance, PNG is caught up in two worlds. In the blog, East Asia Forum, an article recently featured US secretary of state, Mrs Hillary Clinton saying that China was eating American lunch in the Papua New Guinea LNG project. This exposure of PNG has a land of war-on-resources is a serious issue with negative repercussions for the future. PNG is not prepared politically to deal with these concerns with its current political trends.

PNG needs a strong and fearless government to pursue national interest. It does not need a government that worships traditions and traditional partners. It needs a government to rid off corruption and drive equality and justice. Beside, a leadership is needed that shall bolster nationalism in this multi-ethnic society that today, absolute lacks a united patriotism that can be observed growing in Bougainville in the social networks, example, in Face Book.

As future Bougainvilleans, we need to learn from the day-to-day running of Papua New Guinea, if we are to design a democracy that will be for the people, by the people and of the people.