Leonard Fong Roka
When the sun rises in the east, every citizen is thinking
about what the day has in store for him or her. And what do you think the day
has for him or her PNG? Every day life is a search and clash for all citizens
in PNG.
Across the land and seas of this beautiful country, there is
the scurrying, rollicking and blustering wind of inequity and inequality that
is widening the social, economic and political gap amongst the populace in
every village. So, all in the house of piercing commotion of the periphery,
look to the seats of political setups in desolated portions of the country’s
core as the sole sources of livelihood.
Thus every man, woman and child rummage the country looking
for green pastures leaving their backyards to dereliction. In their new land
they become the dirt and cruelty to the indigenous fellow citizens there; they
are the injustice and exploitation, in the name of that freedom granted upon
them by the strange Eurocentric state belief Melanesians were not with, before
colonization.
That canoe, PNG, has paddled idly and ignorantly through the
tempestuous sea of globalism too far; the shore is far, and the horizon is far.
Thus, let her reach out to both sides of her journey to help her keep afloat
and move with the current below that is heading away from the shores.
Since time immemorial in PNG there were independent tribes,
clans and family networks. These establishments were sovereign; they had
territorial integrity, they had laws, they pursued trade and diplomatic
relations. There was order and those orders were sacred to the man and
beneficial to the land. Thus harmony and survival were sustained within the
territory.
The key for survival was respect and enrichment of
inter-clan or tribal relationships.
But the tide of modernization has disrupted the
epistemological world of PNG. The barter system of trade is no more; a marriage
for peace is no more; a feast for land dispute settlements is no more; a pig as
a token of appreciation is no more; grandpa-children storytelling is no more,
since all now needs money to give service to a fellow PNGeans.
As a state PNG was founded on sand and without a clearly
defined political roadmap; most state strategies are created from foreign
advice or guidelines that does not reflect any PNG relevance or reality. Therefore,
in PNG every new government equals new policies that kill the former into
oblivion and finally, fate.
In doing so, the state creates its own enemies; the very people
that mandate it to power turn against it with dissatisfaction, then they run
back to the old Melanesian institutions as boundaries to disrupt modernization
and cause injustice on their own people and country.
Citizens harming citizens and country in PNG clearly show
the broader confusion of people who are surprised by the clash of their
not-lost Melanesian imprints and the Eurocentric modernization with its
enforced ideologies and institutions.
PNG is country that cheats itself with all the imported
ideologies of politics, economics and society despite the fact that such
institutional norms clash with Melanesian realities. But the elite PNG minority
benefit thus PNG had to be tethered for them.
Intellectually PNG was not prepared to be a country in the
Eurocentric world order; and its celebrated founders, were Melanesians engulfed
by the sweetness of turning PNG into a state in the western world concepts.
Thus they were blinded to see the massive tasks of dragging with them tribes of
conflicting dreams in that canoe they built in 1975.
In so far, development in PNG has become the exploitation of
PNG by its own arrogant and selfish elite! Massive foreign own investment
energize corruption; and the social, political and economic breakdown for the
majority of the citizens whilst the few elites bag the wealth of the country
from their urban safe havens.
This leads to the citizens seeing peaceful and harmonious
life in the struggling urban communities of PNG and with their Melanesian ways;
they are sucked into the cities and towns, causing more harm to the ecology of
societies and the state system.
A peaceful PNG shall be reached with the calm and open
amalgamation of the Melanesian Way and the introduced Eurocentric norms that a
now part of the global system. Both realms must be engaged for a mutually
acceptable and respectful manner for the betterment of PNG to run parallel to
globalization.
In the pre-contact Melanesian world, territorial integrity
was the fundamental norm; no one came into a territory (land, river or sea) without
any advance notice. For example, for land use for garden purposes, the
intending user gave notice to the owner and uses the land temporarily.
After usage, like garden harvesting, a gesture of thanks
like a bundle of a first ripe banana and some meat then was given to the
landowner first, and then the user continues harvesting for self. This was
respect within the society and people.
But in modern PNG, the few elite law makers laugh the old
ways as barbaric! But in reality, there is good for the modern PNG canoe.
PNG today, need to revisit all provinces and re-draw all
colonial boundaries. This time it has to isolate every single tribe or clan
networks and their territory under the dictates of all myths and oral histories
in existence; then search for the related neighbor (s) and group these into
districts (if too small) or provinces.
Waigani should be the umbrella government keeping the states
overseeing mostly international obligations and defense of the PNG canoe.
This done, the next move is to class all related provinces
into federal state governments with the highest forms of autonomy endowed with
controlled freedom of movement and all other powers and functions. That is all
these states must have in place strong vagrancy laws right from the provincial
level of government.
Today, the PNG canoe needs a little pain to create long term
happiness for the country.
And for the PNG canoe, the states are all obvious. They are
the Papua, Highlands, Momase and Islands. However, the present need some re-structuring
since there are loopholes, example, the Siasi islanders are culturally more
aligned to West New Britain then Morobe thus they had to be returned.
With this the old Melanesian rule of territorial integrity
is back and people are safe within and respected from outside because the state
government is bold with the autonomous powers and functions.
After this, the next
step is to adopt the most realistic models of Eurocentric development for each
state according to the needs of the people within and not the entire PNG canoe.
As seen from a Google PDF article entitled, Six Development Models, the Human
Capital Theory that states that ‘improving human capital (education, health,
fertility rates) is necessary pre-requisites for economic growth’ in
collaboration with the Welfare Concept of Development that says that ‘true
development does not consist in increasing the amount of consumer goods but to
provide for everyone’s needs for good health care and education and protection
from crime’ is the best approach and strategy for all states of PNG.
And these two models are the bases for sustainable
development where there is harmony between the man and the resources for the
long term benefit of all present and future generations of citizens.
This is tangible with the little income PNG is and will be
generating in/with the mining and petroleum and gas boom currently underway;
supplemented by cash crops from the local citizens and nationalization of all
firms buying cash crops that rob farmers.
Such a step increases local incomes for villages and
increases their buying power thus leading them to progressive drive for
positive change. This individual change spreads from the tribe to the province
then onto the state.
In doing so, we uphold the old Melanesian concept of
utilizing whatever resources available to us for our survival. And when there
is a lack in the district, we forge trade relations with the next district; if
there is still scarcity, the province come into action by trading with another
province within the state; and if one state cannot, then we go to another state.
This strengthens the domestic economy of the PNG canoe that
has long being lied to and robbed by the parasitic concept of ‘no man is an
island’ that is suitable for the First World and a few stable countries who
have healthy and sound foundations for their countries.
Here PNG’s four states should meet all the needs and wants
of their citizens. If they grow peanuts let them process tinned peanuts; if
they have cocoa, let them produce cocoa powder for the PNG Highlands state; if
they grow coffee let them manufacture coffee for the island, Papua or Momase
states.
Where one resource, example timber, is equally distributed
across PNG, let the central government distribute product items that a state
must work on so that the flow of the domestic market and trade is not
disrupted. Having in mind the need for export earnings as well where surplus is
attained in production.
Waigani should always be proactive in managing the four
states for it is the strength of the four states that strengthens it politically,
socially and economically.
All states should have own education systems, too, to create
citizens that know the strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats of their respective
states. Each state must have own tertiary institutions with laws that have its
citizens to graduate and serve his or her own district or province for a period
of time then decide seek employment in another province, state or overseas.
Citizens need to know their states well so as to be good
decision makers in their respective state governments and society. Such could
have each state knowing which state to look to when need arises before looking
overseas.
With such we hold the will to defend our own territories or
states as our progenitors did for their territories in the dream times.
In summary the re-creation of the PNG canoe with a safe and
empowered tribal and clan systems; we hope for a stable provincial governments
that bind together to form powerful federal state systems for a harmonious and
peaceful PNG where equity and equality should rule.
All four PNG states
ought to be autonomous in their social, economic and political decision making
for the good of their citizens; this creates free and satisfied PNG citizens
who care for each other, their province, their state and their PNG at large.
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