Thoughts of Leonard Fong Roka
Be a Bougainvillean inside-out if you really want history to know you were a Bougainvillean.
Here I am referring to the ideological side of life: politics, economics and social aspects of daily living in Bougainville.
Bougainville and the rest of Melanesia were socialist nations ever since time immemorial. But the dawn of European colonization of our world turn all things to barbaric acts of self-hatred. A Melanesian today dislikes himself and his past tranquillity despite the fact that he carries with him imprints of Melanesian designing in his psyche. This is awful insanity!
...carries with him imprints of Melanesian designing...
I claim that our systems of social existence as social or socialist because, the Melanesian philosophy of life was centred on the ‘relationship one had with the next person’. The harmonious co-existence or maintenance of peaceful and mutually beneficial relations was significant.
In our modernized global village, many of our poor developing countries in the Pacific vow to Eurocentric dictates as the way to survival of our governments. One thing to note here is that we have being designed to hate ourselves by westernization. The dependency syndrome!
One proverb that touches so much is from the Dalai Lama: ‘Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values’. In all aspects of national survival, every person or state has the right to design its own destiny and not to subsume into western ideologies that are unrealistic to Melanesian application.
In the book, Bougainville Nationalism, Mamak and Bedford (1974:44) wrote:
‘The reason why we are confused is because we have no identity. Ever since the white man came he has failed us up. We have lost all our sense of values. We have no proper goals. We follow the white man’s ways blindly, we imitate him readily, and yearn for his goal—money—because whiteness is a sickness and it has poisoned our minds.
Before white man came we had an ideology which was socialist. Today we are asking in what way the government can help the people. This is why I hate the white man. He did not bother to use our traditional values to help us develop. As a result we don’t know where to turn…He has led me to believe that I lack an ideology and the ability to stand up today and say to myself, ‘Yes, this is the type of government I want, this is the economic system I want; and this is the social system I want.’
To these heart breaking paragraphs, I turn to ask: As a Bougainvillean, who am I? Why am I a Bougainvillean? Is it Because of colonialism?
In our bipolar world today, where we have the peacefully rising China and the rapacious hegemonic West, a Pacific developing state has the room open for a paradigm shift in its politics to identify a system that best serves the national interest. The developing China is an opportunity that a state can look to for help after ridding itself from domestic political fluid which is one problem area in the Pacific islands community.
I say this, because China is a state rising with a foundation firmly based on ancient traditional Chinese philosophy of Confucianism and adopted a walking stick that is the European liberalism in a sea of capitalism dominated globe.
To sum up, for us to solve the Bougainville conflict and built a better Bougainville where our children will enjoy and be proud of, is to look back to our past. The values of harmonious co-existence amongst individuals, clans and so on are vital to develop a regional political, economic and social governing system and laws for Bougainville.
In my dreams, I see that change in Bougainville is easy to gain with a leadership that has will power to sacrifice for the common good of Bougainville. It is this leadership that must firstly; eradicate the curse of stubbornness and self-preservation that had polluted the Bougainville conscience.
