ONE of the common phrases advocated widely in the contemporary PNG society is ‘attitude change’.
Advocates want people to have a little bit more respect for their fellow countrymen and women in order for all and sundry to co-exist in a harmonious and peaceful environment.
When we talk about attitude change, we talk about respect for the laws of our country, a little less buai spit on the sidewalks or watching where you spit, exercising restraint against doing wrong and greater awareness about where you throw your litter.
And the problems seems to be confined to the male members of our society.
All too often, it is little things that confirm that Papua New Guineans have an attitude problem or simply lack the common sense and the decency to do what is right.
Last night, when travelling home after work, you sight a PMV bus about 200m ahead, parked idly in the lane you’re on.
Common sense told you that it was defective and the driver and bus crew should have pushed it to the curb of the road and parked it there, away from on-coming traffic. Instead, it sat occupying the left lane of the two-lane street. It was evident it stopped where and when it ‘died’.
The more you thought about the crew not having the good sense to put it somewhere safe, the more you thought about whether the people who ran it were sane at all.
With the thoughts came other thoughts bubbling out of your mind about the lack of respect Papua New Guineans have for their fellow countrymen and women.
One of the first thoughts that came to mind was that this could be the same bus and crew that parked in the middle of the road and chatted with like-minded cohorts just before you turned off into the bus stop bay the other day. They carried on their conversation for a full three minutes oblivious of the queue of vehicles and the blaring of horns behind them.
One frustrated motorist stopped a moment beside the bus when it was pulling in to give the driver a piece of his mind – four-letter words audible above the blares of the horns – and before driving away with a hail of returned four-letter words from the driver and his crew.
And all that chatter within earshot of all and sundry, many of them women and children. That perhaps put paid to your curiosity about where children pick up such gross words.
Another thought comes to mind – it could have been the same crew who chased off some primary school students who wanted to board the bus for home the other day. Why, it could be the same bus that ordered your 10-year-old nephew off the bus until you told the crew in no uncertain terms that he was with you and that you would pay for the seat he occupied in full.
Or it could have been the same bus that dropped you off at Malaoro without completing its route to the city business centre down town for an important business meeting.
You wondered if it was not the same bus that allowed two of their wantoks drunk to the eyeballs on the bus still holding beer bottles and drinking from it.
One ended up harassing a young woman passenger who promptly got off at the next stop, even though it was not her destination.
Maybe, it was the same bus that frequently drives over the kerb at the bus terminal in Boroko onto the footpath and scattering passengers, in an attempt get into front of its competitors.
If this was the same bus that resort to the misdemeanors as described above, it certainly had one hell of an attitude problem. But if it happens to be one of many practising these things as if it was second nature, we have a hell of an attitude problem.
A letter from Kumbaeyer in New Ireland province yesterday showed perhaps another facet of this problem: “Recently, while I was in Mt Hagen, I got the shock of my life when I decided to take a stroll from the Highlander Hotel to the main town centre. Using the route from the coffee market lawn heading towards the Family Centre church and court house, I noticed some cars parked on the lawn. But on closer inspection, I noticed used oil, filters and other used vehicle servicing components were scattered on the lawn. I then realised that these people were servicing their vehicles on the lawn. This is not a workshop; it’s a place for people to relax. The place is now polluted as used oil is being drained on the grass. To make matters worse, this place is surrounded by the provincial headquarters, the Kapal Haus, the LLG council chambers and the court house. This is happening under the noses of the bosses and yet the authorities are not doing anything to haul up the culprits …”
Should I rest my case?
No, because Christmas is approaching and you can be sure the problem, as always, will flourish exponentially.
There will be the children’s pocket money taken from them while out shopping for Christmas presents; by thugs; drunkards having all night noisy binges for the entire festive season from Christmas Eve to the first day of the New Year with no respect for their neighbours; youths demanding money from their parents to pay for their bad habits; and, school children on holidays joining and partaking of the bad habits of the home-scholars, in defiance of their parents’ sound advice.
Then there would be the parties that you are invited to where strict instructions are issued to bring only your immediate family.
Your employer wants to acknowledge your services through the year and invites you and your colleagues to a get-together among yourselves.
When you turn up with your wife and kids, every Tom, Dick, Harry and his dog are there. Some of your colleagues had invited their neighbours, friends, cousins and in-laws from out of town to the function and the end result is that the food and beverages provided on the day in accordance with what the company has on record about you and your immediate family, do not stretch as much as you and the company would want it to be stretched.
Some respectable colleagues miss out on the goodies to eat because the “extended” families of your bad attitude colleagues had brought with them containers, dishes and large plastic bags and each one of them helps himself or herself to an amount that is more than enough to feed a hungry family of seven or eight adults.
These are but little things that shape up to be big attitude problems – some of them more serious in nature and perpetrated by the criminally minded.
Suffice it is to say that we do have this problem and it won’t go away for a long time yet, unless, as the do-gooders advocate, ‘discipline starts at home’.
Maybe, the next generation will have a change of attitude if this generation changes it attitude to allow for that.
Be it as it may, we are told, a lot of what we consider as bad attitude or anti-social behaviour is attributed to the country’s cultural, social and economic factors.
We call ourselves a Christian nation yet we physically practice actions that are far removed from Christian principles.
A Highlands friend once said: “If you look around you, there is evidence of paradise around us. It is the Eden we are aware of in Genesis but it is the handful of the descendants of the victims of temptation that are discolouring Paradise on Earth.”
Perhaps, it is a time for reflection during this festive season and make resolutions for a change for the better. Perhaps it is time to take the Wise Counsellor up on his words: “If being born is not satisfactory, try being born again …”

 

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