A lack of political maturity

 By Professor John Y Luluaki, School of Law, UPNG

I HAVE read the protestations and threats by Mao Zeming and Powes Parkop against Paul Barker for his analysis and the likely implications of the National Government’s budget on a number of issues relating to the development agenda of the country. 

It was well within the parameters of the nature and role of Barker’s vocational responsibility to express his views on an important national matter. 

He was within the ambit of the freedom available to the intellectual community to comment on this matter in a public forum organised for that purpose. 

Zeming and Parkop are equally free to respond to or comment on Barker’s analyses and critiques of relevant government policies and decisions regarding this matter. 

Importantly, however, it is unclear from their protests what aspects of what Barker said were in breach of his contractual terms. 

Attacking foreigners in this manner and only because they are foreigners can be seriously counter-productive for Papua New Guinea both within our region and beyond. 

What aspects were political rather than objective critiques to justify their reactions? 

What is politically objectionable about questioning the decision to construct the Paga ring-road at such high cost when that money could have been better spent on fixing and upgrading roads in communities with high voter populations such as in Gerehu, Morata and Gordon’s.

The case here is not about wrapping rings around the ring road but the justification for the huge expenditure involved and this in the face of glaring infrastructural needs in areas of proportionately higher human traffic. 

Of course, there must have been very good reasons for this decision. 

However, it is known, especially in the political arena that for every good reason a politician may have for his decision, there is always a ‘real’ reason. 

What then is the real reason for the decision to spend so much public money on the Paga project ahead of attending to fixing and resealing roads in the residential suburbs of the city? 

Was it simply political, economic, developmental, financial, personal, or a combination of any of these?

Reactions and threats of this kind cannot be good for politicians who desire to mature and develop into leaders as well. 

It is indeed disappointing, and has been so for some time, that political maturity is absent or seriously lacking in PNG generally. 

Will this change when selfish subsistence farmers, fishermen, bureaucrats and degree holders continue moonlighting as politicians as a means to an end? 

‘Shooting-from-the-hip’ politics has become characteristic of ‘back row’, ‘front row’ and fringe politicians in this country. 

In some situations, careless and unarticulated reactions and delinquent political behaviour such as this may simply be revelations of political insecurity, posturing or patronising of political leadership. 

Politicians and the intellectual community are partners in the development of our country. 

The freedoms of thought and expression established by the Constitution are available to both politicians and non-politicians, including the intellectual community. 

The exercise of these freedoms of course assumes media freedom. 

It is everyone’s duty, including in particular politicians and legislators, to ensure that these freedoms and the freedom of the media to publish these views are not surrendered to political tyranny of this type. 

It is dangerous to the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution.

Freedom of thought and expression are important human rights values. 

Progress or politics must not be advanced or prioritised at the expense of freedom. 

To do so may well negate the material benefits of progress and retard progress itself. 

Both the stomach and the mind must influence the language of politics and development. 

For if political and civil liberties (within which framework the freedoms of thought and expression find expression), are an illusion to a starving and illiterate man, the converse is also true. 

Man will not have achieved dignity or experience enjoyment of life if, even though well fed and educated, his body or soul is controlled by the State. Lean, upright and brain dead! Politicians must follow their minds more than being led by their stomachs.

The challenge for the leadership in this country is to strike the right balance between the competing and yet complementing interests of national progress and for development to take place equitably while promoting the interests of individuals to develop their personal capacities so that they are in positions to actively and meaningfully dialogue with others to contribute to the development agenda of the country. 

Politicians have always engaged with the intellectual community to help them perform their functions. 

This is expected and can only be good for the country.

Politicians, researchers and academics are in varying degrees accountable to the constituencies they represent. 

Academics and researchers owe their intellectual capacities to a constituency that is larger and wider than may be assumed. 

It is larger than those represented by individual politicians, ministers, and groups of politicians. 

The intellectual community is accountable to every taxpayer and voter in the country. 

It is therefore accountable to politicians at all levels of government. 

Above all, members of the intellectual community must, as an uppermost act of duty and service, acquit the cost of their education, training and the development of their intellectual capacities to the whole of Papua New Guinea by engaging with government and other stakeholders in providing critiques of, comments on, and even expressing opposition to, government policies and developmental agenda, and its decisions. 

Intellectuals have little choice: Either carry or bury this duty. 

But they cannot do this without a free press. 

It becomes especially necessary and urgent for academics and researchers to speak out and up when government actions weaken or threaten to destabilise constitutional and financial institutions and processes designed to ensure and maintain discipline within these institutions. 

A potential source for these threats are otherwise landless, stateless, and neither-here-nor-there people the law allows to be involved in important institutional processes established by the Constitution. 

Maintaining strong links by the government, not just politicians, with universities and research institutions is functional for the development of a strong economy, of national institutions and effective social protection systems.  

Strong economies of the free world, including those in our regions, have been linked with strong academic and research institutions over many years. 

These economies are strong because of their governments’ links with these institutions by first building their intellectual capacities and then drawing on them to support their development priorities.

In PNG, it seems that among the major challenges confronting the development of a strong economy and delivery of services is the risk posed by a dysfunctional or ineffective link between the government and institutions of higher learning and research.  

The onus lies with government to promote and strengthen these links to provide the platform for growing this country. 

This is, of course, unlikely to happen without first dealing with prevailing inherent weaknesses in the leadership qualities of persons required to provide clear and unselfish political direction for the future of the country.