Fighting out filthy habits

IF many were quite disgusted with our choice of picture for the front page yesterday, we offer no apologies.
There is another on page two today and there will be many more in the days to come.
However disgusting, these are a true representation of our communities and the way we choose to live.
Throughout PNG our homes, our streets, our work places, our towns and cities have become filthy junk yards and breeding places for all sorts of vermin.
The plastic wrapping of a food item discarded on the street not only adds to the litter but in time becomes a death trap for our marine life when it is washed out to sea. We unwittingly deplete our own fish stocks by this habit.
The empty coke can flung out of a bus window or the empty beer bottle smashed on the pavement lie
in the grass and later injure our little children at play, adding another body to the long queues at the
hospitals and health centres.
Betelnut spittle and graffiti not only deface our streets and properties, they contribute to the negative image PNG portrays to visitors.
Human and animal refuse, broken sewer pipes and decomposing animal carcasses add stench and pose great health risks for the population.
These are a direct result of our filthy habits.
The tragedy is that the majority of us seem oblivious to this.
Even worse, we unthinkingly contribute to the filth while never lifting a voice in opposition or a finger  against it.
These are the heart of our development problems, not lack of funds, not
lack of roads, bridges, health centres or classrooms.
Development is more than a new road, bridge, or classroom.
These are mere prerequisites on the way to ensuring an individual is contended, healthy, prosperous, principles, disciple, respectful and honest living
in a clean home within a healthy harmonious environment.
Development is about respect for one another and for the place we live in and respect for the environment.
That is the real meaning of the “integral human development” spoken of the first goal contained in the preamble to the national constitution.
That goal directs every citizen to be engaged fully in the business of freeing himself or herself and others from the bonds of ignorance, discrimination, inequality and every
other idea, rule or
system that holds us prisoners.
So long as there is greed, so long as there is corruption, so long as there
is disrespect and dishonesty, so long as there is no respect for the law and theft and violence, this country will remain under developed.
Crime will increase and will poverty and the gap between the rich and the poor will widen.
Rural to urban drift will continue and increase. It will not matter a wit how many billions come into the country.
The money will not change anything.
Behavioural or habitual changes will transform this country.
Even on half the budget of PNG’s current K10 billion national budget there will be a lot more changes, a lot more happier
people.
Money needs to be spent building the big roads, bridges, hospitals and pumped into economic corridors but of far greater importance is the money that is spent on maintaining sewerage pipes, on maintaining garbage trucks
and garbage dumps, on imposing hefty fines for littering.
Massive advertising campaigns ought to be launched on behavioral changes, on the values of personal hygiene, good manners, and dressing well.
A simple advert conveying colour coordination in dress or cosmetics will work wonders for our people.
Betelnut can be chewed but nut shells and spittle should be discarded discretely.
These are doable ideas and will not cost
much.
These small habit changes will work much more wonders for this country than will billions of
kina.
We need your help.