Finding our soul

Who are we and where are we headed?

By FRANK SENGE KOLMA
[email protected]
WHAT mortar or stone, cane or nail, iron or kwila, thatch or copper does one bring to build the house that one calls a nation?
Difficult proposition, ain’t it?
After due consideration our founding fathers selected five distinct sets of materials, more ideals, and named them the National Goals and Directive Principles.
They planted them right at the start of the Constitution, as the preamble to the sacred document, lest we in later generations missed it.
We have not missed them, but we have messed them up a fair bit along the way.
Upon examination one can readily see that they are sufficient building material to stand a stalwart nation: The call for complete well-rounded education in the first goal, the direction for equal treatment of each other and fair distribution of our wealth in the second, the third goal to be politically and economically independent, the prod to look after our natural resources and our environment in the fourth and in the fifth and final goal, the direction to apply uniquely Papua New Guinean ways in nation building.
Let us apply this last goal Number 5 on this journey of self-examination since it is closest to us. It refers to PNG’s cultures and traditions.
It is altogether admirable, no doubt and totally appropriate, but applying it has NOT been quite so admirable or easy, as we shall find out.
PNG way or ways?
The first question to ask is: Is there one Papua New Guinean way?
Has any ever been considered?
The answer, most assuredly, is no.
By decree we have three languages approved for nationwide application: English of ancient origin and foreign extraction carrying with it all its European overtones; Tok Pisin of more recent and mixed parentage with ease of communication as its number one goal; and Motu, of ancient and PNG origin but domicile in one region of the country, and specifically one province of this region.
And then there are, of course, 800-plus other languages that have been dropped but which are spoken as a daily dialect in each local community.
Language, it is said, is the embodiment of culture. It is the medium by which all knowledge is transmitted. If that is so then in our choice of national languages we have a strange and confused mix.
Little wonder then that confusion and misunderstandings seem to reign in all aspects of our national life.
A future conversation shall be dedicated fully to appreciating the part of language in the national scheme of things.
In this discussion, we shall dwell on the fact that no attention has been given the role of culture in development and nation building so far despite the significance attached to it by the Constitutional Planning Committee.
Goal 5 is set at the start of the National Constitution, in the preamble.
A further call is made at Section 20 and 21 in the body of the Constitution and in Schedule 2 at the back of the Constitution for the development of an underlying law based on custom. This deliberate emphasis and direction has sadly been neglected to date excepting the establishment of a Law Reform Commission (now the Constitution and Law Reform Commission).
Culture grounds a people. It gives one identity and common purpose. Unless a nation is bolted down to the bedrock of culture, it is a flimsy tent that will be blown away in the first gust of a strong breeze.
Beyond the talk and the intent, nobody was seriously interested in that process during discussions on Independence and one can readily understand why. There was too little time and there were too many things happening all at once.
More importantly, there were far too many to choose from, none was dominant enough and nobody could agree to subject themselves to another culture of PNG origin – even if all, bar none, could and were subject to one of foreign origin. At Independence by the very act of adopting the Common Law and Equity of England we consented, by default, to continue our subservience to the dominance of English custom.
Coloniser leaves, leaving his ways behind
We were glad to see the back of the abhorrent coloniser but his more dangerous seed – his ways, his ideas and organisation of government, we kept.
And so here we are, 46 years after declaring Independence, wondering at what we have built and whether anything can be called our own of and in that building.
Ever since first contact all attention has focused on introducing the white man’s ways to the local population.
In places local practices were declared repugnant and heathen by the Christian missionaries, yanked out root and stem and fed to the fire.
When the first stirrings of self-government were introduced in an October 1963 mission of the United Nations led by an Englishman called Hugh Foot, Papua New Guinea was two separate territories. The Northern half of New Guinea was a UN trust territory under British rule passed further on to Australia and the southern half was Australian national territory but kept in abeyance by the Whites Only Australia policy in vogue at the time.
Development was rudimentary but

Papua New Guineans asked about their guiding principles.

far more distant was any thought of a local grown government or economic development strategy.
There was no Bumiputra such as Malaysia developed. It was recognised early in that country, also a former British colony which suffered the ravages of the war and aided by a race riot of May 1969, that the more populous Malay people would miss out on the benefits of socio-economic development which would create future further disharmony unless they were cut a deal in the policies of government.
This was effected and there arose over time a Malay middle class which is gaining in influence and reputation among its more affluent immigrant Indian and Chinese races. Malays, Chinese and Indians form that nation’s dominant three race composition.
In neighboring Indonesia a similar Briputra consciousness was making its play in policy development and societal recognition at the time.
Such a realisation never entered into the national consciousness for Papua Guinea at the time.
All we wanted was freedom from the domineering “masta”, a good enough draw card for gathering our diverse tribes together at the time.
Bringing together so many tribal societies under one government was a giant task.
The European had done it by promoting his interests with utter conviction and repugnance for the ways of the indigenes of the land.
Dominance in diversity
To now transfer that rule to ourselves posed the one tremendous question: What ruling class would take the reigns of government? What dominant language of PNG’s 800 would the government use? Which laws and customs and traditions of some 1,000 tribes would be codified into law and be universally acceptable in the future state?
This was a dilemma at the time. How great a dilemma it was might not have played too much on the minds of the founding fathers, but it turned up insidiously across the years to play mischief in politics and in socio economic development.
‘Unity in diversity’, the catch phrase at Independence has turned out to be, in truth, “unity but for diversity”. Tribalism, regionalism and cronyism that dominate much of our public and private lives, have their origin there. Think on it.
So Independence meant self-determination and self-government which at the time meant continuing what was in operation minus the colonizer’s domineering presence.
How we created institutions of state, how we provided for the needs of thousands of different tribes, how we amalgamated such a population into a single vibrant nation using ‘uniquely Papua New Guinean ways’ as envisaged in the 5th Goal has not been attempted.
And so we converse in court, in Parliament and in all official communication, in a language whose roots, rules of grammar, semantics, and syntax the majority of our people have no clue about. We have adopted a culture for national application which we have no idea off. We have not got the time to read European and English history.
It is this that might be the missing link, the determining factor to cohesive national development, which has doggedly eluded PNG.
Is it ideas, is it plans, is it implementation, is it managing the process – what is it we lack? Have we got it right at all? Or have we got nothing right?
Engaging questions that require deep contemplation.
There is a plethora of national plans, vision and mission statements and enough international examples to select at random to our hearts’ content as we try time and again to devise a way forward.
One party comes up with one concept and another with a second concept and so forth across ten and a half parliamentary terms and still we have not had one that seems to have worked and certainly not for extended periods to stamp its authority.
As mentioned in this space in a previous conversation, the constantly shifting political landscape has not helped one bit either.
To my mind, and this is the crux of this conversation, before anything is attempted, we must first and foremost, find, and if we cannot find it, to create, our common ground, our common language, our common script, our common law, our common driving force, our national ethos, the soul of this nation.
Name me the beating heart of this nation and we shall have begun giving life to its constituent parts.
It is that and none other that becomes the common standard, the flying banner, the emblem emblazoned on our hearts, the anthem raised in a chorus from East cape to Wutung and across 600 islands and a thousand atolls, the rallying bugle call that can steer a diverse nation forward in a diverse, fiercely competitive world of flying national, regional, multi-national, and global concerns.
We must select our soul and mould our wants, needs, programmes, laws and what have you around it.
Is there such a soul? And can we find it?
Now there is something we can dwell on as we consider our Prime Minister’s exhortation to “take back PNG”.
Next: Forging the way ahead

• The author is a former editor-in-chief of The National.