Let’s unite, stop discriminating

Letters

OUTSIDE Papua New Guinea, the media describes our country as an improvised island nation in the Pacific or worse, the cannibalism practising island in the Pacific.
I don’t mind the views people have on PNG and its people but I’m proud to call myself a Papua New Guinean.
I don’t want to limit myself to my province, region or ethnicity, which breeds discrimination in the country.
We have obvious resentments of nambis people against people from the Highlands and vise versa.
Our people from Tari and Enga are not usually anyone’s favourite for friendship, relationships or trust.
We always regard them as aggressive people.
We should ask ourselves if it is right to put everyone into the same basket for the convenience of our assumption.
Individual Papua New Guineans have their own perception of the Sepiks, Manus, Tolai, New Ireland, Samarai, Kerema, Papua, Daru, Oro or Buka people.
We should realise that this is how domesticated racism and discrimination starts.
We seem to forget that no race or ethnicity is better than the other whether in PNG or anywhere in the world.
All humans are created in God’s image and likeness.
We continue influencing ourselves with generalised labels of people from different provinces without getting to know enough people.
We are easy to judge people of other ethnicity based on what we hear from others and what we see.
People, although from the same province, are born different and are unique.
They have different personalities.
Just because one is labelled as a bad person doesn’t mean all of them are.
Some people in PNG are quick to identify themselves with their home province and ethnicity out of pride. They identify themselves as a way of telling everyone that they belong to a superior ethnicity.
We fail to realise that this way of thinking limits us.
We are all from Papua New Guinea, but because of this limited negative mindset, we force ourselves to be insecure.
We are busy discriminating ourselves while the world regards as an improvised island nation in the Pacific where cannibalism is practised.
Despite that, I don’t deny my nationality when I meet people of different ethnicity.
I’m a proud Papua New Guinean.
It is a shame if you are from Papua New Guinea but you haven’t seen more than five provinces in your country.
Stop living in your little world and get out and meet wonderful people out there.
It’s time to end the domestic racism and prejudice.
Let’s stand together as proud Papua New Guineans instead of competing against each other.
We are a country that has amazing natural landscapes which are among the wonders of the world, rare flora and fauna species, diverse marine biodiversity and cultural traditions that are beyond the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation’s list.

Raon Raon PNG
Change for better

3 comments

Comments are closed.