Not all highlanders think and act the same

Letters, Normal
Source:

The National – Tuesday, February 1, 2011

I WOULD like to respond to “Fed Up” and “Also Fed Up” (The National, Jan 21 and Jan 26). Both writers said that all unemployed highlanders must return home and stop their “regular ethnic clashes and animalistic acts”.
If both writers claim to be educated Papua New Guineans, then, the sentiments they expressed in their letters tell me otherwise.
Both are of the lower-rated version of an educated Papua New Guinean, to say the least.
As a proud highlander, I must tell them that not all uneducated highlanders in the city are the cause of all the ethnic clashes and other misdemeanors.
Most of the highlanders, who do not have a regular income, are industrious people and they keep the city’s economic activities alive.
Yes, I agree that highlanders, both unemployed and employed, contribute to some of the city’s current problems but it is only a minority group and to assert that it is the doing of all the unemployed highlanders reflects how low both “educated” writers can think after almost 40 years of independence.
Ethnic clashes, armed robberies, car thefts, rapes, murders and other crimes in the city are caused by sick-minded minorities and individuals.
For that matter, such lawlessness activities, and even worse, happens on an hourly basis on some of the world’s leading cities like New York, London and Sydney. So whether it be Highlands, Islands, Mamose or Southern, we are all Papua New Guineans at the end of the day and therefore must learn to adapt and coexist instead of expressing ill-feelings and regionalistic sentiments among ourselves which will not take us anywhere.
My point, look at the bigger picture and think big.

 

Gigs
Waigani