The way forward is to go back

Weekender

By FRANK SENGE KOLMA
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SOME years back, the late Stanley Pil, then Member for Madang Open, proposed to Parliament that a national dress be introduced for Papua New Guinea.
A national dress would give us an identity and set us apart from others, he said.
Pil started wearing the highlands bilum hood and tried to garner support from among his colleagues urging the use of meri blouse, laplaps and other apparel in common use around the country. After some initial burst of enthusiasm the idea soon fizzled out and was heard of no more.
Nobody could settle on which of the hundreds of traditional bilas of Papua New Guinea the national dress ought to be modeled upon and sold for national adoption.
In more ignorant quarters Pil was laughed at as having run out of ‘development’ ideas.
Pil’s suggestion, upon the most cursory examination, has significant insights in nation building as well as for practical reasons of comfort.
Even in a very practical sense, Pil’s National Dress proposition ought to be considered seriously.
This is a very hot country. A shirt, tie and suit might be smart attire but we are positively cooking in them. A tie does not even suit our physical body build where most necks are wide and short so getting that last button in to hold the tie smartly in place and the collar to stay up right is near impossible unless one has a smart tailor and most people do not.
Women’s various western apparel seem okay excepting suits and high heels are death trap. Cosmetics-wise we try to blush a black or brown skin when nature has found it unnecessary to equip us with a separate blush color or a bright red lip. The outcome of too much attention in that direction is a painted look which, rather than add to, quite often distorts our women’s natural beauty.
So yeah, a lot more thought ought be applied to our dress sense for its aesthetic value as well as its nationalistic and socio-economic considerations.
Apparel and grooming speak for one from afar. They create the first and often lasting impression.
Good manners and language too speak powerfully with a language of their own. The public figure who warns of the dangers of cancer whose lips and teeth show evidence of his own betel nut habits is wasting his breath. His physical appearance already contradicts his message and surely nobody will believe a hypocrite.
These things which we often pay scant attention to make their silent speeches on our behalf long before the first word of business is conducted.
Concepts such as grooming and dress, proper speech and language, etiquette and protocol, common courtesy and table manners ensure there is cohesion, commonality, unity and gives a nation its character which speaks volumes for the reputation of a country.
A good national character can impact things such as attracting tourism and foreign direct investment (see Fiji) and assist credit worthiness and sovereign risk assessments. When a nation can be trusted to keep its word and honour agreements, then loans can be granted in dire situations and agreements signed where a far more capable country which is untrustworthy might be refused.
Very poor, very rich nation
As we try to move our very poor, very rich nation into the future we do so with too many grandiose ideas and with so little time spared for the most basic of issues, the issues that affect the everyday lives of Papua New Guineans.
Matters to do with food, water, shelter, and clothing. Issues pertaining to mobility, to access to education and health facilities and to markets are paid lip service while the real money gets sluiced off elsewhere.
Why, for instance, must this nation spend hundreds of millions of Kina building internet infrastructure when it is useless to 95 per cent of the population? Online services have no commercial business benefits and for the commoner phone and data credits now add a daily unnecessary expense item in addition to cigarettes, betel nut and bus/PMV fare.
Why do we insist on online services such as travel ticketing and banking when the majority of our people do not have access?
It would be far better if the country built state of the art hospitals and specialised centers for cancer and heart treatment.
The lack of these facilities and the expertise to run them is taking a deadly toll on the country. Even the most senior public servants, businessmen and women and politicians are finding it near impossible to meet the high cost of treatment abroad. More on the economic value of health and education facilities in a future conversation.
Perhaps the money wasted on NID, on a Huawei-ssisted central government information system, on the Madang Pacific Maritime Industrial Zone and similar schemes around the country could be better expanded in building cross-country highways, dredging and managing natural river ways and possibly build railways and incentivising island hopping freighters and building wharves and jetties to land them.
Boosting medical and other research institutions in the country have far greater benefit over time but hardly a thought is spared this important area during national budget discussions.
The plethora of plant and marine life as yet unknown to science in this country may yet yield knowledge that could be crucial to health.
Why are ministers of government, governors, senior public servants and chief executive officers of state-owned-enterprises cruising to work in vehicles paid by public funds, one of which cost could build and stock 30 aid posts or two double classrooms and two permanent teacher’s houses?
A comfortable sedan or SUV can suffice. The good Bart Philemon, Member for Lae, would drive to work in his old sedan which broke down often and was driven to official programmes in his official Treasury vehicle before heading home in his own car.
He ought to be knighted but I don’t suppose he’s got the money to pay for it now.
It is most comforting on the odd trips to our South East Asian neighbours to see how the streets are lined with bicycles, tricycles, motor bikes and sedan cars.
These vehicles are means and modes of transportation for these folk. Their priorities are turned to elsewhere – to education, health, savings and building a business or career. Their singular success is annually evident in their countries’ ever growing GDPs.
A Malaysian Minister for Agriculture I was interviewing had a few questions for me in his turn.
“Tell me, Mr Frank, why do you people wear a shirt, coat and tie in a hot country. It is the attire of our colonisers, isn’t it? And I thought we were independent? Try the loose fitting and comfortable Malay batik.
“And I see far too many Toyota Land Cruisers on city roads. Are they not for off-road travel?”
I had no answer then and, after thinking on them a lot over the years, am trying to answer them here, I suppose.
Next: The Babel Principle

  • Frank Kolma is a former editor-in-chief of The National