Time to revisit Melanesian rule by consensus
GOVERNMENT
As the Constitutional and Law Reform Commission tours the country seeking people’s views about a possible reform of the system of government PNG has been practising, one lawyer has come up with a proposal to take a whole hard look at the philosophy of government underlying PNG’s democracy. ALFRED KAIABE LLB, ML says a middle ground has to be struck between the introduced Western Philosophy of rule by majority and the Melanesian Philosophy of rule by consensus, through the development of an Underlying Law, as called for by Section Schedule 2 of our Constitution.
IF Government is talking about a new system of government for PNG, it has to be talking about a new political philosophy of state, that starts with a new political philosophy that is Melanesian.
At the same time, analysing different political ideologies of the states of the world and comparing which is suitable to integrate into our own Melanesian unwritten Federal System of Government, based on units of tribes and villages, from time immemorial, for our current confused Melanesian State of PNG, to be relevant to itself and to today’s changing world. This enables Papua New Guinea’s development, in the real context.
At the time of the formation of the United States of America in the 1600s to 1700s, there was no world government that was voted by the people, until George Washington and his team declared independence on July 4,1776 from the British Monarch, for what today is USA, based on a constitution of rule by majority choice.
All the new migrants in today’s USA and Canada, came from, and were former subjects of the many kings and queens that ruled the monarch systems of governments in Europe. They were tired and had enough of the kings’ and queens’ batons and that of the feudal lords. They preferred a new system of government in this new land they had stolen from the many indian tribal states that owned the land, and after stealing their land and resources, and placing the landlords in settlements they called indian reservations, adopted John Locke’s Philosophy of Rule by Majority choice – the basis of the United States constitution.
But then Europeans of different language, culture, political ideals etc were now in this new stolen land and needed something in between, to join them together. So the search for new political philosophy and political ideals began, and found the answer with the one of the red Indian nations they called “primitive and savage” – the red Indian Iriquoi nation.
Quickly the new white settlers interviewed the red Indian Iriquoi nation, on how they managed their Iriquoi six nation federation system of government. The Iriquoi six nation confederacy was based on an unwritten oral constitution between six Indian nations/tribes that agreed on which areas in their lives that became law for all the members of the six clans and whatever areas that were not agreed to, was left to each of the six nation confederacy to make their own laws for their tribal members. So the six nation confederacy led by the Iriquoi nation, had a federal government and six autonomous tribal state governments.
The European settlers then borrowed this Iroquoi federal system of government (without the Iriquoi permission, I think) to form the states to become the United States. Hence what is today the 52 States of the United States of America was born from the “primitive and savage” ideals of red Indian government. Not everything, including political ideals, is in the West!
If this country is to look at a new system of government, in my considered view, there are two fundamental points that must first be agreed to.
- We are a Melanesian State of “rule by consensus”. We are not a people group of “rule by majority”. We adopted John Locke’s political philosophy of rule by majority through a Westminster system of Government and it is having difficulty as it is grinding into our federated clan system of units of government. All elections in many parts of the highlands are marred with fraud and death. This is because the national issue of national election is being ground into a clan and village system whose bloods are rooted in rule by consensus.
There therefore has never been election security. The same to election integrity. Many of our MPs are in parliament through fraud. They know it. The establishment of the parliamentary committee into the 2022 elections, is in itself evidence. On a deeper note, the many election-related deaths are evidence of the introduced rule by the majority trying its best, to grind its way into an existing system of rule by consensus. We need wisdom and insight here if we are serious about a new system of government. This is an area for our own experts in political science. - By tradition we the Melanesians are a federal based society. Our western orientated government must reflect the federal nature we are. Federalism is a system of government in which the same territory is controlled by two levels of government. The Western definition for federalism generally means that an overarching national government is responsible for broader governance of larger territorial areas, while the smaller subdivisions, states, and cities govern the issues of local concern.
Melanesian and federal
Through what is Melanesian, we become federal but through what is different from each other, we become autonomous. That was the basis of the Iriquoi unwritten federal constitution. Through a federal government based on the values and ideals in rule by consensus, we are one but we run our differences in the cultural and linguistic translations of the values and ideals of rule by consensus, through autonomous clan/village governments based on and rooted in rule by consensus.
We were, and still are, a federation of a thousand Melanesian clan and tribal states. That thousand federation of independent clan states on Sept 16, 1975 became one nation through a homegrown constitution. But that homogeneous constitution did not accommodate our existing Melanesian unwritten federated clan system of government from time immemorial, and its central systematic rule by consensus.
As a result, our clans, tribes and villages are not in our adopted government’s systems books. We only have provincial governments, local level governments and their wards in the government books. But the people are not in the introduced ward units, they have been, are, and will continue to be in the clans, tribes and village units, which are defined by blood and translated on the ground by land boundaries. Now you see the reality. But its been there! The reality is that we are living in the clan political and social unit.
If the people are not in the ward, it follows that they are not in the LLGs. If they are not in the LLGs, it further follows that they are not in the provincial governments. If they are not in the provincial governments, they definitely are not in the adopted Westminster system of government. The people are elsewhere. The new government must be relevant to the people and must be taken to where they are. They are in the clans and tribes and villages.
It is time to look for the right political philosophy to deliver the new system of government the government is looking for, to bring to where the people are. The Westminster system of government was designed to fit the ward system in New South Wales Australia, where again white settlers stole Aboriginal land, decimated their existence, and divided their stolen land into wards, local government councils and six state governments under a federal government.
That political devolution of power had no problem because all land was declared crown land under Queen Victoria’s crown, so no conflicts with existing tribes and clans of political values and ideals and institutions of enforcement of their various world views. To avoid this conflict, they removed the Aboriginals anyway. The settlers were settlers from the same British Empire and were the same. All political units from the ward system to the federal government worked well for them.
Melanesia’s Papua New Guinea must carve out its new government for the people, by the people and of the people, based on and structured around the Melanesian philosophy of rule by consensus, beginning with a federal government running through the lower tiers of governments, the bottom line of which will be the clan or the village government units, thus getting rid of the LLG and ward stumbling blocks in between. In my view, a federal government, fully autonomous provincial governments and fully autonomous clan/village governments, with one third power sharing agreed structure inbuilt into our new constitution, is in order. The representatives into these three tier governments are proposed to be selected by consensus through a well-structured and agreed procedure, also written into our new constitution.
The people are in the tribes, clans and villages, whilst the wards and LLGs are only on paper and float in the air, grinding their way into the clans and villages during LLG and ward elections, as if the assault by and through the national elections is not enough. It is time for serious stock-take of this country’s political philosophy of “rule by consensus,” to capture our real on-the-ground tribal, clan, and village units that oversaw political control, social order and economic prosperity, from time immemorial before the white man came with his democratic “rule by majority.”
At independence we adopted somebody’s political system based on a political philosophy rooted in a “social contract” theory, relevant for a people, going through their own political upheaval and social chaos in Europe where the settlers in the early Americas came from, after Christopher Columbus first set foot in what today is the Americas, in 1492.
There is therefore no originality in our government system. A political philosophy based on my theory of rule by consensus for this country is in order, and in my view the occasion has arisen for the formal development of the same. If a common ground has to be struck between our own philosophy of rule by consensus and the introduced western philosophy of rule by majority, then a merger can be adopted through the development of the underlying law, as allowed under section schedule 2 of the constitution.
A political philosophy based on my theory of rule by consensus is in our blood. It is yelling to come out. We only need to make it walk! If we don’t, this country will disintegrate and fall apart, as who we really are, and who we want to pretend to be, grind against each other. Where are our political scientists? Our tribal, clan and village leaders maintained the political leadership lids that ensured the social order inside the clans.
In the traditional past in Hela political control and social and moral order was kept intact by four main clan leadership lids. They were the Haroli leadership (moral order), the Kepeali leadership (religious order) the Liruali leadership (Disciplinary order) and the Nditingiali leadership (family order). When the ordinary people and the Kepeali, Haroli and Liruali crossed paths, the ordinary moved far, far away from the track to give way. That was the reverence and respect the ordinary had for leadership lids of society and the power and authority they wielded. Sad but those were the yesteryears.
Today many of these categories of leadership have passed on and the remaining few have receded into the backgrounds of society as the “young councillors” from the new generation run the show through non-existent irrelevant wards in the air. If you like we can call the Local Level Governments and the wards system, an in-the-air government. I repeat that the people are in the clans and villages.
No written political philosophy
Many including myself thought that we got independence a little too soon. Later when I looked deeper, the problem was not the late grand chief’s push for independence. In my considered view, the problem is that there was, and still today is, no Papua New Guinea written political philosophy, so everything is copy/cut paste. Our original ruler of “rule by consensus,” that held the many Melanesian clan units together from time immemorial, has to now come out and guide and march forward this country’s 47 years of confused political direction.
Our Melanesian originality is out there in unwritten oral Melanesia, but our late Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare did not have the written version of unwritten oral Melanesia, in his hands. That was, I think, part of Somare’s problem. We are a society of rule by consensus, which was, and still is, locked up in the many values, ideals, customs and the 800 languages that communicated this common philosophy of rule by consensus. Rule by consensus is Melanesias truth, and it is this truth that will, and should become Papua New Guinea’s centrepiece for legislative framework and policy guidelines for development.
Somare spoke English and Tok Pisin and of course his own local vernacular. As Christine Kewa and Cyril Gare and many in the media fraternity say, information is power, and he badly lacked the unwritten version of his very own- the Melanesian political philosophy of Rule by Consensus.
Grand Chief Somare, the first born of Melanesia, could not speak his father’s common Melanesian language of rule by consensus so he looked to the white man flagging John Locke’s political philosophy of rule by majority through the theory of social contract. Maybe our political control over our people, social order in our clans and villages and towns and cities, and economic prosperity from our resource boom, would have been different, if the late Grand Chief Sir Michael Thomas Somare had a written version of his own Melanesian Philosophy of Rule by Consensus, in his hands. He did not. It was not his fault.
Through rule by majority, there is always a dissenting minority, who are not part of decision making. A good example is the landowners, who owned all land and therefore owned all resources on their land, but now have become minorities in their same land, because of the imposition of another man’s philosophy of rule by majority which adopted Queen Elizabeth’s law, that said everything came under her diamond crown. In the Melanesian philosophy of rule by consensus, nobody is left behind.
Merger needed
What is needed today is a merger of the two – the Western introduced philosophy of rule by majority and the Melanesian philospohy of rule by consensus. The introduction of development forums before a petroleum development license is granted, begins the chapter for the development of the suggested merger.
Therefore, shortsighted state ministers blinded by money, should not go around hijacking development forums, where the Melanesian philosophy of rule by consensus, must be seen to be translated into an agreed development agreement. This is the clear demand of the Section 48 Oil and Gas Act, for a development forum to be held to achieve the development agreement through consensus.
This Section 48 Oil and Gas Act development forum perquisite to Sections 50/50A development agreement, ensures that the displaced landowners, now a displaced minority group, cut out a fair agreed deal, from the proceeds of the exploit of the oil and gas resource, that was once theirs, until Queen Victoria, said “no” from faraway England in 1884, through Commodore Erskine at today’s Port Moresby Fairfax Harbour, when he declared Papua a British Protectorate. Whilst in the same year 1884, Britain’s partner in crime, the Germans claimed New Guinea as its territory through the New Guinea Company.
Melanesia has been, and is a sharing egalitarian ‘religion-conscious’ federal government and governance-based race, rooted in the philosophy of rule by consensus . It had its own moral codes of conduct and ethical guidelines of behaviour and rules of etiquette. Some of our sacred religious values were sacred and the tribal precincts that beheld the institutions of enforcement were cultural fertile grounds, watered by divine dew inside our clan premises. They served as landing pads for the infant seeds of the Gospel to land. Our sacred values based on egalitarian caring, and equitable sharing were the Melanesian fertile cultural grounds for the nurturing of the Gospel of charity and of love.
The clan is therefore the evangelical net through which many fish can be caught, in a shorter period of time. Whilst you wait for a longtime for fish to come to its bait at the end of the fishing line. You can follow the white man’s theology of the church and plant churches, anywhere everywhere, but you might have to wait long as the school of fish is inside its natural breeding ground-the clan. The Son of God and the now cross-cultural Jesus Christ as man, foresaw the Melanesian tribal, clan and village units, when he declared to Peter that today he made his apostles “fishers of men.” The Son of the Living God foresaw Melanesia’s school of fishes in their natural breeding ground of the clans. Whether group clan sin through warfare or conspiracy or property plunder and destruction or individual sins of converting and adultery, are committed more in the clan than outside. Guns once inside the clan, are the security of the clan. The reporting to police of mariwanna are seen as betrayal by clam members. In Melanesia, both the clan and the individual have to be cleansed. Churches policies on evangelization must now therefore be clan orientated. Not everything is in the West. Harness what you had and now have-the clan, for Papua New Guinea’s development to be on God’s radar screen.
It is now time for Melanesias churches and their evangelists to remove the Western cultural eyeglasses of individual based evangelization and focus on the clans for mass spiritual evangelization and spiritual development. And the time to do that is now, when I am calling on the Marape-Rosso Government to formulate and develop a Melanesian philosophy on rule by consensus, beginning with the initiation of formal state policy on the unitisation, standardisation and corporatisation of the clan.
Therefore it is now for the churches to put proposals forward to jointly develop the clan through the Private Public Partnership (PPP) programme through an integrated program of spiritual, social justice, education and health development. Why jointly? Because for both state and church, man is the common denominator of integral human development in accordance with the first of the five national goals and directive principles of the constitution. And the clan net is the common institution, where man, the common denominator of development is domiciled.
The Saki Soloma Constitutional and Law Reform Commission (CLRC) Committee must begin the process for the state to now engage our political philosophers to write the Melanesian philosophy of rule by consensus. The Melanesian philosophy of rule by consensus will underpin the political ideal of the rule by consensus and the creation and or reformation of our institutions of state, to enforce the ideals of the philosophy of rule by consensus. Then and only then, you decide how the head of state and prime minister, ministers and members of parliament are chosen to lead.
The third and final point I want to add is that the government should establish a loop/group on Whatsapp, Facebook, etc for people participation for this new initiative to be meaningful and in context.
- Alfred Kaiabe is former MP for Komo-Magarima Open in Hela. He holds a Bachelors in Law from UPNG and an Advanced Diploma in Religious Studies from the Catholic Theological Institute, Bomana, and is currently reading for a Diploma in Philosophy and a Bachelors in Sacred Theology, from the same institute.