FIDELIS SUKINA
An entry in the Rivers Prize for
Writing on Peace & Harmony
YOU’VE all heard the saying that money is the root of all evil. Well, we could reframe that to say that greed, a sure sign of vanity, leads to evil in modern day society.
When you’re at the peak of your life with a senior position in the public sector with car, money, house and almost everything a middle class Papua New Guinean would want, you would consider yourself set for life.
But wait! What if someone offered you a bribe or an “incentive” which you considered, being in a position of power, you could accept and go ahead and do what the law of this land says is unjust.
That’s greed right there. And, if you kept behaving like that, chances are your greed would never be satisfied.
Who in their right mind would deny that violence and crime are mainly products of greed for money and power?
Let’s take a snapshot at our society. The parliamentary leader, once a middle class person, is now a big shot in power. Some might say he invested well and saw his money grow,
Well OK, that may be a good answer. Who am I to judge? But let’s imagine he was corrupt,
As he keeps feeding his greed and becomes stinking rich, he makes others suffer. When you take something that is not yours and use it, what happens to where it was supposed to be?
Think of a few scenarios that include the misuse of money.
Here’s one. A donation of K10 000 for a much needed book-keeping course is diverted and gets into the pockets of some senior public servant.
Just imagine the people who could have been educated and empowered with that money.
These people probably don’t even know the money was diverted and, if they do, end up doing nothing about it because that’s how most Papua New Guineans react.
So greed wins and people still lack the basic skills. Being unskilled and impoverished, these people may themselves resort to stealing and violence. Where does the fundamental fault lie?
Society is a network of people who interact; peace cannot come if the thought of helping others is not with each individual.
What happens to people who are greedy? They feel guilty perhaps. And their reputations suffer. Oh yes, the gossip spreads fast.
When society is robbed of funding for education, we all suffer big time.
People rob, beg and cause violence because they lack the education to take control of their lives.
In the past there was no money and people worked the soil to feed themselves and traded food using the barter system. It was a strong system and people knew each other and showed respect to each other because you had to know and accept who you were trading with.
Now we are all working for money which is the new commodity. To survive, most of us need money.
A hostile place it is to be in Papua New Guinea. It is said that there is a lack of patriotism and nationalism in most of society. Well what did everyone expect? If you are poor and not earning a stable income, why should you care for your country ahead of your livelihood and that of your family.
There is a world view of PNG that many educated people would see as totally demoralizing- poor literacy, high rates of human rights abuse, domestic violence, raskolism, impoverished human capital, skills shortages, the list goes on.
I say the root of all this is greed; greed for power, greed for money,
Harmony and peace is something we cannot reach unless we help each other.
While there may be no perfectly peaceful and harmonious place, if we provide opportunities for people –educate them, give them skills, bring power and water to villages, provide markets - perhaps we will be lifting these low statistics.
Settlements need to be turned into suburbs; people given land titles; an emphasis placed on job opportunities for our people.
We don’t want to see people loitering around seeking an opportunity to steal. We should be creating jobs for these people and empowering them.
People who are happy with their lives are happy and peaceful people. That’s something we need to understand. A happy nation is a productive nation.