PHIL FITZPATRICK
THE current election and new influence of the social media has pushed the dysfunctional nature of Papua New Guinean politics and governance out of the shadows and into glaring daylight.
And it’s not a pretty sight.
The blinking monster looks bad, smells bad and is turning the stomachs of everyone except a few privileged elites (and, of course, a blinkered Australian government and its minions).
These people think the political system just needs the odd tweak and some lip gloss and it will be as good as new.
What the rest of us are now waiting for is someone game enough to go and poke it with a stick to see if it is worth saving or whether it should be put down and buried at the bottom of the garden.
The optimists in favour of trying to keep it on life support know exactly what is wrong with it. They can’t possible not know, it’s all anyone has been talking about for the last five years.
The pragmatists in favour of simply crushing the system with a big lump of wood also know what’s wrong but are less optimistic that it can be saved.
What both these groups don’t seem to know is why it turned out so bad in the first place. Why so much promise went so badly wrong.
A couple of correspondents who read my last article on the subject in PNG Attitude have made an interesting suggestion about the poor creature’s malady. They reckon it’s had a very bad dose of Highlander.
Never heard of it? Neither had I, but I must admit I’ve been sniffing it in the wind for a while now and it has some enticing possibilities.
It also has the added advantage of being able to be sheeted home to Australia.
Here’s how the theory goes.
At the time of independence in 1975 the Highlands had been least exposed to the outside world, a mere 45 years at best and much less than that in some areas.
So at the time of independence there were still large populations in the mountains which had virtually no exposure to modern education, technology or the other wonders of the west like democracy.
The pundits, and I recall Tom Ellis saying this, believed the Highlands needed another 20 years of development before it would be ready for independence. The Highlanders themselves were saying similar things.
Trouble was those pesky firebrands from the nambis and their UN mates were urging Australia to piss off and leave them to it.
And Australia, ever the wimp, listened to them and did exactly that. They didn’t give a rat’s arse that they’d left the Highlanders in the lurch.
The nambis mob did all right for a while but then something unforeseen occurred. The Highlanders kept having babies by the score and eventually there were so many of them they started migrating down to the nambis in ever increasing numbers.
And eventually there were so many of them they simply took over. And that’s how Papua New Guinea got to where it is now.
Curiously, Peter O’Neill, the perpetrator of the latest mess, comes from one of the last contacted areas in the Highlands. On the other hand, Simbu, which seems to be doing something about the current election farce, was one of the earliest areas contacted.
I might add that this theory comes from a bunch of old kiaps, so feel free to be outraged by it and write it off as the ravings of a demented bunch of senile lapuns.
Or maybe think about it a bit more.