Nothing like letting go of a “little” tension…

This past Friday the students were involved in a good old fashioned stone fight and released some tension in the process. As I left work I noticed some commotion near the main entrance of UNITECH (commonly known as UNIGATE). As I got closer I realised that the students were involved in a stone fight with some of the local lads from Taraka.

How did it start? What I heard was that a couple of students had been on the “turps” and on return to UNIGATE from town began harrassing one of the betelnut/smoke sellers across the road from the main gate. This apparently upset some of the locals and a scuffle broke out between the two students and the Taraka locals. The situation got out of hand very fast and before no time the students retreated from the area outside the gate into campus. The numbers on both sides built up quicker than what you could say “boo” and before long the two sides were engaged in a full on stone fight. The campus security guards immediately shut the main gate and joined in the stone throwing (on the students side). Within minutes there would have been a good 80 or so students and locals all “getting their rocks off”.

I managed to take 4 photos. See the UNI Gate photo album for additional photos : http://gallery.trupela.com/index.php?cat=22. I missed out on a “close up” as this would have put me at risk of getting hit by a flying rock. I settled for a “backrow” seat and rather enjoyed watching the release of some good old fashioned PNG male energy. Nothing like some free entertainment at the end of another week in the office.

I was amazed at how fast the students mobilised. In Australia, at the slighest hint of a public disturbance, crowds tend to disperse and move away from the “source” of disturbance. In PNG the opposite holds true, I have witnessed a number of public disturbances in the past 4 months and have noticed the speed at which crowds/mobs become mobilised. Within minutes of the stone fight starting there would have been close to 200 hundred students “on standby”. There appeared to be an equivalent gathering of Taraka locals happening at the same time across the road. The speed at which crowds are able to converge on a public situation is one reason why some people might consider PNG a dangerous place. The tribal dynamic still holds true here and on Friday afternoon this became evident. The students from different ethnic groups joined forces and were ready to engage in physical conflict to defend their “home”.

Sometime last year there was an incident where one of the students got stabbed to death by someone from Taraka (settlement/suburb next to campus). The students responded and went on a rampage and burnt down around 40 houses in the neighbouring vicinity of UNITECH. Quite understandable that people were nervous about the stone throwing friday afternoon as they feared a reoccurrence of more violent clashes between students and locals.

It would appear that the PNG male does not mind a bit of a “biff”, similarly the PNG female doesn't seem to mind watching their men “biffing”. As things began to settle down last Friday the Vice Chancellor turned up and the crowd slowly began to disperse. I ran into a couple of my students that had been right amidst the action and they had big smiles on their faces. They seemed proud to have been involved. I was glad to have the students on my side !!!

PNG – The Land of the Unexpected !!!!