PNG a Divided Nation

The best dam editorial I have read in PNG !!

From an editorial column in Monday’s National newspaper:

ONE of Papua New Guinea’s former attorneys-general has joined the growing ranks of those urging the establishment of a PNG Human Rights Commission. And one of Michael Gene’s strongest justifications for such a body is, in our opinion, the need to re-establish positive attitudes among our people.

When the people of this country faced the prospect of self-government and independence, we did so with a burning belief in our future. There was nothing half-hearted about the way in which our people embraced independence; it was the key to open the door to the future.

And what a prospect that future offered!

PNG would be an independent nation, one among the many who held their heads high in international meetings, and one that could become preeminent in our South Pacific region. The possibility of failure was as remote as the stars. In the intervening years, we have learned the realities of independence.

In many ways, we have been a most fortunate people, for we have never lacked friends prepared to stand up for us.

But we have been our own worst enemies. That thankful acceptance of aid, and that recognition of the commitment of our friends, has led us to become careless. Too many believe that the aid givers of today will always be there, ready and able to pump more money into the seemingly bottomless pit of our nation’s needs and our own aspirations.

Complacency has become the order of the day. With that reaction has come another. Cynicism has become a national trait. We no longer believe in our politicians. We no longer believe in the efficiency of our public servants. We dismiss undertakings at election time as empty promises.

We have wandered a very long way indeed from our determination at independence to build a better and more just PNG. If we are honest with ourselves, we’ll admit that today our nation is riddled with injustice, and with huge gulfs between many sectors of society.

A handful of Papua New Guineans is wealthy, and well able to access the many creature comforts that money can buy. A far greater number just manages to make ends meet. They form the bulk of public servants and middle level workers in private enterprise.

Beneath those two groups lie the poor of our society. This is a group virtually unknown before independence. Today, great poverty exists in our cities and in some of our provincial towns.

The urban poor are a rapidly growing reality, but like the poor the world over, they lack champions, and they lack recognition of their human rights.

The wealthy have little need to worry about their own human rights. Money and possessions guarantee influence, and influence guarantees the power to exert pressure. Day after day, the bulk of our people witnesses the unlawful pressures exerted by many of the high profile figures in the community.

There appears to be separate laws for them. Worse, some ignore the laws completely, their money and power buying freedom and purchasing immunity from prosecution or public criticism. Those who form the balance of our society have no such chance to purchase immunity.

Mr Gene referred to the rights of the people of PNG; specifically he spoke of the right to work, to access a standard of living that is able to provide for our health, food, clothing, housing and education needs. Those are not luxuries. They are the bare essentials.

We observe their absence even as we see the presence of an affluent few. Our concern for each other has diminished rapidly. Our reaction to murder, to rape and to a host of other social ills has become stunted. Often, we feel only silent thanks that we were not the victims.

And above all, we have become tolerant where we should not have tolerance. It is the tolerance born of exhaustion, of poverty and of fear, and it will destroy PNG unless it is stopped.

We need a body that can fight for those whose voices are drowned by the chatter of the cash register and the siren songs of the affluent. In such an environment, a Human Rights Commission is vital.