A troubled land of discrete ever-warring tribes

BY JOHN FOWKE

ONGOING insecurity has required Médecins Sans Frontières to withdraw international staff from the Tari General Hospital.

“In the past few weeks, there have been repeated security incidents including threats to our staff that we cannot tolerate,” said Monique Nagelkerke, head of mission for MSF in Papua New Guinea.

I spent some three months at Tari in 2008, leaving before the expected arrival of the MSF team . Already MSF was running the long-neglected Lae Angau Hospital, PNG's second-biggest hospital.

I met the MSF advance team on their exploratory visit to Tari. At that time the Tari Hospital, which catered for a very large population had been without a full-time Medical Officer, to say nothing of specialist practitioners, for five years. This in an area where - aside from the nearby Catholic HIV/AIDS clinic - there is little NGO input in terms of health services.

Prior to the present pullout, the MSF team had already been withdrawn on one occasion after drunken locals besieged them at night.

It is all very well prating about corruption and maladministration as cardinal reasons for PNG's sad social decline, but one is forced to retort to all who cite these aspects, both Australians and Papua New Guineans, that the malaise is much more deeply-rooted.

This is a society which is telling us, by its own actions, that it is incapable of looking after itself on terms other than as a land of discrete ever-warring tribes, allowed to live in a territorial vacuum by the rest of the world.

Of course, this is not going to happen, and the interventions, which will come, will not be, as MSF's was intended to be, for the good of the people.

Comments

[Reginald Renagi]

From John Fowkes's comments, Australians must not have this idea that PNG society is the same all over the country. While it is in a general way but individually they are different. What you just read happened in the Southern Highlands. Many such incidents tend to be prevalent in the highlands provinces but not in every part of my country.

As the highlands were first discovered by Australian Kiaps in the 1930s, its overall development has been slow to keep up with the rest of PNG. Here, the majority of the people have still not been formally educated like in many coastal provinces. So it is common for the people to still practice their primitive customs and social mores. They do not care about others except themselves and their own tribe, clan,etc.

So if John is saying that the people's actions is a society by its own actions telling us it is incapable of looking after itself "... allowed to live in a territorial vacuum by the rest of the world" is correct. But this general assertion mainly applies to the highlands provinces and not so much as the rest of PNG. The people of the highlands will take another generation to get a little closer to the rest of the country who will by then, also moved and advanced into the future.

The immediate challenge now is with the highlands MPs and the few educated among the highlands people. They must at both an individual and collective levels in whatever capacity to keep telling their people to change their negative attitudes,be more civilized and friendly in their general thinking patterns.

The whole process will take some time. The general situation will overall improve in the country as people in the highlanders and elsewhere in our still backward (to Western eyes) society become better educated, we will then see the whole of PNG also changing for the better.

The highlands people in general are friendly in their own way and the sooner they realize the error of their ways the better it is for the rest of the country. They have to or be left behind by their own country men and women.

I am optimistic PNG society will eventually improve and become more affluent like its regional neighbours in future. We will only achieve thie positive outcome by having a good visionary leadership. Coupled with this, PNG will also need a proactive transformational government in future to implement a sound national educational program. It's all a matter of time.

[Laurie Meintjes]

Perhaps widespread corruption and its attendant maladministration has allowed a give-it-to-me-and-give-it-now (givim mi, na givim nau) mentality to flourish. When the system does not work and fails to deliver essential services (which includes law and order) then society inevitably breaks down and what emerges is a regime whose mandate is every man for himself. The next level is anarchy.
Just a thought.