Gordon’s: today’s snapshot of our bleak future

BY GARY JUFFA
THE NAMORONG REPORT

I SPENT AN HOUR at Gordon’s Market the other day, a burning hot April Saturday in Port Moresby. I parked right opposite the Gordon’s Police Station around midday and waited for a friend.

As is usual with appointments in Papua New Guinea, one must be prepared to wait anywhere between 10 minutes and an entire hour. It was an hour I spent fascinated.

The population of people walking, talking and carrying on in the humid, steaming, muddy, filthy so-called market was captivating. Teeming with energy and abuzz with all manner of activity, there were traders and vendors, hawkers and street sellers, betel nut connoisseurs and buyers.

Scam artists and con artists and petty criminals also were active and everyone was a potential victim. A boom box belted out loud noise. There was no sign of authority of any sort. The order was disorder.

Across the road, a Chinese store thrived with people streaming in and out like ants, walking in empty handed and carrying out all manner of goods or, more correctly, junk, for resale. Business is booming for the Chinese traders thanks to increased liberalisation of trade, relaxing of regulatory laws to protect consumers and the introduction of an unregulated, unpoliced informal sector.

The sector was supposedly intended to benefit Papua New Guineans involved in cottage industries selling handicraft and arts and incubating their small entrepreneurial efforts.

But the real winners are the mainland Chinese traders who import container loads of cheap household products from numerous factories proliferating throughout China to resell in developing nations like Papua New Guinea.

In PNG, the Chinese traders target settlements and rural townships stretching their tentacles throughout the length and breadth of this Pacific island economy like a giant octopus leech sucking everything and anything out and transmitting the profits offshore to fund investments in Asia, Australia and New Zealand.

Other octopi are busy throughout the region, and indeed the world, as China shifts into gear in its drive for world dominance. They are taking advantage of a weakening West which is in pivotal transition, changing from a defined set of geographic nations to becoming a globalised Corporatedom, the new manor of the rich, overseeing a global population of serfs.

Back in Gordon’s Market, raw sewage and waste streamed through the market in drains carrying dirty plastic bags, and writhing naked children happily splashed under the baking Port Moresby sun as parents wearily gambled, played cards and turned their heads occasionally to scream at their offspring or to spit streaming betelnut juice anywhere, everywhere.

A drunkard stumbled through the market, miraculously weaving his way through the human traffic, a beer bottle lovingly cradled against his bare bony chest, inch long globules of mucous and blood trailing off his moustache. He was humming Elton John’s Yellow Brick Road.

Swarms of flies and other insects formed small clouds around a dead dog recently run over by a Public Motor Vehicle in the middle of the main street, its putrid juices running off towards the drain.

A man lay in a drunken stupor, snoring under a rain tree, devoid of shoes, belt and all clothes accept dirty, ragged jeans. Bored betelnut vendors played games on their mobile phones and bickered with each other.

My appointment arrived, sweating and sucking on an iceblock. I opened the car door and he climbed in.

“Yesterday I was here buying some stuff,” he said. “I went to the phone booth at the Police Station and called you to make today’s appointment. After that I went into the Police Station to see an uncle of mine. He was not there. There was no one at the station. Not a single person was there when I went in, except some small guy reporting a crime apparently an armed robbery of his tucker box at Erima.

“I was bored so I decided to watch what was happening. He was furious this small guy. Swearing and sweating. Finally someone came. I had to look carefully to realise it was a policeman, he was so scruffy. The complainant approached him but he said he was busy and said he had to drop off his wife and told him to wait. He waited. I waited.

“The small guy told me that this morning when he opened his tucker box, a man pointed a shotgun at him and took all his money. Money he had been saving up to send his son, attending University of Technology in Lae, for his ticket to come home for holidays. He said he didn’t want to give the money but another man punched him in the face and placed a knife under his chin and he thought of his children and wife and gave in and gave his money.

“Finally a police car came in. The man approached the policeman and told him about his problem. The policeman said the car had no fuel. Was he prepared to buy fuel? He said to the policeman ‘It’s your job!’ The policeman warned him not to tell him what to do, that the government does not give the station enough to buy fuel or even paper to record complaints.

“Then he went in with some of his wantoks who’d following him into the station. The man was so upset and said he knew who did it and would find him and kill him himself and walked out. No one heard him from the Police Station. No one cared.”

We drove out of Gordon’s Market into the main road to turn towards the Stadium. The road was crawling with cars of all types, mainly dilapidated PMV buses and taxis and used cars from Japan. It seems everyone from betelnut seller to babysitters have cars in Port Moresby.

The city, built to cater for a population of less than 100,000 but accommodating somewhere in the vicinity of 600,000, is reeling from population growth caused by urban drift and growing squatter settlements, lack of family planning and people flowing into the capital searching for better services or just curious about the bright lights and what it has to offer.

After almost an hour in traffic and several near-death accidents thanks to the city’s infamous taxi drivers, we made it to Koke Market towards town. At the main crossing, a CRV Honda, the carjackers’ preferred vehicle, was being held up and three youths with knives and a screwdriver had somehow stopped the female driver and her passenger and were attempting a carjacking, menacing the driver and trying to open the doors.

I stopped my car behind her and my friend and I prepared to help; other vehicles also stopped and the youths saw us and stopped and casually walked off. Too hard, car was locked; too many motorists, some of them armed.

People outside the market watched but no one did anything. The youths merely walked over to a betelnut stand, grabbed some nuts and turned around to observe. The distraught woman drove off hurriedly. Fortunately she had her car doors locked, but her courtesy to give way at a pedestrian crossing almost ending badly for her.

I saw Gordon’s Market as symbolic of PNG politics - the filth, the chaos, the lack of order, the dirty and the erratic manner in which the actors behaved reflects the nation’s state of politics.

Gordon’s Market is merely another example of what is happening throughout the entire nation where entire townships, urban and rural, villages and communities, are crumbling and decaying rapidly.

The Gordon’s Police Station is symbolic of the public service which no longer cares and which is indifferent and poorly equipped or resourced to serve the people.

While politicians purchase properties offshore and invest the nation’s wealth in foreign economies, Papua New Guinea crumbles into a state of anarchy, its people making do with what little they can, their values and morals diminishing with each regressive step, their ability to care and act for one another reduced to crude tactics for survival with the ever increasing lawlessness.

Gordon’s Market offers a snapshot of Papua New Guinea in motion. Take a trip to Gordon’s Market, park in front of the Police Station for an hour and take a look into our bleak future.

Comments

[Martin Visser]

I just have had my first trip to PNG on business, an initial workshop in preparation for a technology refresh at a government department.

We drove past Gordon's Markets (and the Police Station) between office and hotel a few times. On my next trip, I intend to visit Gordon's Markets - but with a little trepidation.

One of the national drivers said he would escort, but even then it seems a risk for a 50 year-old tall white Aussie guy like myself.

I would have thought with some "daggy old" clothes, and just 50 kina in my pocket I might be safe. What do you think?

I find it total unfathomable that I could not visit such a place in the capital city of our nearest neighbour.

I was even told not to walk the 400m from the office to the Vision City shopping mall, by myself. Unbelievable.

Maybe I should take a trip to village to see the "real" PNG.

[Tree Frog]

Beating people with a stick (or an MP) is simply not going to solve the social malaise occupying a large proportion of PNG society.

Nothing will change unless there is a seismic cultural change driven by the people themselves. It is a society's culture that models its behaviours and unfortunately what you see at Gordons is a result.

It's not too late for PNG to take a good hard look at itself. And it might help to start with the judiciary and governance structures. Em tasol.
___________

Thanks Tree Frog (which I presume is not your real name). PNG Attitude much prefers people to identify themslves, or to explain separately to the editor why this is not possible - KJ

[Colin Huggins]

Thank you Gary. That is disgraceful to read what is happening and then to view the photos.

It would be the last thing that Tourism PNG and Air Niugini would want to see. Or do they being government controlled just turn a blind eye also?

ourism brings in dollars, but no one in their right mind would step into what you have reported.

[Mrs Barbara Short]

Just a thought - In my area in Sydney the local schools, businesses and community groups took part in the Annual Clean Up Australia Day and spent time cleaning up dirty parts of the local area.

Is there an Annual Clean Up PNG Day?

For a start, the local MP needs to get the local schools involved with cleaning up Gordon's Market.

In Sydney the schools are pushing for a nude food policy and encouraging everyone to say NO to plastic bags.

Gordon's could do with a Neighbourhood Watch group too.

The local MP and the local police need to set them up.

Our local MP held a Crime Forum with the police and local residents and they all had an opportunity to discuss crime related issues and the importance of reporting offences.

[Regina Dorum]

Thank for bringing it to light, very true.

I was passing through this morning and I happen to be wondering from a different perspective. Who is the MP responsible for that area? If cars don’t kill those people there, the leaking sewer would!

And Gary, not forgetting the giant pothole enough to drown a cab on a rainy day!

Sure enough, the black holes in the brains of our so called leaders filled with power hungry greed and corruption.

[Paul Oates]

Gary, thanks for that window on part of your world.

The problem seems not to be a breakdown in authority so much as there is no authority.

[Bruce K Daosak]

Great article Gary, quite true and reflects what is happening today especially in our towns - .the no care attitude from the grassroots, authorities, politicians etc.

The filth and rubbish at the market places and in the streets show the lack of attitude and ownership the people have for their environment and life in general..

The lack of supplies and resources to assist the police force and other public service departments such as health is all too familiar, compounding an already underpaid and overworked workforce.