Melanesian Way: the sacred pig whose time is past

JOHN FOWKE

I CAN TELL YOU THE REASON for the story of declining services, declining prosperity and the declining well-being of the people of PNG. It’s very simple. As coined by a group of Papua New Guinean intellectuals many years ago, the problem is the Melanesian Way.

There. It’s been said. The big, sacred pig which has loomed in the background, not named but recognised by many. The concept touted as a uniquely appropriate philosophy and rationale for social management.

The real nature of the beast in modern-day PNG is not positive in today’s complex society. Tackle this elephant, PNG, or at least recognise it for all its facets, positive and negative. Of the latter there are many.

Recognise it for the handicap it has become in the struggle for modernity and fair distribution of the nation’s wealth.

Three decades of increasing puzzlement, critical editorials and irate declarations by political leaders will have been three wasted decades unless the whole experience is realistically appraised.

That and an appropriate antidote developed to the wounds on the body of what is still a young nation.

The Melanesian Way is the way of a fragmented multi-tribal society. It’s a Way which facilitated the existence of such societies whilst they remained divided, multi-lingual, local, warlike and competitive. In PNG’s case, this was a society that existed successfully and independently for tens of thousands of years.

Within this society, land sufficient for the clan’s subsistence needs was the single and prime fact of life. The clan’s land must be protected and opportunistically extended. Without land and hunting and fishing resources sufficient to its needs, the clan or tribe was nothing.

Such a condition would occur as the result of bad planning by leaders, inept political moves and physical weakness in battle. The result would be annihilation of the clan or tribe.

The anger of ancestral spirits would haunt the remaining, fugitive remnants of the people, no matter that they might be absorbed into other clans sympathetic to them. It was the absolute end, and such an end was never to be contemplated.

From when infants lay at their mother’s breast, they learned that, within the clan, all were brothers and sisters. Outside the clan, all were enemies. Within the clan was solidarity and trust. Outside the clan was the enemy.

Thus evolved a set of ethics and moral appreciations that, within the overarching customary system, provided a practical set of safeguards and an acceptable level of justice.

A dispute-resolution system evolved, which, while often draconian and violent, worked within the culture. When a lie was told to some other clan or a pig stolen from an enemy, these were not crimes, nor even misdemeanors, to one’s clan brothers. Only within the clan were such acts classed as crime.

Disputes arising in the clan could be fatally disruptive, and a long-winded methodology involving mediation, negotiation and the payment of some form of compensation-in-kind evolved.

Even though this was sometimes inconclusive, and inevitably long-drawn-out, it was preferable to fighting within the clan, weakening it in the eyes of neighbours and providing opportunity for attack.

Here, then, is a concise outline of The Melanesian Way. It served the people well, providing a functional system of social security for so long as they remained out of communication with the developing industrialized, class-based, nationalistic polities of the rest of the world,

But ‘The Way” is demonstrably not compatible with the course of modernization in which PNG has now been engaged for 70 years.  It is not compatible with the rise of a new nation amongst a competing world of nations, not tribes and not clans.

The tribal ethical matrix, where honesty is confined to a limited number of relationships and by nature encourages nepotism, combined with the propensity to talk and procrastinate rather than to face difficult problems, constitutes the sacred cow that too few want to recognise.

It is time to kill the sacred cow. To look at life straight in the eye. To begin to keep pace with the rest of the world.

Directness, honesty, discipline and responsibility in government are the marks of an effective, fair society. Social history and ancient customs belong in the curriculums, museums and storybooks, to be honoured for their positive contribution to the past, not in their capacity to manage a modern nation.

The Way will remain in locations where the peoples’ representatives are unable to provide a modern counterpart for as long as present conditions of corruption, nepotism, laziness and outright theft from the state remain conditions of life.

But for the educated, rising generation of thinkers, who must by their generational effort bring the ship PNG into line within the great, competing convoy of modernizing, industrializing societies, it will be a great weakness perpetuated if it does not address the antiquated set of values represented by the Melanesian Way which are plainly at the root of today’s widespread social deprivation.

Comments

[Peter Kranz]

This description of the "Melanesian way" is not unique, in fact it is a pretty standard description of social connections and community responsibilities over many cultures and for around all of recorded history.

And it's not special to Melanesia. It's found in ancient societies from many thousands of years ago. It's also the basis of the Jewish hegemony in the Bible.

Levis Rule! OK!

Most civilisations grew beyond the tribal model and transposed this on to the nation or state. Mind you this wasn't much better and led to the butchering of the world by European interests, all in the name of 'civilisation'.

Maybe it's time to move beyond this, and accept the need for a greater spirit of cooperation and identity.

Tribes will die, regions may grow, States may prosper or perish, but "The Way" is dead in this international and interconnected world.

Europe accepted this over 100 years ago. Germany or Italy would not exist today if tribal differences had not been subjugated to the greater good. (The UK and France as well)

So I agree with John Fowke. You can't run a 21st century country on the basis of tribal divisions, relationships and favours.

The 'Melanesian Way' is at worst a lie, and at least a cop-out.

Get real PNG!

[Andy McNabb]

JF is correct in his view that fear and loathing of another clan still perpetuates.

I work at the LNG project at Tari. Many workers have to walk to work and some have long distances to walk.

They have expressed concerns about walking to work, and claiming they had to start off very early in the morning.

When I deeply questioned them about this subject, I discovered they were not concerned about the walking per se (they said they have been doing it all their lives), but that they had to walk through rival clans who sometimes attacked them over some long standing inter-clan dispute.

It was a three way affair, two neighboring clans warring with a third intruding clan.

PNG is still not a united nation, but a well divided one where fear and loathing are the currency of life.

I have lived in may parts of PNG and while some clans do peacefully co-exist, I have detected inter- clan fear and loathing to be fairly wide spread.

My Papua New Guinean wife has given up on her own country simply because her own clan have not acquired an understanding of living in peace.

[Phil Fitzpatrick]

I think the way that John Fowke describes the Melanesian Way makes it eminently suitable for running a nation.

Transfer all those clan values to the national stage and you have a system for setting up a caring and prosperous society.

The trick, of course, is the transference.

[Corney K. Alone]

My parents and tumbuna's taught that honesty, accountability and responsibility traits that were "not boxed traits within my own ilk". So I don’t subscribe to that vew indicated by John Fowke.

They emphasised that, these traits were universal in the Haus Men/and Women & Children - even if they didn't know if some other people existed on the other sides of the mountains and sky limits that surrounded them.

They pointed to the sky and said, someone up there was watching them all the time. Now, I clearly understand who they meant.

People were drilled at the hausmen never to steal pigs, someone else’s pandanus nuts, or from any one else’s garden. Those that did so and caught were dealt with accordingly.

Theft did occur in some instances –but with reasons. They were for owed debt, failure by another tribe and/or clan to honour customary obligations. That prompted dialogue for final resolutions.

I did observe and sat through a good number of dialogues – mostly interspersed with parables and indirect talks (took a very long time though) – but in the end, consensus was reached.

Seasoned negotiators from both sides knew exactly what was said and replied. Clarifications for parables and picture languages were also sought if the other party didn’t understand what the other party meant. The dialogue would continue on and on until a compromise was reached.

Mediators from another clan/tribe played their roles in this type to talks too.

Today’s "assumed label of Melanesian Way as an exist strategy to cover graft, theft and outright corruption is a “manufactured lie“ – it is something that is foreign at least to the place where I was born and raised.

We do have traditional customs that worked for the common good - caring for the elderly, respect for the elders (not blind loyalty).

[Tess Newton Cain]

Hmmm, throw away cultural, political and social beliefs and systems developed over centuries because the principles introduced 70 years ago aren't working...

Or acknowledge that PNG (and other Melanesian countries) are doing modern state management and the doing is complex, challenging and sometimes controversial, not just in PNG or Melanesia but everywhere - all countries are developing.

The time for simplistic 'stop that do this' approaches is long gone

[Mrs Barbara Short]

Wow!
There you have it boys and girls!
What do you think? Is this the Truth!
But I'm sure their in also PNG "culture" - art, music, dance, etc, well worth keeping.