Attitude’s most commented upon articles in January

KEITH JACKSON

JANUARY WAS A STRANGE month for me personally – no soon had I become mobile from the last operation than I was plonked into hospital for the next. Which has left me temporarily without the use of one leg. Fortunately mobility, or the lack of it, is no restraint on the production of PNG Attitude.

January was a very good month for edgy articles, as you’ll see from the catalogue below. The top stories, as judged from your comments, have real substance and bite to them and they’re worth reading again – or for the first time if you haven’t caught up yet.

Good to see four Papua New Guinean names in the top five writers. (And we could probably add Peter Kranz to that as an honorary Melanesian.) Also, unusually, a poem features in your top selection of pieces this month. We often get comments on poetry, but rarely in enough quantity to make the bells ring.

And so to our most commented upon pieces for last month….

18 comments - Melanesian fruit pickers in Australia: the true grim story (Peter Kranz) After talking with a group of Papua New Guinean fruitpickers working in north-west Victoria under an official Australian assistance scheme, Peter produced this expose of the unconscionable conditions in which they were induced to work.

14 - On police brutality & police theft in Papua New Guinea (Ganjiki D Wayne). The PNG police can be a law unto themselves, and innocent citizens too often bear the brunt of their excesses. Ganjiki blows the whistle.

14 - Instead of banning betel nut, let’s try other ideas (Francis Nii). Banning buai may seem like a good idea for a range of health and environmental reasons but, as Francis points out, the decision is set to cost hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people their livelihoods.

14 - Fijians: Melanesians like PNGns but a class above (David Kitchnoge). “Fijians are Melanesians like us but they definitely are a class above. They are a nation of well groomed, calm and very organised individuals.” This comparison triggered an energetic debate amongst readers.

12 - Expats: Saving themselves more than serving us? (Ganjiki D Wayne). A tricky question – do expats serve in PNG to help others, help themselves or run away from something? “It's possible (they) are here because it gives them some sense of meaning and significance.”

8 - Citizens more scared of police than crims: what’s the answer? (Keith Jackson). A summary of the fascinating discussion provoked by Ganjiki Wayne’s article on police corruption and brutality. We also offered a solution.

8 - If you don’t know where you’ve come from…. (Phil Fitzpatrick). “Late last year I visited a village at the northern end of the Yuat Gorge. asked them how they came to be so far away from Wabag and living in East Sepik Province. None of them really knew.”

7 - Getting ready for Chinese money on the Okuk Highway (Terry Shelley). Will the application of billions of borrowed kina to improve PNG’s main trunk highway prove a bounty for looters, saboteurs and pirates?

7 - Haikai no renga - memories of Mosbi (Michael Dom). It’s rare for a poem to make the ’10 most commented’. Michael’s distant and wistful look at Moresby from a foreign land proved to be an exception – “Awoken at night / Stray winds bring dirty smells that / rain washes away”.

7 - Women advocates confuse gender equality & feminism (Kela Kapkora Sil Bolkin). Sil let rip against ‘pedestal’ women leaders who “espouse demagogical rhetoric and make discriminatory speeches about the opposite sex… Their actions and speeches are usually and indelibly feminist and not about gender equality at all.”

7 - Death of pioneering PNG patrol officer Jack Karukuru (Allan Tarua) One of the first Papua New Guinean patrol officers, who was to become a departmental head, Jack Karukuru, died on New Year’s eve. “Jack Karukuru was a humble man who had a big heart for this nation.”

7 - Famous Kone Tigers oval is now a sex workers den (Kela Kapkora Sil Bolkin). The ground that boasted great PNG rugby league names like Clarrie Burke, John Kaputin, Sean Dorne and Dadi Mahuru Toka has become a sleazy venue for public sex and drug consumption.

Comments

[David Kitchnoge]

Colin - being a bush boy, I arrived at Dreger with nil swimming skills.

But I didn't need swimmers and other safety gear to learn the art.

We went down to Dreger wharf one afternoon after school and some idiot gave me a gentle nudge from behind while I was looking into the sea from the edge of the jetty.

I fell in and literally had to sink or swim - and I swam.

Rest, as they say, is history.

[Colin Huggins]

Well thank you John for your kinds words of support.
The Pindiu Lawn Tennis comps. come and go, like dust into the dustbins, but they were fun. After all what else could we do to amuse ourselves in those days?

Worked 5 days of the week, the kiaps and agric. fellows were not so lucky, they had field operations to attend to, but by God when they got back they enjoyed themselves, and why not?

Those based in Port Moresby lived in a different World.

Radio Australia if you were lucky. Southern papers a week late. Not too good when trying to have a bet on fields at Flemington, Randwick etc, with the Lae bookie! All a hit and miss affair, trying to get via Radio ABC the fields on a Friday night - two of us taking turns to get the names, me the evens and the other the odd numbers. Quite often we ended up with the same horse names. Fun eh?

Still Jack Smith, the mayor of Finschhafen, and our outside contact with the "Sked" and I had a good period of betting with the "illegal" bookmakers, and they paid up.

The Hurrells of Wau and people like Jack Smith who were WW2 veterans, Jack Smith was with the RAF in the UK were the great people of TPNG as it was then. Of course there were many more like these blokes, not the "Johnny Comes later" varieties.

I have careful noted David Kitchnoge's memories of his 4 years at Dregerhaffen, then a high school. Swimming around to the off shore islands. I wonder what Dregerhaffen school looks like now?

1964/1969. It was the old US built place of the WW2 era, new so-called brick buildings were placed there. The students still slept in the old hospital buildings. The toilets were pit things over the first lagoon.

Finally, and KJ must admit I was a good swimmer and surfer in my youthful days, the ASOPA swimming male relay was far too good in competitions for the other Sydney colleges. We lapped the fools. Much applause.

Now back to David K and his exploits. In 1964 I decided that all kids, some I suspect as old as I was, would learn to swim.

So into Lae I went on a PLANE, yep in those days Finsch did have planes DC3's on the "Lae-Rabaul" milk run as it was called flying.

Now David, being a swimmer, I decided all my class would learn to swim. So into Lae I went and at some shop I purchased 35 pairs of swimmers - all RED - budgie smugglers as worn by the Hon. Tony Abbott.
Swim these kids from the highlands learnt - the Aussie - Murray Rose freestyle.

Two fellows, students, one I recall was called Yalu, from a coastal village, about my age!!!. I decided we would swim around two islands.

This we did, outside the reefs, battered and bruised we may have been but we did it. Took seemingly ages and scary - shark bait.

I think and now look at photos of small outposts, what has improved since Independence 1975?

Hospitals, Education, Roads and the list goes on. C'mon somebody PLEASE tell me.

[Joe Wasia]

Thanks Keith and the great commentators of PNG Attitude.

I believe the number of readers and visitors to the site will exceed the given fingers.

Guys keep up with the great job.

[Peter Kranz]

Keith - Maybe we could have a brief indication of viewership numbers over the last year or so to see if the criticisms by John and Colin are justified.
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Google Analytics reports that readership increased from an average of nearly 800 unique visitors a day to over 1,300 (+62%) between January 2012 and January 2013. This did not count repeat visits from the same readers in the course of a day which takes total daily readership to 1,500-1,800, although it has been as high as 4,000+ when an issue is running hot - KJ

[Peter Kranz]

Keith - thanks for designating me as an honorary Melanesian! I regard that with true pride.

But the fruitpickers are in NW Victoria (not SW NSW).
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Fixed! - KJ