Keith Jackson & Friends: PNG ATTITUDE

PNG political activists to defend ‘benchmark’ defamation case

KEITH JACKSON

SOCIAL media and political activists Noel Anjo Kolao and Sonja Barry Ramoi have instructed Port Moresby lawyer Tony Christie Waisi (pictured) to defend them in defamation proceedings filed against them in the PNG National Court by prime minister Peter O’Neill.

Interim orders have been obtained by Mr O’Neill’s lawyer, Tiffany Twivey, restraining Mr Anjo and Mrs Ramoi from publishing defamatory imputations against the prime minister in mainstream media and social media pending the hearing and determination of the proceedings on Thursday.

The case has been characterised by some social media activists as an attempt to suppress free speech in PNG, although media watchdog Pacific Freedom Forum believes these fears are unfounded.

Fears about social media reform in PNG unfounded, says watchdog

RADIO NEW ZEALAND INTERNATIONAL

A PACIFIC media watchdog, the Pacific Freedom Forum says fears about the Papua New Guinea government's proposed cybercrime policy are unfounded.

Some bloggers and other internet users are concerned the proposed policy could go too far in policing social media, and be used to block criticism of government.

But the co-chair of the forum, Titi Gabi (pictured), said the forum is working closely with cabinet to ensure freedom of expression remains.

Social media commentators fear crackdown by PNG government

KEITH JACKSON

WRITER and commentator Martyn Namorong says he fears the Papua New Guinea government is moving to exert control over the social media and crack down on critics like himself.

Mr Namorong told his Twitter followers early yesterday morning that “due to defamation cases being taken against several online I have officially shut down my blog as of 12 am tonight”.

It was the blog, Namorong Report, that first projected Namorong as one of PNG’s most popular and respected political and social commentators.

Marking the 50th anniversary of a sometimes scurrilous newsletter

KEITH JACKSON

FIFTY years ago today, on the bar of the Chimbu Club, appeared a single sheet of paper under the rough-hewn masthead, Kundiawa News.

The newsletter had been typed on the back of a kiaps’ census form – and it was a joke perpetrated by me, at the time a 19-year old schoolteacher.

The main story, under the headline ‘Kundiawa Scandal Rocks New Guinea’, related how this small isolated township had become notorious worldwide because of some outrage which the item never made clear.

Over succeeding months, however, the Kundiawa News developed beyond a put-on to emerge as a fortnightly 16-page newsletter recording the events, tribulations and issues of the Chimbu (now Simbu) region of the PNG Highlands.

Under the stewardship of Murray Bladwell and me, it published 50 issues over a period of two years before we were both assigned to other places and other duties.

Now, half a century later, the Kundiawa News is a museum piece but it remains a detailed and often intimate record of the expatriate lifestyle during that period of Australia’s administration of what we called “the Territory”.

The originals of its 50 issues (its circulation peaked at more than 200 copies with a couple of specials printing about 500) are now with the National Library in Canberra, offering researchers a glimpse into the mindset and attitudes of Australian colonisers in the mid-20^th Century.

Over the next two years, PNG Attitude will bring you regular insights from the old Kundiawa News and take an occasional look at Highlands’ life and times 50 years ago.

New film: POM General's maternity ward was like Dante's Inferno

AUSTRALIA NETWORK NEWS

TWO girls from Papua New Guinea and Cambodia feature in an award-winning Australian director's critically acclaimed film about the lives of girls around the world.

Rebecca Barry had wanted to make a film about the unique challenges faced by girls around the world, but it wasn't until she had faced the 2009 Pacific tsunami while in Samoa that she started working on the idea.

"It really kind of kicked me into action that I had to really focus on the important stuff and make a film about girls and why is it like this and celebrate their potential through making a film," she says.

Ms Barry's film follows the lives of six girls. Each has a different story to tell and two of the most powerful stories are from Cambodia and Papua New Guinea.

Ms Barry says she was drawn to PNG as it is Australia's closest neighbour. "It's a very close plane ride and you arrive and it's this other world", she says.

Opisa Pokep – a career tracking the modern history of PNG

PHIL FITZPATRICK

Opisa Pokep, OBE: Laip bilong wanpela polisman by Bernard Minol, UniBooks, Port Moresby, 2011, 110 pages, ISBN 9789980945310.  I bought my copy from Masalai Press via Abe Books for US$24 plus postage.

THIS delightful book is probably the first Tok Pisin book-length text published by UPNG Press (UniBooks). But I’m not sure about that and neither is the author, Bernard Minol.

Opisa Pokep is the author’s tubuna and the book celebrates his life, and in doing so, the lives of all the past members of the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary.

It begins in 1957 when Pokep left school after completing grade six and joins the police force.  He trained at the Sogeri Police Depot and then spent six months at Tufi Patrol Post before being transferred to his first long-time posting at Mumeng in Kukukuku country.  In those days Mumeng had one kiap and ten policemen.

Leonard’s story - conflict, complexity, barbarity & courage

KRISTIAN LASSLETT | Foreword to Brokenville

Brokenville by Leonard Fong Roka, Pacifica Sene, 248 pages. Available from Amazon in paperback for $9.50 here. Kindle edition for  $3.00, here

NEVER has a war, so unique in its geographical proximity and ferocity, attracted so little empirical attention.

Of course, much has been written in academic forums about the Bougainville conflict, but rarely are these works based on primary sources, or indeed rich lived experience. As a result, to this day, an epic event seared in the memory of the South Pacific remains obscure.  

Yet vivid memories and insightful analyses frequently circulate on Bougainville itself, insights in great need of formal recording, so that we can collectively participate in a process of learning and understanding.

But telling the history of this important Melanesian struggle is difficult, only those rare few with a deep reservoir of relevant cultural knowledge are astutely positioned to talk about the war on Bougainville and its foreboding human consequences.

Revisiting Russell Soaba’s first & timeless novel ‘Wanpis’

PHIL FITZPATRICK

I RECENTLY got hold of the 2012 UPNG reprint of Russell Soaba’s first novel Wanpis.  The original was published by the Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies and Kristen Press in 1977.

For those not familiar with Tok Pisin, the title refers to someone who is lonely or alone, like an orphan.

I lent my battered old copy of the original to someone years ago and they never returned it.

Mind you, I had to order a copy of the reprint from Masalai Press in the USA.  My emails to the UPNG Bookshop went unanswered and the couple of times that I dropped in there I found the doors locked.

Bad timing on my part, perhaps, but discouraging, nevertheless.

I believe that people trying to get hold of Michael Dom’s new book of poetry are having similar problems.  Amazon can’t seem to rouse anyone there either.

Anyway, back to Wanpis.

Michael Dom poetry collection is latest entry in Book of the Year

KEITH JACKSON

An entry in The Crocodile Prize
Ok Tedi Mining Book of the Year Award

At Another Crossroads: A Collection of Poems by Michael Dom, University of Papua New Guinea Press, paperback, 162 pages, ISBN 9980879211, available from UPNG Bookshop, K50, or from Amazon, $18.01 ($28.48 incl postage)

MICHAEL DOM, one of Papua New Guinea’s most talented and prolific poets, is the latest writer to submit an entry in the newly-established Ok Tedi Mining Book of the Year award within the Crocodile Prize national literary contest.

At Another Crossroads is the first published collection of Michael’s poems and it joins books by Sil Bolkin, Leonard Roka (two) and Francis Nii in vying for PNG’s latest literary award.

Michael, who has has already won a Crocodile Prize for Poetry in 2012, is well known to PNG Attitude readers for his lucid, direct and honest approach to his craft whether he is writing poetry or commenting on the affairs of the day.

Why didn’t the Pharaohs build pyramids in Papua New Guinea?

PHIL FITZPATRICK

I ONCE GOT STUCK out in the middle of the Great Victoria Desert north of Maralinga in central Australia when a power grid, represented by the lines of standing stones that I had come to survey, overnight sucked the juice out of both batteries in my diesel Landcruiser.

According to thewriter and airline pilot Bruce Cathie the stones had been set up by Roman legionnaires transported to the site by aliens in flying saucers.

The police from Coober Pedy who rescued me (there was just enough juice in the batteries to raise them by radio) told me about other strange things they’d heard about in the desert, including ancient Dutch settlements and even more ancient Chinese ones.

There seems to be a plethora of this stuff in Australia.  I’ve heard about stone harbours in Queensland built by ancient Phoenician seafarers but I’ve never heard about similar things in Papua New Guinea.  At least not until I read Gordon Saville’s 1974 book, ‘King’ of Kiriwina (Leo Cooper Ltd, London).

Saville was a quixotic Englishman who spent nine months on Kiriwina in 1943 as the Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit (ANGAU) kiap.

27 evocative short stories about the way PNG once was

KEITH JACKSON

Sivarai, by Chips Mackellar, Pukpuk Publishing, 2013, 302 pp, illus, ISBN-10: 0987132180; ISBN-13: 978-0987132185. $25 + postage. Order from Bill McGrath’s Pacific Book House here or from Kindle for $3.02 as an e-book here

IT TURNS OUT – and, when the truth dawned some years ago, this caught me by surprise – that the great storytellers about Papua New Guinea in colonial times have been the kiaps.

Of course, as patrol officers, they had much fecund material to work with, but I always reckoned the schoolteachers, being formally educated in how to instruct others in the English language and its grammar and vocabulary, as well as having plenty of time to themselves in those remote bush schools, might have gravitated to the role of tribal chroniclers.

Well, with some notable exceptions such as Trevor Shearston (Something in the Blood) Eric Johns and his most useful histories, and a small number of others, it didn’t happen that way.

Instead we got the rich, evocative and so readable offerings of authors like Jack Hides (writing in the 1930s), Ian Downs, James Sinclair, Phil Fitzpatrick, Bob Cleland, John Fowke, Michael O’Connor, Laurie Meintjes and many more. We also got kiaps’ wives (Pamela Martin, Libby Bowen et al) recording the inspiration of being immersed in a new and exotic culture as well as the travails of the outstation.

An interactive electronic book on the spectacular art of PNG

SUSAN COCHRANE

Living Art in Papua New Guinea by Susan Cochrane, produced and distributed by Contemporary Arts Media / Artfilms as a two DVD set. You can purchase the book online here

IT’S AN ART BOOK FOR THE DIGITAL AGE and is the culmination of 30 years research, writing and curating activities in Papua New Guinea. It has morphed from its original concept as an illustrated art book into an interactive electronic book.

The aim of Living Art is to enrich people’s imagination and visual experience with the living arts of Papua New Guinea. It presents artworks and cultural performances that are astonishing in their dramatic visual effect and virtuosity.

A disturbing novel based on a disturbingly true Melanesian story

MARIA CRAWFORD | Financial Times

The People in the Trees by Hanya Yanagihara, Atlantic Books, 384 pages. Available from Amazon here – hard cover $17.04, paperback $12.18, Kindle e-book $9.75

IN 1996, THE NOBEL PRIZE-WINNING VIROLOGIST Dr Carleton Gajdusek was charged in the US with child sex abuse and later served a year in prison.

His victim was one of more than 50 children he had “adopted” during research trips to Papua New Guinea and Micronesia. It is on his true story that Hanya Yanagihara bases her disturbing debut novel.

Reflections of blogging & social media in PNG – Pt 1

NOU VADA

A FEW WEEKS AGO, I, as well as many people in Papua New Guinea and abroad read with unease and disgust at how one of PNG’s most prolific and bravest voices in social media was threatened into silence and submission.

Blogger Martyn Namorong was told at knifepoint to cease and desist in his independent assistance of the country’s political Opposition in calling out the national government over a number of controversial dealings it has been involved in.

The story took me back two years; to a time when the social media landscape in PNG was very much different from now.

I remember sitting on a creaky seat in the main lecture theatre at the University of Papua New Guinea one night, listening to the leader of the Australian Greens Party (whoever the hell he was) give a special lecture on the Party and its policy for environmental development in the region.

A review of social media activism in PNG in 2013

CHARLES GILICHIBI | Goilala District Development Forum | Extracts

TO ALL THE WONDERFUL ANGELS of change in social media and in particular, Facebook, you’ve done wonderfully well in 2013. Never underestimate your contributions in the year that was.

Progress is built on the stock of past performance and without what we have collectively accomplished in 2013, we may not aspire to greater achievements in 2014.

If we hadn’t tried to blow the whistle on corruption, keep the heat on bad leadership and mobilise communities to action, then we would have failed. In our individual and collective capacities we have tried and here are a few successes.

Arawa Bulletin revivified to bring people the news once again

LEONARD FONG ROKA | Bougainville 24

A HANDFUL OF BOUGAINVILLEANS are fighting time to revive the newspaper of their childhood which disseminated information to the people of Bougainville.

The Arawa Bulletin was established in the late 1970s by Australian journalist Ray Smart while living in Arawa, the capital of Bougainville.

During the crisis of 1988-90, the Bulletin sold well under the leadership of its then managing editor and publisher, Carrie Kablean, who had joined in 1986.

The paper was published weekly from December 1978 until it closed due to the Bougainville war in March 1990, when Ms Smart was evacuated from the island.

Sil Bolkin’s ‘The Flight of Galkope’ is launched in Canberra

CRAWFORD SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY | Australian National University

THE PNG HIGH COMMISSION IN CANBERRA was yesterday the scene of the much-awaited launch of Kela Kapkora Sil Bolkin’s book, The Flight of Galkope.

Sil was born in the Galkope area of Simbu Province in Papua New Guinea. He studied to become a Catholic priest but quit soon after completing his philosophical studies and attended the University of Papua New Guinea.

He has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Social Development and Anthropology and is now studying policy and governance at Crawford School of Public Policy at The Australian National University.

A son of the Galkope, Sil Bolkin spent several years trekking through his traditional homeland talking to people about their origins. The primary focuses of his enquiries were the traditional men’s houses, where elders and sages of the Galkope recounted, interpreted and handed down stories from the past.

Through these old men it was possible to delve back several hundred years into the mists of time and memory to the very moments of the inception of the Galkope as a distinct people and nation.

Can Mr Namah rely on social media to reach the people?

KEITH JACKSON

YOU WOULD HAVE TO BET that the decision by Papua New Guinea opposition leader Belden Namah not to deal with mainstream media and instead rely on social media to get out his message won’t last long. Quite simply, the numbers won't be there.

So what do we know about the audience reach of social media in PNG? While reliable statistics are hard to come by, a quick internet scan reveals that, compared with the tried and true mainstream media of press, radio and television, Facebook, Twitter and blogs are going to struggle to accumulate comparable audiences.

For example, the three most popular blogs about PNG (PNG Blogs, PNG Attitude and PNG Mine Watch in that order), top out at around around 40,000 unique visitors a month with PNG Exposed and Masalai a few steps behind them. In terms of typical daily usage, if PNG Attitude is a guide, this represents probably 2-3 thousand people (which can double if an issue is running hot).

Calls for additional media controls in PNG are very disturbing

PETER KRANZ

IN RECENT DAYS there have been two interesting - nay disturbing - moves in the relationship between the Papua New Guinea government and the media.

First, our old friend Belden Namah has said he is boycotting traditional media briefings in favour of social media because he doesn't think the mainstream media is giving him a fair go.

Well maybe that's his choice, but I don't think social media will give him the same reach as radio and television in PNG if he solely relies on the 100,000 or so people who actively participate in social media compared to the few million that watch TV and listen to radio.

Gould’s birds of paradise still resplendent after all these years

JAMES COCKINGTON | Sydney Morning Herald

THE REMARKABLE JOHN GOULD was a taxidermist by training (famous for having once preserved an entire giraffe) and an entrepreneur by nature. Proof is that his lithographic prints are as much in demand today as they were when produced in the 19th century.

The fact that admirers of his art are happy to pay more than $10,000 for a single example is not surprising. They were expensive at the time. He used the best paper and the finest printing process and charged appropriately.

In the case of his final work, Birds of New Guinea, these were sold by subscription in 25 instalments, 320 prints in total that were usually bound by the buyer in five volumes.

Gould understood the power of the limited edition. Only 220 sets of prints were produced, each one coloured by hand. This massive project started in 1875 and was completed in 1888 by Richard Bowdler Sharpe after Gould died in 1881.

It is still possible to buy a complete edition of five bound volumes. The usual asking price is around $100,000, depending on condition and binding.

It's also possible to buy the individual prints for a few thousand dollars each.

Louis Kissajukian of the Antique Print & Map Room in Sydney recently obtained a series of 35 of the most popular prints, sold with original letterpress descriptions.

AAP editor understands what Aussies want to know about PNG

KEITH JACKSON

IT’S HEARTENING TO KNOW that the man who axed the AAP press agency in Papua New Guinea after 60 years fine service has such a firm grasp on what Australians are interested in when it comes to their nearest neighbour.

Australian Associated Press editor-in-chief Tony Gillies told Radio Australia that ‘most Australians were concerned mainly with asylum seeker issues, rascals and Australians getting into trouble in Papua New Guinea’.

By this definition Australians have no interest in Kokoda, business, Bougainville, Papua New Guineans, political developments, corruption, travel, sport, aid, trade and the many other ties and issues that bind our two nations together.

PNG condemned for standing down reporters critical of O’Neill

REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS

REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS condemns the abusive measures taken against three respected journalists with the state-owned National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) because of news coverage critical of the prime minister that the government regarded as “biased” and reflecting “opposition viewpoints”.

“NBC’s statement about an alleged ‘breach of standing NBC editorial policy guidelines and failing to adhere to instructions’ will put pressure on the media to censor themselves, as will the prime minister’s personal warning to media carrying ‘false or defamatory reports against the government’,” Reporters Without Borders said.

“We regret that NBC complied so readily with orders that clearly flout the principle of editorial independence. The virtual dismissal of these journalists has exposed the fragility of public media independence and freedom of information.

Mr Pip & the weight of expectations on Lloyd Jones

LLOYD JONES | Sydney Morning Herald

I SAW THE RUSHES of Mr Pip for the first time on board director Andrew Adamson's boat, moored off Pidia, a picture-postcard village in Central Bougainville.

A banana boat had delivered me, skipping over purple water as deep as a canyon.

On a previous trip, on another banana boat, piloted by broken-toothed Carmelita Tibola who plays Miss Havisham in Andrew's adaptation of my novel Mister Pip, I had seen men in outriggers paddle after a vast number of dolphins chasing a shoal of tuna into shallower water.

The passage of time - moon-landings, Middle-East wars, the great economic crisis, Putin, Obama - rarely impinges on this world.

AAP closes PNG news bureau after 60 years

EOIN BLACKWELL* | AAP

THE NATIONAL NEWS BUREAU Australian Associated Press has closed its office in Papua New Guinea, ending a near 60-year permanent presence.

Announcing the closure yesterday, AAP editor in chief Tony Gillies said coverage of Australia's northern neighbour would continue through a network of freelance reporters and photographers, while AAP staff will be on standby to enter PNG as news developments warrant.

"Our decision to close our Port Moresby office was not taken lightly, particularly as it has been a part of AAP's news operation since the 1950s," Mr Gillies said.

Physician turned novelist produces a PNG thriller

KEITH JACKSON

South Sea Gold, a novel by Keith Dahlberg. Amazon $12.15 (paperback), Kindle $3.00, ISBN -13: 978-1484991992, CreateSpace 2013. Order from Amazon here

KEITH DAHLBERG IS QUITE A GUY. He worked for 15 years as a physician with the American Baptist Church in Myanmar and Thailand, and then 30 years in private medical practice among the miners, managers, and drifters in the silver mining district of Idaho USA.

After retiring from practice, he worked as a supply doctor (what we call a locum) in America and abroad, including in the Eastern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea and in Myanmar, and Thailand.

He has a real claim to fame as being one of the first medical responders in the Cambodian refugee crisis of 1979.

Conlon’s coven: A meddlesome bunch of kiaps & poets

The Backroom Boys by Graeme Sligo, $34.99, 416 pp, Big Sky Publishing 2012, ISBN 9781921941122

THE BACKROOM BOYS is the remarkable, but little known, story of how a varied group of talented intellectuals, drafted into the Australian Army in the dark days of 1942, provided high-level policy advice to Australia’s most senior soldier, General Blamey, and through him to the government for the remainder of the war and beyond.

This band of academics, lawyers and New Guinea patrol officers formed a unique military unit, the Directorate of Research and Civil Affairs, under the command of an eccentric and masterful string-puller, Alf Conlon.

The Directorate has been depicted as a haven for underemployed poets or meddlesome soldier-politicians.

BCL introduces information-based Bougainville blog

BOUGAINVILLE COPPER LIMITED

BOUGAINVILLE COPPER LIMITED (BCL) has today launched a blog that features articles about Bougainville, news of company activities and writing by Bougainvilleans.

The blog – Bougainville 24 – is an important step in BCL’s intent to provide more information about its own activities and about Bougainville itself.

The blog will cover a broad range of topics including the arts, Bougainvillean culture, current affairs, the environment, literature, education, history, transport and more.

A Bougainville writer of true worth in the literary canon

KEITH JACKSON

‘Moments in Bougainville’ by Leonard Fong Roka, Pukpuk Publications 2013, ISBN 9780987132154. Available from Amazon, paperback, $7.60. http://www.amazon.com/Moments-Bougainville-Collection-Short-Stories/dp/0987132156

LEONARD FONG ROKA (‘Captain Bougainville’ as author Phil Fitzpatrick jocularly refers to him) yields to no one in his desire to tell the story his way and sometimes the going is not for the faint-hearted.

The PNG Attitude blog, where much of the author’s writing appears, has managed a number of important milestones in its seven-year history, and identifying Roka as a latent literary talent has been amongst the most significant of them.

Here, in his second book, Moments in Bougainville (short stories this time following his successful volume of poetry, The Pomong U’tau of Dreams), Roka offers 16 stories of war and love that derive in the main from the Bougainville civil war that raged for most of the 1990s.

Mr Pip in Bougainville makes for a splendid movie

KATE MEAD | Fairfax NZ News

RAWIRI PARATENE SPENT HIS FIRST NIGHT in Papua New Guinea in police headquarters with Andrew Adamson.

The pair were not there as law breakers, mind, but for the rather frightening reason that the 2011 Japanese tsunami had just struck and the Pacific island was vulnerable.

Paratene and Adamson were safer in this police house, located high on a hill, than if they had stayed in their previous dwelling.

A mission to articulate what makes us Bougainvillean

LEONARD FONG ROKA

THERE ARE A NUMBER OF CRIMES against human rights that Bougainville has been subjected to under the ruling state of Papua New Guinea.

Many Bougainvilleans who search deeper into the problems of their island home are broadly categorising the crimes under exploitation, indoctrination and genocide.

In the many exchanges of discourses we hold daily, I often talk about writing to educate Bougainvilleans to see the fateful trend in which our island is heading.

A novel and a biography: Two new books by David Wall

COMPLEX QUESTIONS OF COLONIAL RULE

Sepik Blu Longpela Muruk [Kindle Edition] by David Andrew de Berigny Wall; Amazon, $2.00; Kindle: $2.00 (includes free international wireless delivery via Amazon Whispernet); 168 pp

IN THE SECLUSION of pre-independent and post-independent Papua New Guinea, we find a group of expatriates, from an eclectic yet progressive Dutch priest to the money grabbing John Pietro.

Among them is James Ward, an Australian Malaria Control Officer in the East Sepik District where this story begins.

James Ward, in confronting his own values and those of the New Guineans, is on a humorous path of life, at once real and imagined.

How the Pacific war boosted Australian anthropology

GEOFFREY GRAY, DOUG MUNRO & CHRISTINE WINTER | Extract

Scholars at War: Australasian Social Scientists, 1939-1945, Geoffrey Gray, Doug Munro and Christine Winter (eds), ANU E Press, Australian National University, 2012. Available online at http://epress.anu.edu.au 

THE EXPERIENCE OF individual anthropologists during the Pacific War accelerated and consolidated the emergence of anthropology as an applied discipline.

Australia had long had an interest in Papua (an Australian territory from 1906; until then it had been administered by Britain) and New Guinea (a German territory until 1914 when Australia occupied it on the declaration of war, and then, from 1921, a League of Nations ‘C’ Mandate under Australian administration).

PNG part of Qld? Nearly happened; would've been ugly

PHIL FITZPATRICK

THE AUSTRALIAN STATE OF QUEENSLAND has got an absolutely horrific history when it comes to the treatment of its indigenous people.

When the pastoralists began moving north into what was to become Queensland, they pursued practises which were designed to exterminate the Aboriginal population.  They continued to do this for over 50 years.

They were aided and abetted by the notorious Native Police Force, which was made up of Aborigines from the remnants of the native tribes.  

 

Braving the media bright lights for the good of PNG

BARBARA SHORT

I WANT TO THANK Paul Oates for his article about how the media needs to try to better understand Papua New Guinea. On Tuesday I played my small part in this effort.

Sitting under bright lights in my lounge-room and on the back verandah for about three hours, I was questioned about my time in PNG, and especially about my time at Keravat.

This discussion included the writing of Tuum Est, my book on the history of Keravat, the problems that beset the school and its final rejuvenation thanks to AusAID.

Tony Radford’s medical memoir straddles two worlds

KEITH JACKSON | The Australian

Singsings, Sutures And Sorcery: A 50-year Experience In Papua New Guinea By Anthony J. Radford. Fairfield Press, 430pp, $45

THIS COMPELLING FUSION of memoir and compendium relates a bush doctor's struggles against disease, superstition and bureaucracy, with the backdrop being the vast, colourful canvas of colonial Papua New Guinea - or "the Territory", as we called it in those now distant days.

Many works of recollection have been written by Australians who lived and worked in the Territory of Papua and New Guinea before independence in 1975, but Anthony Radford brings to raging life the colourful characters, bizarre experiences, hard drinking and what Hank Nelson, historian of PNG, called "the casual racism" of that extraordinary period in Australian (and PNG) history.

PNG detective novel is more than plain fiction

MEROK KIELE

Inspector Metau - The Case of the Angry Councillor by Phil Fitzpatrick, 286 pp, Pukpuk Publishing 2013. ISBN-13: 978-0987132123.  Available from Amazon Books, $11.40

I FOUND THE BOOK INTERESTING, and easy and fun to read.

The main character is Inspector Hari Metau - an apt name which literally means Today's Difficulties or Today's Problems in Motu.

He is a flat white drinking, long serving, senior policemen of considerable intellect and integrity, who understands the realities of the changing social structure in PNG.

An interesting collection of Nagovisi stories

DON MITCHELL

WHEN I WAS CORRESPONDING with Keith Jackson of about old radio tapes a few months ago, I mentioned I was working on a collection of stories set in Nagovisi on Bougainville.

I’m pleased to tell PNG Attitude readers that the collection is now available on Amazon.

What's unusual about this collection of linked stories is that, although the coordinating character of the American anthropologist appears in all of them, he never gets a turn to narrate, except in the final piece, which is set many years later.

The rambunctious Leonard Roka is now in print

PHIL FITZPATRICK

FOR ALL THOSE FANS OF CAPTAIN BOUGAINVILLE, the immutable champion of island verisimilitude and the sudden nightmare of the pusillanimous, Pukpuk Publications is proud to announce the publication of Leonard Fong Roka’s first volume of poetry.

The Pomong U’tau of Dreams: A Bougainvillean Collection of Poetry is vintage Roka.  Every page promises a new way to subvert the English language and jar the sensibilities of the mind.

This is what Roka is famous for and his collection of poetry delivers from the first page right through to the end.

This stuff is awe-inspiring and remains wholly unleavened.

Colonial days in PNG: A blog you must get to see

KEITH JACKSON

THE OTHER DAY I came across a blog entitled Colonial Days in Papua New Guinea: Picturing the Past which is a treasure trove of wonderful photographs by Veronica Peek.

Unfortunately I can’t reproduce even a single one of them here because Veronica has, as is her right, copyrighted them for now and posterity, but they can be viewed on her blog here.

[Since I wrote this, Veronica had generously allowed PNG Attitude to republish her photographs, with attribution of course. This one of a young Michael Somare is a fine example.]

One series of pictures was taken in 1973 in Sir Michael Somare’s home village of Karau, in the Murik Lakes District of East Sepik Province. The occasion was Somare’s initiation as Sana [peacekeeper] of his own people and his initiation as Onkau [headman] of the family of Lady Veronica Somare.

Social media changes PNG political dialogue

LIAM FOX | ABC

LAST WEEK WAS A ROWDY WEEK in Papua New Guinea's parliament. Allegations that the government made millions of dollars in bogus payments to prominent law firm Paul Paraka Lawyers dominated the sitting.

But it was a controversy that almost wasn't.

When the opposition leader Belden Namah first tried to raise the matter, the Speaker prevented him from asking questions, saying a court order prevented parliament from discussing the matter. That prompted a massive backlash on social media.

Facebook is the most popular avenue for Papua New Guineans wanting to express themselves online, and the biggest discussion group is called Sharp Talk. It has more than 11,000 members and some of them vented their disgust at the Speaker's decision.

Yo ho ho & a book – full speed ahead; damn the critics

PHIL FITZPATRICK

UNLESS SOMEONE HAS GOT a blockbuster ready to go and poised to spark a bidding war among international publishers, the way ahead for writers in Papua New Guinea is digital and web-based.

Get the book up there for the world to see and you never know, maybe one of those big global publishers will snap it up.  It’s happening already and e-books are morphing into million sellers everywhere.

We live in hope.

With that philosophy in mind Pukpuk Publications is proud to announce from its backyard headquarters that the following titles are now available on Amazon, the behemoth of internet booksellers.  You can buy them either as e-books for your Kindle or as a hardcopy.

Simbu author Sil Bolkin releases the Galkope CD

PHIL FITZPATRICK

LAST YEAR SIMBU WRITER Sil Bolkin published a stunning history of his people called The Flight of Galkope. 

The book was the culmination of several years’ work trekking through his rugged Simbu homeland visiting men’s houses and talking to and recording the memories of venerable elders.

The book wove a magical path from the mythical origins of the Galkope right through to the diaspora that has seen many of them leave their homelands. 

I had the privilege of helping Sil with the editing and came away feeling that I had experienced something truly special.  I’m not a great fan of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings but this Simbu version had me really hooked.

Real-life book drama has happier ending than story

PAUL THOMAS | New Zealand Herald

IN HIS 1889 ESSAY, The Decay of Lying, Oscar Wilde, argued that "life imitates art far more than art imitates life".

New Zealand writer Lloyd Jones' celebrated 2006 novel, Mister Pip, tells the story of a teacher on Bougainville, the only white man for miles around, who introduces his class to literature and opens a window to a world beyond their village by reading them Charles Dickens' Great Expectations.

But a civil war is going on and the protagonists are callously indifferent to the teacher's noble exercise and the children's flickering aspirations.

After Mister Pip came out, Jones had the idea of creating a library for Bougainville. Many people in New Zealand, on the island and further afield, were captivated by his vision and enlisted in the cause of making it a reality.

For a change, here is some good news for writers

PHIL FITZPATRICK

PUBLISHING A BOOK in Australia is getting harder and harder.  In Papua New Guinea it is well-nigh impossible.

In Australia the small boutique publishers are crumbling before the onslaught of digital publishing and ebooks, while the big publishers are surviving by amalgamating and running with their established stable of saleable authors.

The same trends are evident globally. My own publisher finally gave up the game last year.

The only alternatives in the past have been self-publishing, using companies set up for the purpose, or printing your own books and trying to market them.  Both are expensive options.

PACMAS media report dodges elephant in the room

DAVID ROBIE | Café Pacific

A RECENT PACMAS (Pacific Media Assistance Scheme) report is a constructive diagnosis for the ailing state of the region’s media association, and a prescription for how things can get better. But it manages to dodge the elephant in the room – accountability.

For months, social media outlets and journalists have been asking about the fate of the Media Council of PNG, once one of the strongest in the region and an example to the rest. But it has been dogged in recent years because of allegations of fraud.

AusAID funding and the executive director, Nimo Kama, were suspended pending an inquiry.

But the outcome of this has been kept very quiet. AusAID reportedly funded the PNG Media Council to the tune of $500,000 in 2010.

‘The World Until Yesterday’ redux. Not so bad really

PHIL FITZPATRICK

WHO SAID ‘NEVER BELIEVE what you read in the newspapers’?  Whoever it was could probably now add ‘never believe what you see on television, hear on the radio or read on the Internet either’.

That sage advice was brought home to me when I finally got round to reading Jared Diamond’s new book, The World Until Yesterday.

Like the several commentators on PNG Attitude, I added my tuppence worth of criticism based on reviews of the book and a few articles on the net questioning his sources.  One of the latter pieces was particularly virulent and I should have picked it up then.

What we commentators blithely did was accept the view that the book was (a) pop-anthropology at its worst and (b) full of inaccuracies about some of the more apparently sordid attributes of past and present customary practises in Papua New Guinea.

The book, in fact, is neither of these things.

Collision of values: how advertising came to the NBC

KEITH JACKSON

I ARRIVED IN WEWAK in November 1963. I was 18 and had just finished teacher training at the Australian School of Pacific Administration.

A decade later, by the end of 1973, I’d spent three years teaching in Simbu, a year editing school publications in Konedobu, two years as an ABC producer at its Boroko studios, and four years managing government radio stations in Rabaul and Bougainville.

I’d also just returned from six months as a UNESCO consultant in Java - and was very glad to be back in Papua New Guinea.

Independence wasn’t far away. The National Broadcasting Commission was about to be inaugurated. It was an exciting time.

Song the giant gave producer more than he expected

THE FILM ARCHIVE

IN 2001 WELLINGTON (NEW ZEALAND) film maker Paul Wolffram went to New Ireland where he spent two years living and working among the Lak people while filming Stori Tumbuna (2011).

Although he started the film with the detached perspective of a cultural researcher, he eventually found himself at the centre of a deadly series of events.

Wolffram went to Papua New Guinea to document the music, dance and cultural rituals of the Lak. He was able to do this with great success.

Harvard University anthropologist Michael Jackson noted of the film: “I know of no more successful or ingenious film that draws the viewer into another life-world while keeping faith with the tenor of its traditional narratives and respecting the lived experience of his/her interlocutors.”

However, Wolffram got more than he bargained for. Over the course of his research he uncovered dark secrets looming in the Lak people's history.

New website delves into the Bougainville conflict

KRISTIAN LASSLETT

I HAVE SPENT the best part of a decade studying the Bougainville conflict. To that end I have interviewed over 50 senior officials from Australia, Papua New Guinea and Bougainville Copper Ltd.

Also, I have gone through thousands of documents including internal records from BCL and PNG and public records in Australia. Given the suffering and hardship caused by the conflict, it deserves nothing less than rigorous scholarly accounts.

Now I have developed a website which features a case study on the Bougainville conflict, focusing on the period 1987-90.

The historical account includes primary and multimedia materials including the aforementioned records and interviews as well as documentary footage from Bougainville and letters written by the Panguna Landowners Association and the Bougainville Revolutionary Army during 1988-89.

PFF calls for clarity on Peter Kasia sacking affair

PACIFIC FREEDOM FORUM

THE LACK OF FACTUAL INFORMATION surrounding the recent sacking of a Papua New Guinea journalist poses another warning to newsrooms there on the need to steer clear of political spin, says regional media monitoring group the Pacific Freedom Forum.

PFF co-chair Titi Gabi (pictured) says it's important that journalists remain vigilant and independent of political bias, and ensure they have all the facts at hand when going public via media platforms with a political agenda.

She made the call after video footage of former Sunday Chronicle journalist Peter Kasia has been uploaded to the Internet in the last week. In the video published to a pro-Opposition blog, Kasia states he was sacked on the written orders of the PNG prime minister, whose office says this is untrue.

Kasia's sacking in late 2012 had been attributed by PNG media colleagues to a series of retractions and apologies from his Sunday Chronicle employers over his work. But his name resurfaced on 21 February when Opposition leader Belden Namah accused PNG media watchdogs and 'others' of remaining silent on the sacking.