"New Guinean"
p. 25 · Read in the full issue
But its's Not Official
Port Moresby, May 31.
THAT monstrosity of a term “New Guinean” seems in danger of becoming the semi-official appellation of the natives “on the other side” who for reasons of state or prestige don’t want to be known as Papuans.
The choice is that of the two New Guinea native members of Papua- New Guinea’s Legislative Council, Simogun and John Vuia, who might have been expected to have had more sense.
What the local natives are to be called if they are not to be called by the slave term, “natives,” has not been discussed officially by the Legislative Council, but in a pre liminary conference of unofficial members, which the three native members attended, the two NG rep resentatives chose this abomination.
On their own heads be it. It is to be hoped that future generations of civilised savages will rise up and curse them.
Some of the unofficial members of the Council are scrupulously using “New Guinean”; most of the official members ignore it—and also Mr. Minister Hasluck’s alleged directive that the term “native” is to be used as little as possible and only in an adjectival sense.
Nor has any term as substitute for native been used in any of the official papers that have been churned out by the ton for this meeting of the Council.