Comment
Old wine in new bottles
IT was understood from the first instalment of this column that we would go on to look a little closer at some Pacific states in this and following pieces. With a little more detail in my remarks, I can only deal with one or two at a time.
Here I treat Papua New Guinea and
Fiji. And banish any thought that this column furnishes the last word on the situations under discussion. Nothing can be further from the truth. It may have nothing of consequence to say about them. It merely represents a very personal point of view. The most I hope to achieve is to provide a fresh angle from which to regard oqr
subjects.
I said that one of the most serious problems faced by PNG is the immense socio-economic gulf which divides the numerically insignificant urban elites from the rural multitudes. At any rate the condition underlines almost all her
other complaints. And it is important to realise that the relative pulls of these two segments of the population, in social and political terms, have remained much the same since early
missionary days.
PNG is not unique in this regard for many other countries, most notably in Africa and even in parts of Asia, possess the same features. But PNG is the outstanding example in our corner of the globe. In her case, however, only a miracle could quickly close the gap between Honolulu-like communities of Konedobu and downtown Lae, and the stone-age cultures of the highland vastnesses. Therefore the situation could have been helped only by an optimal system of education. This is so because such a situation calls for leaders with breadth of vision and much wisdom and in PNG society and culture only education can provide these. This is the type of leader that has been lacking in PNG ever since it became independent.
It has always been the practice of colonists not only to follow hard behind the pioneering missionaries and set up their institutions after the latter have opened up the unknown territories, but they also follow them in the type of school systems they introduce and maintain. These have always been practical and relevant. In its elementary levels this system is nothing but education for submissiveness. Such education may be supportive of a subsistence economy and the preservation of peace in rural settlements. But it is the very type of education which most conspicuously fails to help people when they are at the interface between different economic systems during times of rapid social and political changes. It is at this interface also that brutal values (greed, naked egotism, etc) predominate, and these are not foreign to PNG at this stage of her development.
We cannot blame the people of PNG for present ills for they were not equipped to have foreseen, and much less to forestall, them. Culpability must be seen in the politics and actions of her former colonial masters. Had they instituted a truly formal type of education, PNG would have found it smoother sailing nowadays. Instead she was given a system based on principles of relevance and economic application. The result has been the production of leaders who may be good in tit-for-tat sparring in diplomatic and political games but lack the
largeness of view that can grasp the present and future in one unified vision and therefore c an save the situation. Usually a propeetive leader in a eolony is taken lor a tour ol the c ities of the colonising eountry where he is feted and made to fi'el important and also grateful to the colonists. His educ ation is then considered complemented and complete. However, PNG must c hange her educ ational system and opt for one that is more responsive to her special needs, the aentest of which is the production of leaders of sanity and understanding. The forces of modernisation are catching up with peoples' lives and they shall wreak havoc if not tempered by the sobering effect of the right kind of education.
Let’s turn to Fiji. Here we find a different situation. Unlike PNG the cult of leadership, hierarchical social structure, traditional diplomacy, politicised soc ial relationships, have always been basic to Fijian society, which is culturally more Polynesian than Melanesian. Therefore when the British went to Fiji they found they could not go direc t to the populace but through a chiefly class. This arrangement was welcome to the colonists since they could use* this buffer c lass in whatever way they wanted and was cjuite a saving in terms of man-hours of unnecessary headache. But it deprived them of two things: firsthand knowledge of the commoner classes and the opportunity to be of more benefit to them. At the 1 same time the Fijian chiefs, especially the Eastern Fiji one's, manipulated the policies and sentiments of the colonial masters to their ow n advantage. However, their practice, too, cut both ways. T hey basked in the sunshine of the colonists' support for so long that when the British implemented policies that were later to spawn deleterious complications thev did not recognise them lor what they were.
When the outlines of the problems began to loom large the' Fijian chiefs looked aw ay from them and trusted that any inconveniences involved would be borne mainly by the* lower social orders. Thus the opportunity to bypass muc h of the present day conflicts was missed, and it was only when this traditionally chiefly influence rec eived such thorough trouncing in legitimate democratic process that the chiefs deemed it time to do something. And they over-reacted.
I say over-reacted because the aims of their exertion cannot be consummated. The reason for this circumstance are many but two stand out. Firstly, the use of force to administer a political-legal solution to this Fijian problem is far too out of date. All things required to be eradicated are too far gone.
Secondly, the world of today is such that it will not allow this eventuality, and not only because the metropolitan powers are opposed to the spirit of this reaction. The only solution that could have worked in the circumstances is a socio-eultural one but that is an abysmally difficult one and has been consistently but unwisely avoided. We can understand aspects of the Fijian argument and the general desire for Fijians to appropriate political power. Unfortunately the writing on the wall says no.
What we see then in many Pacific islands are malignant outgrowths of ancient mistakes. They cannot be resolved overnight and they retard the functioning of new economic and political forms adopted by Pacific states. Likewise these old mistakes can erupt again and again like a second, third, etc. fermentation. They arc endemic to all the Pacific communites. We need a lot of wakeful restraint and sagacity.
Finally in case the reader gets me wrong. My remarks here are a clear case of being wise after the event. Yet I do not consider that a serious drawback since our age is the age of wisdom after the event. □