western judgement

Letters

Western values,

JACK Johnson’s criticism of Nauru, ‘Don’t Cry for Nauru’ [PIM May, 1991) is an example of Western value systems being used to judge a Polynesian culture.

Mr Johnson fails to recognise that newly independent Nauru makes decisions and judgements based on their own moral, religious and cultural norms. His deported friends likely shared his lack of cultural sensitivity.

The judgement that his expat friends were unreasonably fired because of their attempts to run public services efficiently speaks to a lack of understanding of the proper role for expat administrators.

Professional administrators should have studied the 1940 Friedrich-Finer debates to understand the public official/public administrator dichotomy. Perhaps a review of this academic material would be appropriate for expat administrators in Nauru.

Mr Johnson is not the only Westerner who uses foreign values and norms to condemn South Pacific countries.

However, better trained administrators and greater cultural understanding are more desirable goals.

Charles J. Sellens Auki, Solomon Islands

Nauru challenge

Your article in April’s PIM on Nauru, ‘Preparing to tackle the tough times ahead’ by Robin Bromby, makes the statement that Nauru had to pay so much cash for “run down equipment

when they took over the operation on

independence”.

This statement I presume refers to the state of plant and equipment handed over by the British Phosphate Commissioners (BPD) to the Nauru

Phosphate Corporation (NPC). If this is

correct then I would strongly challenge this, for it can only be not only totally incorrect but total rubbish.

I say this since I was there at the time, so I know. The BPC was not the sort of company that specialised in “run down equipment”. Also, I have since worked for several mining companies and I can safely say that the BPC and its staff was as professional an outfit as you would get anywhere, one that did not hand over

clapped out plant and equipment.

I also worked for the NPC for one term after this, and it was noted at the time that the same care and attention to plant and equipment lavished by the BPC was not allowed by its successor. Nowhere near the same amounts of money was lavished on this, this not being allowed by the new political masters.

In fact I think that it would be true to say that very little money at all has been spent on this since Independence. There is no preventative maintenance allowed.

It is crisis management in sense, since nothing is repaired till it actually fails. This is not the fault of the designated managers for they are not really the managers.

The main differences between the two companies were as follows: the BPC was

a mining company run by mining

engineers. The NPC is a mining company run by politicians. Certainly managers are appointed, but their hands

are severely tied compared to the BPC days. In fact they are only there to take the blame if one of the politicians makes a major mistake. At least this was the way the company was run for most of the De Roburt years.

If the plant and equipment is now falling to bits then it is not because of its condition on handover but, I suggest, as a result of what has happened to it since as a direct result of political direction.

Everyone who has worked on the island knows this, and no amount of blaming managers, nationalities, Australia or the Man in the Moon (in Nauru’s case the Woman in the Moon) will alter this.

Former Phosphateer

‘Outdated’ notion

of Guam lawyers

IN his March, 1991 article on Guam’s attempt to legislate abortion, Mr North naively refers to Anita Arriola as being “dne of Guam’s few female lawyers”. In truth, of Guam’s 200 lawyers, over one fifth are women. Of that number, some of the highest legal and judicial positions are held by female attorneys including, but not limited to, the Attorney General; the Deputy Attorney General, Child Support Enforcement Division; Chief Prosecutor; Counsel for the Governor; Clerk of District Court of Guam; two law clerks for the District Court of Guam, and Judge of the Superior Court of Guam. Indeed, approximately half of the attorneys for the Government of Guam are.

Thank you for correcting this misplaced (and outdated) assumption.

Klemm, Blair, Sterling & Johnson A Professional Corporation