BERNARD CORDEN

Illustration by Create Bing AI

BRISBANE - The United States of Amnesia was founded by some rather bright people although we haven’t seen them since.

Its current education crisis is somewhat foreboding and reminiscent of the curriculum in Nazi Germany throughout the 1930s.

A dystopian propaganda machine has degenerated into a pedagogy of repression that is relentlessly endorsed as patriotic education.

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

A characterisation of the wealthiest and saddest nation on earth (Create Bing AI / Keith Jackson)

TUMBY BAY, SA - We all know about inequity and the envy and jealousy it can create. History tells us that in extreme cases it can cause violence and even revolution.

At a macro level it is almost axiomatic that a downtrodden people will eventually rise up against their oppressors.

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY, SA - The news that Pope Francis had died came part way through the television news.

It was presented as a short news flash. By the end of the program, however, there came a comprehensive biography of the pontiff and a tribute to him.

KEITH JACKSON

Maldive Islands (part)

MALÉ, NOVEMBER 1977 – It’s always the same. After a hectic morning finalising preparations for the voyage, I board Silver Beam dreading I’ve forgotten something important. As we’ll learn later, I should have remembered to purchase a life jacket. But that was never on my list.

Our first night was to put on a show at the Thaa Atoll chief’s island. But by late afternoon we're making such slow progress – one of the twin engines is playing up – that the gathering dusk compels us to anchor off the small island of Bandido at the far northern extreme of Thaa.

MATHIAS KIN

In this vintage photograph, Kora Kama of Kagul village
in the Sinasina Dom area holds a huge Gaima axe,
part of a bride prize (L G Vial, May 1939)

KUNDIAWA – For centuries, the Gorku tribe of Chimbu in the central highlands of Papua New Guinea produced the famous Di Gaima stone axe until the advent of steel axes in the 1940s ended the practice.

The production of the axe was of great importance in stabilising the lives of a once nomadic people who became the Gorku tribe of the vast Dom language group.

EDITED BY KEITH JACKSON

Our passionate Welshman passes on
| From Robert Forster

NORTHUMBRIA, UK – Arthur Williams’ daughter, Phyllis, has told me that Arthur has “finally passed away”.

His nemesis was cancer.

There was a pleasing response from friends of PNG Attitude to the news that Arthur was gravely ill.

Phyllis thanks her father’s former colleagues for the effort they made in writing to him.

And she confirmed the family will add the many stories they received to the memorial book they are putting together.

Phyllis added that if anyone wants to send others they will also be used for the memorial book.

Her email address is [email protected].

Marape untroubled to win no confidence vote

| From Keith Jackson

NOOSA, QLD - It was not much of a vote of no confidence that incumbent prime minister James Marape won the other day.

Opposed candidate, entrepreneur and philanthropist Sir Peter Ipatas, managed only 16 votes to Marape’s 89.

So the spoiled MPs will again eat well this Easter on the tens of millions of kina that will continue to flow their way.

This is a good opportunity to remind readers of the prime ministers who have governed PNG over the past 50 years since independence:

Sir Michael Somare, East Sepik Province

Sir Julius Chan, New Ireland Province

Paias Wingti, Western Highlands Province

Sir Rabbie Namaliu, East New Britain Province

John Giheno, Eastern Highlands Province

Bill Skate, Port Moresby, National Capital District

Sir Mekere Morauta, Gulf Province

Sir Sam Abal, Enga Province (briefly acting)

Peter O’Neill, Southern Highlands Province

James Marape, Hela Province

Stories of the fabled trusty typewriter

| From Keith Jackson

NOOSA, QLD – Phil Fitzpatrick and I exchange the occasional missive as our pleasure dictates, and most recently this concerned the elemental subject of the writers’ favourite typewriter, or mangle as my mate the author Brian Hungerford would call it.

While studying at ASOPA, the much lamented Australian School of Pacific Administration, I purchased a Hermes’ Baby which followed me around like Mary’s little lamb for the 12 or 14 years.

At that stage of my life it mainly clattered out academic work and scripts and freelance news items for the ABC, Pacific Islands Monthly et al.

Here's my, my, my Corona, never used in anger but some good ol' boys bashed it around before me.

It's a Corona 3 and was manufactured in 1919. Just in time for the Americans to come into the war (that's a joke, right?)

| From Philip Fitzpatrick

TUMBY BAY, SA - I had a trusty Olivetti Dora. It went to ASOPA with me and I remember taking a train to Redfern where I had it “tropic proofed” ready for the move to PNG. 

I think they probably gave its innards a spray with WD40. I typed all my University of Queensland External Studies essays on it and all my journalistic efforts. I dropped it off at an Op shop after buying my first Amstrad computer.

While I was in Queensland I came across another typewriter in pristine condition and bought it for sentimental reasons.

The vinyl case was buggered so I made a wooden one in the same style and colour. It’s now sitting beside my desk. I occasionally take it out and bang out the odd letter.

I didn’t have too much trouble getting ribbons for it because, like the old manual cameras, there are people who still sell them and their accoutrements along with renovated machines. I believe Tom Hanks has got a fine collection.

I didn’t carry a notebook on patrol because we were required to fill out a daily Field Officers Diary (I’ve still got the vinyl folder). I occasionally got comments back after submitting the copies and I think I was chided more than once for my more colourful observations.

I also took the typewriter on the less arduous patrols…..

SIMON DAVIDSON

Simon Davidson

Yesterday, in Papua New Guinea's parliament, prime minister James Marape - who turns 54 on Thursday next week - survived a vote of no confidence. And so far, the son of a Seventh Day Adventist pastor has also survived his public image. He's widely known as Mausmarape, a corruption of the term mausmara (empty talk or bullshit). Simon Davidson tells why - KJ

PORT MORESBY - Since the founding the nation, the incumbent prime minister has been given different descriptive nicknames by the people and by the press.

Some of these monikers were given as a badge of honour; others as pure mockery.

A G SATORI

The rejection letter (Bing AI Image Creator)

“This year, we received 7,920 stories from across the globe, a new record. After careful reading and thoughtful deliberation, we’re sorry to let you know that your story was unsuccessful this year. With sincere thanks” [Message to a new, and unsuccessful, Papua New Guinean contestant in the Commonwealth Short Story Prize]

_____________

Mi pilim sorre long wantok blong mi.

I feel sad about my friend.

A G SATORI

"The police helicopter was out...."

There is a serenity in the air this morning.

Perhaps it was the rain last night.

The police helicopter was out

but the general public was going about its daily activity.

MICHAEL KABUNI
| Academia Nomad

The late Sir Mekere Morauta - an honourable man

WAIGANI – On one special day in 1999, Papua New Guinea’s politicians made a dreadful mistake.

They decided to go with a prime minister who offered the country integrity and intelligence.

He played it cool, got elected and instituted reforms that in less than two years killed the cash cows MPs relied on.

EDITED BY KEITH JACKSON

We’re still seeking Captain Bill stories
| From Khib Kugler, AKG Companies

AUSTIN, TEXAS – Thank you for publishing my article, Do you know a story about Captain Bill, in PNG Attitude. No bites so far…fingers crossed, though.

My late father, Dr Andrew Kugler Jr, was a geologist and geophysicist who spent many years mapping the geology of PNG both for his PhD dissertation and for Continental Oil Company (now ConocoPhillips).

CHRIS OVERLAND

On Patrol (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

ADELAIDE - We are all of us old men now, and the world we lived in as a kiap [colonial government field officer] has long since passed into history.

It was our task and privilege to be present in Papua New Guinea in the dying light of European imperialism.

PAUL OATES

Arthur and his youngest daughter

 CLEVELAND - I’ve had many wonderful years of numerous interchanges with Arthur about his memorable Papua New Guinean experiences.

So when Arthur and his youngest daughter passed through Brisbane on his way back to Wales, my wife Sue and I were able to provide some assistance.

CHRIS OVERLAND

Volcanic island near Taskul, New Hanover,
New Ireland Province

We have asked those of our readers who may have read the words of Arthur Williams, of Taskul and Wales, on PNG Attitude, or who knew him in person, if they might write to him as he lies very ill in hospital in South Wales. His dear daughter, Phyllis, has asked us if we would write to Arthur to help him along the way. Here, with his permission, we publish Chris Overland’s letter to Arthur. Phyllis will read your letters to him. If you would like to write to Arthur, you can email him via Phyllis here - KJ

mailto:[email protected]

ADELAIDE - Dear Arthur, I understand from a message placed on the Ex-kiaps website that you may be about to embark on your last patrol.

Although we have never met in person we have enjoyed many exchanges of ideas and opinions via the PNG Attitude website presided over by our mutual friend Keith Jackson.....

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - For considerable time, I have been writing that we stand at a hinge point in history -  an event of unexpected magnitude and significance which is upsetting the status quo and triggering a reorder of affairs.

These moments tend to come along every generation or so. One of their constant features is that the people involved invariably fail to understand the true range of possible consequences of their actions.

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA - I write of Arthur Williams, of Taskul (New Ireland) and South Wales.

Arthur is very ill and his daughter Phyllis has kindly let us know that he’d appreciate some heart-warming or even seriously-minded emails from his erstwhile mates, wherever they may be in this confused world.

JACK WATERFORD
| Extract from John Menadue’s Pearls & Irritations
| Link here to Jack Waterford’s full article

Good friends divided only by a president (Bing AI Creator)

CANBERRA - Suddenly everything appears to have gone wrong, and while we in Australia are facing an election.

Actually, it was predictable all along. Since coming to power on 20 January, Trump has been proclaiming a new policy in which America no longer presides over the Western alliance as a sort of super peacemaker. No more nice is right. It’s now might is right.

KEITH JACKSON

Illegal logging of old growth forests is too often accompanied by dirty law cases against people trying to do the right thing (Bing AI Image Creator)

NOOSA - A criminal charge of identity theft against the heroic Act Now campaign manager Eddie Tanago has been struck out by magistrate Paul Puri Nii in the district court at Waigani.

Eddie is one of Papua New Guinea’s prominent civil society advocates, a man of courage and integrity, who has been hounded by corrupt public servants as he tries to protect PNG’s forests against criminal loggers.

KEITH JACKSON

An AI impression of an ageing reporter still plying his trade in the press box (Bing AI Image Creator)

NOOSA – I’d be willing  to make a guess that Richard Jones is one of Australia’s oldest sports journalists, and perhaps the oldest still reporting on Australian Rules football.

He’s been in the sport writing game for a long time, having cut his teeth covering boxing and rugby league for the old South Pacific Post in Port Moresby.

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

Phil Fitzpatrick - author, anthropologist, kiap: "Ours was a simpler time with broad horizons and liberal opportunities"

Keith Jackson writes: One of the tricks my brain enjoys playing on me, especially now I have eight-zero on the clock is to grab my attention in a distractable moment to comment somewhat waspishly, “That carving of a woman you bought at Rabaul market in 1970 will still be here when you’re dead.”

I don’t believe the figurine plays any role in this jape, and I’m certainly not anxious about popping off just yet, and the whole act is over in a second and I’m thinking about something else. Arthritis or something.  But really… the things that affect us when we reach serious old age.

Anyway, I’ve optimistically placed a (1) in front of the title of today’s wonderful opening contribution from Phil Fitzpatrick. PNG Attitude would really like to publish something from you about growing old. Send it to the usual email address linked to here - KJ

KEITH JACKSON
| Images scripted by Keith Jackson & created by Bing AI

NOOSA, QLD – Papua New Guinea, Australia, the Solomons and New Zealand (all 10%) and most other countries in the Pacific Islands region have escaped being hit hard by US President Donald Trump's trade tariffs.

Samoa, Tonga and the Cook Islands have also got away with Trump’s baseline 10% tariff.

But Fiji (32%), Nauru (30%) and Vanuatu (22%) all experienced the naughty corner, probably because they have a trade surplus and the USA believes that means they are cheating and should be punished in the world’s newest and biggest trade war.

EDITED BY KEITH JACKSON

Introducing Pic of the Month
| From Keith Jackson

This be the way to treat an arthritic foot. They are screws and, like with nails, they should  not be hammered inn. This elegant piece of surgery was conducted by a man who knew how to find a right foot and a big toe. That intelligence was to come as some relief to me when I first saw this x-ray.

Readers are invited to submit to Pic of the Month. There is no compensation except forr the acclaim of other readers.  Email them to this address.

KEITH JACKSON

Keith Jackson on CPAP

I have never held back an article for so long, 23 years, although many readers will be familiar with at least some of what follows. For all that time I felt the subject matter was too close to the bone. Now I feel able to share it. I don't know if it will assist other people with ME/CFS. I hope so. And I'm happy to take questions through the Comments section or confidentially by email here  - KJ

CREMORNE, NSW  [Sept 2002] - It was in 1998 that I noticed things weren’t, shall we say, normal. Each afternoon at Jackson Wells Morris I’d fall asleep at my desk: forehead composing hundreds of pages of gobbledegook on the computer keyboard; loyal staff pinning notices on the back of my chair, ‘Managing Director – Do Not Disturb’; something unknown was keeping me very, very tired.

MICHAEL DOM

Keith Jackson

Introduced by Keith Jackson

To me, Papua New Guinea is a nation of songs and poetry. That view offered, it is also consdered a place rough, tough and hard to manage - and so it may be.

Nonetheless PNG has a heart and soul - and emotional life - beyond what any waira or waitman would conceive.

In this land of infinite  poetry, one poet has stood above the others. At risk of beginning an argument, I will begin an argument. Many of us literary fools believe that poet is the elite pig nurturer, Michael Theophilus Dom.

KHIB KUGLER
| With thanks to Helen Dennett

Her carved woman figurehead  pointed towards the open sea beyond Rabaul and packed to the gunwales with people escaping the Japanese Army, MV Laurabada steams to safer southern shores (Australian War Memorial)

AUSTIN, TEXAS - For several years now, I have been trying to contact anyone who might know anything about Captain William (Bill) Thomas Kelly Howard (deceased), a friend of my late father, Dr Andrew Kugler Jr, who died in (2018.

Captain Bill, from Bundaberg, was the captain of several Papua New Guinean Administration trawlers in the 1950s through to the 1970s, including MV Laurabada II, later renamed to MV Lahara when the original Laurabada was recommissioned.

FRANK CORDINGLEY
| With thanks to Terry Edwinsmith

Dcience class  with Sergeant. Ian Bowen, Murray Barracks, September 1968

BRISBANE - I was in the seventh national service intake in February 1967, having turned 20 the previous October. I had been teaching junior maths and science for one year at Clermont Secondary.

Another first year teacher at Clermont was also called up. His name was Neil Weekes who became an officer, won the MC in the Battle of Coral and I believe finally retired from the army as a Brigadier.

A G SATORI

A heartfelt plea in Tok Pisin and English

Dear plaim minista James Marape
Tenkio lo yu na kavman blo yu, mi no moa nau lukim ol susa meri ya.
Mi save sitaun long asskumurere tiwai na sitaun wantaim pespuk.
Wonem yu na kavman mekim, em pisnis plo yu.
Wonem mi na ol klasrutz mekim, em pisnis plo mipla.
Mipla klasrutz laikim moa yet moa yet pespuk.
Mipla laik mekim moa yet moa yet pisnis plo mipla luksave long ol susa ya O.
Wai na, wai stret yu pasim wok pespuk.
Aiyo, nau ol poromahn ya bun na pol plo ol slek tru tru.
Ol sikaut igo lo yu.
Plis plis, bai mipla amen tru tru lo yu.
Kivim bek pespuk O pikla blo mipla O Plaim Minista
Moneiya, em faifpla tei nau nau pun plo mipla silek nogut tru ya.
Yu laikim mipla pulim pusnaip em ino moa sap moa na ko long wok.
Wonem wok yu laikim mipla mekim.  Bun slek pinis long taim igo pinis.
Nau yu kilim indai nupla wok mipla save mekim.
Oiyo, plis plis O Plaim Minista O, kivim pek pesbuk.
Em wonem? Pangu nogat moa save.  Pangu nogat rot moa.
Pun slek moa ya.  Pangu mas soim rot na iko kisim ikam pesbuk.
Mi ya AG Satori peten stlong long yu O.

Dear prime minister James Marape
Thanks to you and your government, I can’t get in touch with my family and other relatives back in my village
Right now I’m sitting beneath a gum tree where I’m usually with my Facebook
What are you and the government doing with your politics?
What are me and all the grassroots people supposed to do with ourselves?
We grassroots love Facebook
We need to conduct plenty of business, plenty, and also look after pur relatives in this way
Why oh why really have you stopped Facebook from working?
Hey, now all my mates and other friends are hanging around with nothing to do
We’re sick of you
Please, we’d truly, really truly, like to see the back of you
Give us back our Facebook oh leader of us prime minister
It’s been five days now and we’re tired and demotivated
Do you think we can reach for our bush knives? That’s not how we work now
What work is it you actually want us to do? These are not the days we left a long time ago
What you’ve done is kill the new kind of work we do
Eh, please oh please prime minister, return our Facebook
What’s it about? Doesn’t Pangu know anything? You don’t seem to have direction ay more
Our bodies are tired. They’re lazy. Pangu needs to show us the way forward and give us our Facebook
I’m AG Satori petitioning you with all my strength.

EDITED BY KEITH JACKSON

Full complement of the one teacher Kundiawa Primary A School in 1964 - Keith with members of the Johnston, Bond, Heagney, Male, Doolan, Finch and other families [thanks to Dr Rob Johnston, far right]

A famous (not) game of Scrabble
| Keith Jackson AM

Journalists Judy Tudor and Jack McCarthy cycled - in the sense of visiting, not pedalling - through Kundiawa a couple of times in the early 1960s when I was there running my little school.

Judy knew of my affinity for words because she would plunder articles for Pacific Islands Monthly (always attributed I hasten to add) from the fortnightly Kundiawa News published by Murray Bladwell and me, the only mint set of which is these days to be found in the National Library of Australia.

MATHIAS KIN & KEITH JACKSON

Peter Tsiamalili Jr is a smart guy, but the police minister needs to avoid sweeping government decisions that throw out the babies with the bathwater.  

MATHIAS REPORTS....

Mathias Kin and Ingrid Jackson on the road to Gembogl many moons ago

KUNDIAWA – I know that people in Australia have been watching closely the recent political developments in Papua New Guinea. In recent years, there have been numerous threats by the government to ban Facebook and other social media sites.

Then yesterday, when our Facebook accounts appeared on our phones and tablets, they gave this message, "Please check your internet connection and try again.”  Since then, Facebook accounts across the country have not been working.