BY MARTYN NAMORONG

This week, like other weeks before and the weeks to come; like months before and months to come; like years before and years to come; some kids get drunk on Friday.

Many will have to starve themselves by saving their lunch money in order to ‘koins koins na baim bia” [contribute to buy alcohol].

A couple of years back the Squatters Band of Morata squatter settlement sang Take Me to Paradise and it became a hit.

It didn’t make sense to me at the time - why a song with what I thought were meaningless lyrics seemed to strike a chord with the mere mortals.

I was at medical school and socially illiterate. Of course, being a medical student, I thought I knew the difference between what was cultured and what was plainly mediocre.

It wasn’t until I was out of medical school and selling betel nut on the street that I became socially literate.

And the punch line of that song, ‘Wik i kam pinis em wiken nau / Taim bilong kisim wara wantaim ol poroman’ [It’s the beginning of the weekend / So get drunk with your friends] says a lot about what happens on Friday.

Just in case you imagine this is just an urban phenomenon, think again.

Last month, as I travelled on Friday along the North Coast Road in Bogia District, I saw adolescent males; totally drunk and carrying generators, extension cords, speakers and light bulbs to set up somewhere in the coconut plantations. It was an eye-opener for me.

Indeed the mantra that is faithfully recited each weekend is ‘kisim wara, kisim laif na pati’ [get drunk, get sexed, get partying].

For many, em normal ya – it’s become routine.

I have had discussions with friends here in Madang and the obvious question was “Why?” It isn’t an easy question to answer but here’s a summary of the suggestions put forward.

One of the interesting connections my friend Gary made was that there may be a link between what is happening with the Australian Aboriginal people and what’s happening here.

With that in mind, I had an interesting discussion on religion with another friend. Barry said it was not wise to take away someone’s faith in Christianity without replacing it with something good or else the person would resort to alcohol.

Boom! It hit me! What experiences do Aborigines and Papua New Guineans share? Colonisation!

Colonisation wasn’t just a secular process but a religious one as well. Many churches destroyed cultural practices that were deemed unchristian; perhaps justifiably so in some cases, but not all. So animism was replaced by Christianity/Capitalism.

Christianity and Capitalism are two sides of the same coin. You worship God every Sabbath or worship Alcohol every Friday or both.

Spirituality is about relationships from self through the world to the Universal Being. Those who are spiritually void find comfort in alcohol, religiously observing Friday or Saturday as the day of worshipping alcohol. Many have left the Christian churches and have no traditional religion to fall back on, thus they fill the void with alcohol.

Instead of giving an offering to the Christian God, they sacrifice their lunch money to the gods who own the alcohol factories.

Yes, this is the modern nation of Papua New Guinea – a country that is spiritually void.

First we lost our gods to the Christian God, now we’re losing our World [our land and the resources/environment] to Capitalists, and in doing so we are losing our lives to alcohol.

Remember, spirituality is about the relationships between – self (individual person), world (land and environment) and the universal being (God or gods or powers).

The Aborigines of Australia have lost their land, their traditional religions and are now losing themselves to alcohol to fill that spiritual void. That is exactly what happens on Friday in PNG.

Martyn Namorong last week won the 2011 Crocodile Prize for Essays.  His blog, The Namorong Report, is at http://medicmangi.blogspot.com