The big picture – should we just leave it to the big fellas?
23 February 2016
PHIL FITZPATRICK
I WAS listening to the radio this morning.
There was an interview with the black American singer Marcia Hines, who came to Australia in 1970 to appear in a production of the rock musical Hair. Marcia never went home, making a life in Australia.
I went to see Hair in 1970 when I was home on leave from Papua New Guinea and I must have seen her performing.
The musical was one of those pivotal moments in my life but I didn’t realise it at the time. At the end of the show just about everyone got up and went down to the stage to dance with the cast. I stayed in my seat, deep in thought.
They were heady days. There seemed so much promise.
After the radio interview with Marcia, there was a program reviewing the week in politics with several invited journalists and commentators.
After discussing the slowly deflating balloon that is the Turnbull government they got on to the American elections and the progress in the early primaries.
There was a kind of consensus on the panel that the nomination might end up as a contest between Democrat Bernie Sanders and Republican Donald Trump.
It was a horrifying thought.
When my wife came on to the verandah with coffee, I asked her where we should build the nuclear fallout shelter in the backyard.
Turnbull’s rapidly deflating balloon didn’t seem to be important anymore. Neither, for that matter, did Peter O’Neill’s problems with collapsing petroleum prices and the fact he’s loaded up Papua New Guinea’s public debt to 56% of GDP by taking out an ill-advised loan to buy into Oil Search Ltd.
When you contrast the little fish Australia and the minnow Papua New Guinea with what’s going on in the rest of the world, all of our problems seem paltry.
Corruption, which occurs in both countries, is small cheese. As Tony Fitzgerald, who exposed corruption in Queensland, said recently, “The possibility of corruption exists wherever a dishonest public official has power or authority to grant benefits … And dishonesty is a common human flaw.”
Those comments took me back to 2012 when Michael Somare was trying to protect his golden goose by organising a military coup to oust O’Neill who had illegally snatched the prime ministership so he could get his cut of the spoils.
What struck me most about that apparent ‘crisis’ was the way ordinary Papua New Guineans ignored it and got on with their lives. “Mi no save; em samting bilong Mosbi na old bikman politisan tasol”. I don’t know, it’s just something to do with Moresby and the top politicians.
In PNG Attitude, we’ve been arguing for nigh on ten years about what is the best political model for Papua New Guinea and nobody has come up with an original suggestion.
Perhaps it’s because there isn’t one. Perhaps it’s because, no matter what model, is adopted people will find a way to exploit it and rort it.
Perhaps it’s because whatever happens, ordinary Papua New Guineans will get on with their lives just as they have for thousands of years. Nothing will change for them, whatever progress they achieve will have to be of their own doing.
Perhaps it’s because our ultimate future is not in our hands.
Enough daydreaming – I’ve got to go find the shovel in the shed.
In an ideal world Australia would stop meddling in world affairs that it doesn't seem to understand (Iraq, Afghanistan et al) and withdraw to its own little South Pacific pond with its good mates PNG and the other Pacific nations.
I think our intervention in East Timor was acceptable but the premise upon which it was done (securing petroleum in the Timor Sea) wasn't that honorable.
My son was in Iraq and East Timor. Timor was a major stuff up created by the likes of Peter Cosgrove and his senior officers. It was only the lower ranks that pulled them out of the fire.
Posted by: Philip Fitzpatrick | 23 February 2016 at 12:05 PM
The extent to which smaller powers can influence world events has, historically speaking, been highly variable.
There are examples of a small power defeating a great power, such as in 1588, when Elizabethan England, against all expectations, beat off the Spanish Armada and humiliated what was then a "super power".
In 1904/5, Russia went to war with the much smaller and supposedly backward Japan. The putative Russian "super power" was crushed on land and on sea by a hugely superior Japanese military. This began the fatal destabilisation of Tsarist Russia which eventually resulted in the successful Bolshevik Revolution of 1917.
Similarly, North Vietnam, through a combination of factors, was able to force the USA and its allies, including Australia, to withdraw from South Vietnam, thus ensuring that the long delayed reunification of Vietnam finally took place shortly thereafter.
However, the overall record strongly indicates that the "great powers" usually have their way, regardless of the wishes of lesser powers.
Australia is a second tier economic and military power, with a very limited capacity to project that power into the surrounding region. For example, the peace keeping expedition to East Timor in 1999 put tremendous strains upon the ADF, revealing major flaws in its logistics and tactical doctrine.
It was largely the very adept diplomacy of the Force Commander, General Peter Cosgrove, combined with the underlying humanity, adaptability and competence of his officers and men, that prevented a very tense situation developing into a blood bath.
For its part, PNG has a very limited military that proved quite incapable of dealing with the insurrection in Bougainville, despite possessing many nominal advantages.
Both Australia and PNG rely upon the cultivation and maintenance of good relations with their neighbours, especially Indonesia, and with today's great powers, notably the USA and China, to exert diplomatic influence in world affairs. That influence must be regarded as limited in Australia's case and negligible in that of PNG.
Should we be digging bomb shelters? I don't think so. If there were to be a major conflict between the great powers, their ability to deploy overwhelming force against each other would render us all largely irrelevant.
A better strategy for Phil might be to build a new Haus Win. That way, he can watch events with beer in hand, hoping that nothing lethal will come flying his way until, as is usually the case, we humans once again batter ourselves to a standstill.
When will we ever learn?
Posted by: Chris Overland | 23 February 2016 at 09:47 AM