I must refer those detractors of the protests during the 1997 Sandline Crisis. That was a significant event in PNG’s history, mercenaries were being recruited to bring Bougainville under the thumb. It was an event meaningful enough for one once eminent political author to try to rewrite its story.

A pity we don’t seem to have learned anything from that episode.

That’s what happens when you spit on your own history – you remain ignorant and ignorance breeds general stupidity which leads to the kind of leaders Papua New Guinea has now.

We shouldn’t feel so bad, I suppose. This is even happening in the most powerful country on earth – Donald Trump is Peter O’Neill’s equivalent as the big-man leader.

Elsewhere I’ve commented that people should stop fear mongering and stay true to the good cause because anything else is puerile. We should act and escalate our cause in a process of continuous engagement, not content ourselves with platitudes and dream fantasies.

But there’s a whole bunch of folks (I had a different ‘f’ word in mind) who attack bloggers and other writers and fire off disingenuous statements like ‘stop blogging, do something’ or ‘blurry useless keyboard warriors’.

Such comments are disingenuous because just because someone starts a conversation does not mean they need to finish it, or even start the action. Everyone has s role to play, including the writer.

My ‘f’ folks need to appreciate that there are group actions and there are individual citizen actions and that they need to be exercised each step along the way. Agenda, audience and avenue are separate factors that deserve more attention. Go educate yourselves.

We want to protest against wrongful politics and politicians but we’re not sure how to go about it. That’s why we diss each other about ‘talking’ and not ‘doing’.

I believe it’s generally because of a lack of imagination and intelligence. The dissers diss and, when something positive happens, they attribute it to luck.

Martyn Namorong started a petition against the proposed draconian ‘cybercrime’ legislation. There is was on www.change.org, also moving to Facebook. To date, only 47 supporters.

Less than 50 in a space where people write such things as “karim bush knife , gun, petrol container, big stones or sticks ba yumi ready tasol lo take revenge if anything goes wrong: action, destruction and blood spill to save the country.”

It seems even the ones who diss ‘keyboard warriors’ can’t even raise the energy and 15 seconds to sign a petition. Now that’s rich.

In an attempt to be proactive, I’ve been thinking of other ways to protest, particularly since I’m in Adelaide and can’t do much except read, write, bitch, moan, fuss, fume and go for long walks.

Since being firewalled by one of PNG’s two national dailies – which had asked me to share some poetry without giving me a ladder over the firewall (go figure!) - I’ve thought of what that barricading meant for me as a poet, writer and commentator on the human condition.

My conclusion: nada mucho, nogat tru.

The daily rags hardly matter today, except for their age old use of rolling brus, wiping as and making paia, as UPNG students recently amply demonstrated.

So here’s a form of protest that Rashmii Bell pointed out – let’s write it.

I’m throwing down the gauntlet – mi putim salens – if anyone can write a better protest poem than this – chosen by popular vote from PNG Attitude readers, then we’ll give them ‘glory, title and honours’ and I’ll throw in K100 to sweeten the win.

So, poets and writers, get to it. And here’s my go….

PM resign!

MICHAEL DOM

PM resign! Your time is up
You’ve disgraced our office enough
You’ve put all our laws to shame
Giving everyone else the blame
Treating our watchdogs as mere pups
Hiding behind your lawyers skirts!

We won’t back down, we’ve had enough
Sneaky Singaporean scams
And creative accounting schemes
PM just stop
Using the police as your thugs,
Trying to squash us like mere bugs
Who the hell do you think you are?
Some super hero mega-star?
Your political grave is dug.
PM resign!

Hint: Repetitive forms like this modified rondeau are very useful for protest slogans.