The unique experience of a nation born
23 October 2019
PHIL FITZPATRICK
TUMBY BAY - My father came from Waterford in the warm southeast of Ireland. He had three brothers and two sisters. His eldest brother John carried on the family tradition of being politically active.
It was from an insistent Uncle John that I learned very early on about the colonisation of Ireland by the British.
That experience left me with a repressed but abiding suspicion about the whole enterprise of empire.
That suspicion came to the fore a few weeks after I’d begun training as a kiap at the Australian School of Pacific Administration in Sydney in the 1960s.
Our lecturers were an odd mix of academics and field officers. While some of the field officers were pretty blunt about what Australia was doing in Papua New Guinea the academics tended to be largely living in the past.
Radical lefties they definitely were not. Among other things they seemed blithely unaware that there were Papua New Guineans - like Malcolm Somare and John Guise - who didn’t want us to go up there to PNG anyway.
All this began to make me feel uneasy about what I had let myself in for. The youthful adventurism was still there but it was now tinged with a reality that didn’t sound so great.
On one afternoon after a lecture that included advice about how it wasn’t wise to hit people in the middle because of the possibility of rupturing their spleens enlarged by malaria, I went looking for Fred Kaad to discuss my misgivings.
Fred, a former district commissioner, had been badly injured in a plane crash in PNG and confined to a wheelchair. Sometimes he had waves of pain that had to abate before he could continue lecturing.
He listened to my problem and to my surprise agreed with a lot of what I said.
Many Australians in PNG were arrogant colonials, he cheerfully admitted, but a lot of others were dedicated public servants with the best interests of the people at heart.
Fred let me take this in and smiled before saying something like, “You realise that it’s going to be all over very soon, don’t you? You wouldn’t want to miss that would you?”
Miss what I thought.
He chuckled as he read my mind. “The end of empire. PNG will be one of the last colonies in the world to become independent.
“It will be a sight to behold. You’ll never have the chance to be part of something like that ever again.”
Fred was probably thinking that there would be more time than the eight or so years I had before PNG became independent, but he was unequivocal about what the process would represent.
Fred, who is now 99, has assumed the de facto mantle of Papa bilong ol Kiap and I’m glad I listened to his advice and went to PNG after all.
Those few short years as a kiap turned out to be extremely memorable, not least because I was able to see first-hand history in the making, with all its drama and dynamic twists and turns.
Moreover, as a kiap, I was also able to share some of the angst, misgivings, trepidation, excitement, elation and sheer terror of those halcyon days with the people directly affected. The Papua New Guineans themselves.
And, of course, I formed that lifelong and irresistible attachment to those people and the country that leaves traces of itself in the blood of most people who spend time there.
I often think that it would have been good to share those experiences with my Uncle John but he has long departed to wherever good Irishmen go.
Phil, your comments are interesting. Perhaps the most poignant day of my life was seeing our Australian flag being lowered with honour and dignity and feeling the silence of tens of thousands of PNGns and fellow expats in Port Moresby on 16 September 1975.
It was a privilege to serve as a field officer in PNG pre Independence, but our task was not completed. I still consider that not everyone was ready or wanted political Independence when there were insufficient PNG graduates and an economy that continues to seek support from Australia and other countries.
Noted from your articles that you're from the arse ples bilon mi.
Posted by: John D Mudge | 10 January 2022 at 10:44 AM
Phil, as you may know, your father’s ancestral place Waterford is a neighbouring county to Kilkenny where the Leahy brothers' father came from in Ireland.
Like yourself, I was in PNG prior to independence and after independence. I was in the Jimi Valley in 1971/72 when Thomas Kavali won his seat and he was crucial supporter of independence.
In the government station at Tabibuga the kiaps Jack Edwards, Ken Logan and Rod Cantlay were very very helpful and hospitable. Later in September 1975 I was in Mt Hagen for Independence itself.
Looking back it was in many ways an unique experience though at the time I think we were not all aware of how unique it was.
Granted that the experience of the young naïve missionary I was would have been different from that of the young kiaps, who had greater responsibilities than I had.
Yet we all experienced the local people themselves and the surrounding circumstances, including isolation and rough sleeping while on patrol. It was unique.
Posted by: Garry Roche | 23 October 2019 at 06:47 AM