Our country is being taken away from us
10 November 2020
SCOTT WAIDE
| My Land, My Country
LAE - How much of the economy do we own? All the prime shop spaces in our towns and cities are owned by foreigners.
Can we easily get financing for a business? No. If we do get it, are the terms PNG-customer friendly? No. And shop space rentals are unaffordable.
Governments past have had no will to reduce costs for Papua New Guinean entrepreneurs and to create havens for PNG-owned business to grow.
There is a lot of rhetoric, and it will intensify next year as people prepare for the silly season.
But rental costs are among the highest in the region. Cartels are paying off government workers, buying off properties and evicting our own people.
Our justice system even favours the cartels and their lawyers.
We refuse to believe that organised crime and their masters have become bolder because our systems and its custodians have allowed themselves to be bought off.
The educated ‘elites’ and ‘intellects’ graduating from a failed education system seek opportunities to profit from the system and those less educated.
We sing praises to sweet talking leaders, and reporters repeat word for word without understanding the corrosive impact of that cheap narrative.
We criticise the media for not taking on corruption, but when they do nobody takes custody of the information and uses it for community action.
We are led to believe that that unions, protests and free speech are all illegal and should be discouraged.
Truth is Somare and the independence generation wrote those things into our laws.
How did we come to forget our rights? Because our education system made us stupider that our grandparents’ generation.
It taught us not to think for ourselves. A dumb generation raises dumb kids and dumb kids grow up to be dumb adults who vote in dumb politicians. That’s the truth.
They’re the ones who despise intelligence and free speech. They are offended by the expression of rights.
Wake up Papua New Guinea! Wake up! You need to get up and fight for what is yours.
I do not know whether Michaels's analogy rings quite true as there are heaps of citizens here in Oz that have made a successful career playing the victim role.
Posted by: Harry Topham | 12 November 2020 at 12:37 PM
The following link provides access to a recent report from the Migrant Worker Justice Initiative entitled, 'As if we weren’t humans: The abandonment of temporary migrants in Australia during COVID-19'.
https://www.mwji.org/covidreport
Following rampant exploitation of vulnerable migrants throughout the retail, hospitality, agriculture and horticultural sectors many of the peons were told by our prime minister to return home during the coronavirus pandemic.
Many PNG citizens working and studying under temporary visas in Australia were left stranded by our leaders and acolytes of the three-toed Bullingdon Club.
PS, "In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute" - Thurgood Marshall
Posted by: Bernard Corden | 12 November 2020 at 12:06 PM
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
Posted by: Bernard Corden | 12 November 2020 at 08:03 AM
Right with you, Michael.
Posted by: Lindsay F Bond | 11 November 2020 at 09:46 AM
Crying for Rights is the clarion call of the immature. Loud, brash, undisciplined.
Striving for Responsibility is the flying banner of the mature. Stoic, reasoned, determined.
Only the mature are responsible enough to secure their rights.
Posted by: Michael Dom | 11 November 2020 at 07:52 AM
Statutory legislation through regulatory capture has progressively eroded our common law rights.
"Written laws are like spiders' webs, and will, like them, only entangle and hold the poor and weak, while the rich and powerful will easily break through them" - Anacharsis
"No one is free, even the birds are chained to the sky" - Bob Dylan
Posted by: Bernard Corden | 10 November 2020 at 05:34 PM
Just before independence, Michael Somare's 8 Point Plan became the Pangu Pati platform for economic development.
https://www.tokpisin.info/eight-point-plan/
It might be worth revisiting his ideas.
Posted by: Joe Herman | 10 November 2020 at 03:11 PM
Much as one might celebrate the optimism of Mr Alone, this tale of woe visits the dark side of the moon (by which I mean less enlightened).
Meanwhile at Alotau, reports tells of 'thugs' in armed combat, almost like hyenas contesting a carcass.
Growing a nation is so multi-faceted in terms of the jewel of potential. Its strength is in a multi-vessel delivery. Yet it must float on trust, not on a foam of frothed misconception and mistruth.
That Mr Somare in the 1960s and '70s gathered sufficiently the trust to win awe and write law. Who will be better at that and effective for this emerging era?
The question is not to disparage current actors, for as all have seen this past week, a person can be in the system for nearly five decades yet emerge as a 'likely to deliver' president.
But a question, and not only for Scott: for PNG people, exactly what are 'rights'?
Opportunities there are. Skills and intelligence exist. Willingness abounds. And 'free' is the hope sung in nation's anthem.
Posted by: Lindsay F Bond | 10 November 2020 at 10:11 AM