A nation in denial
16 September 2021
ERIC MOLONG
UKARUMPA - We are a nation that is drowning in its own oil. We are a nation that is being dragged under – submerged by the weight of our gold.
We suffocate as our natural gases get sucked out of our lungs by the barrel. Our large timber exports continue to land us in cardboard shelters. Every ship that sails away with our tuna leaves us staring at an empty plate.
We continue to pride ourselves with delusions of grandeur. We are not rich. We are not landowners. We are not independent. We are not free. We are not a sovereign nation.
We are a nation in denial. With all of our natural wealth, we are the poorest black country in the world.
The rich do not live in kunai huts without electricity and access to basic services. Landowners do not scavenge through dumps for food. An independent nation does not borrow from its neighbours to feed her children.
The free do not slave away in unbearable conditions for less than minimum wage. A sovereign nation is not governed by the dictates of foreigners.
Our anthem is bellowed from the mountaintops every morning but we have yet to grasp the true meaning of Freedom and Independence: words as empty as the drum that tune us to the chorus.
We are a suppressed nation of voiceless people. Not a single ounce of patriotism courses through our veins. We embrace ignorance for it is bliss.
We offer ourselves to be exploited. We carry their briefcases with heads high in the sky and go home in the afternoon with empty bilums.
We hold back the tears and smile at them as they walk off in broad daylight with our birthright.
We are represented by the deaf, mute and blind because they are a true reflection of who we are as a nation.
They crawl on their knees and beg us for our fingers. They entice us with their shiny coins, only to rip our guts out from under us and throw us into the mumu pit with their lamb-flaps.
We elect puppets to speak on our behalf and mutter complaints when their strings get pulled and they drift away from us, having sold us out to better themselves.
We watch them transform from skinny politicians in rags to obese marionettes in suits, inflated by empty promises and the lies.
We watch the migration from huts to hotel suites. We watch because that is all we are capable of doing - spectators to our own demise.
When a coin escapes their clenched grasp onto our empty platter our lips pour out praises in gratitude and our feet dance in jubilation.
The echoes ripple through to the far corners of our world and deafen us to the sound of their other hand ransacking our public coffers.
We write songs about them to accompany the flapping of our headdresses and grass skirts on the waipa circle.
We chant tales of their feats in rhythmic unison to the beating of kundu drums. They smile and they wave and they bid us thank you and goodbye.
And we are left yet again with nothing but the withered headdress on our heads, the dried paint and cracked clay on our faces and the broken kundu in our hands.
We repeat the madness at the whisper of a hope in the wind and expect a different result but always find ourselves barefoot in the mud – insane on the dancing ground.
We have become complacent and have accepted chaos and madness as a norm.
We have woven corruption into our culture so we don’t have to look at its ugly face.
We have given up on the fight and made an unconscious decision to join them.
We frown upon their behaviour but continue to teach our children that cheating and lying is acceptable if it is done with pure intentions.
We get thrown out of their shops for being 10 toea short and cheat the local PMV on the way home for 50 toea off the bus fare.
We hold double standards and always whine when we get dished a serving of our own medication.
We are a spoiled generation of takers. We have grown so accustomed to being spoon-fed that we think it is a right.
They have created a broken nation and tricked her into thinking she is independent. They put words in our mouth so it can fall easily upon our ears.
They’ve painted their perspective on our spectacles so it is all we see when we look through the lens.
They’ve turned a hardworking nation into a den of beggars. Then they throw us bones to fight over as they haul away the feast.
Will this vicious cycle ever end?
Can it ever end?
Enough is enough. It is on us to decide. The puppets we have elected will never make that decision for us because it would mean actually caring for those they represent.
They are incapable of making sacrifices of that magnitude – they fear it would mean their strings get cut and that they would crumble and deflate.
As a nation, we must find our own voice. We must break out of this colonial spell and step into the 21st century.
We must no longer choose to be passive. We must no longer choose to be voiceless. We must no longer choose to turn a blind eye to what we know is wrong. We must no longer choose to be ignorant.
We are proud Melanesians. We are proud Papua New Guineans. We are rich – let’s take back what is rightfully ours from the thieves.
We are landowners – let’s take back our land from the invaders. We are independent – let’s prove to our neighbors that we are capable of standing on our own two feet.
We are free – let’s break free from the shackles that they have bound us with for far too long. We are a sovereign nation – let’s take back the reins and chart our own course.
For us to truly take back our nation, we have to stop living in denial.
Every individual has to know their worth and must be an active player in nation building.
It will take a united effort to take back our beloved land.
Let’s show up on the great dancing ground with our unique paintings and dance together to the beat of our own kundu.
This is a call to action and has a development imperative undertone.
It requires that each person is truly liberated in the mind first to appreciate himself/herself first, then his/her neighbourhood and the community and the resources and opportunities that are within reach and/or available.
For far too long, our people have been led to believe that they are powerless, that they need politicians or bureaucrats to save them. That's the picture being painted in the way the affairs of our country are run.
Our people need to be free and liberated in their minds and form worldviews and adopt a philosophy of life that puts them at the center of action.
The process of freeing people and fortifying their minds is a long process. Some of us are in such a space and we call others who want to be on that journey to connect with us!
Posted by: John K Kamasua | 20 September 2021 at 08:09 PM
What a cracker of an article! I am sharing it!!
Posted by: John K Kamasua | 20 September 2021 at 07:53 PM
Very well stated bro, it only needs a strong man to change this nation's sovereignty.
"The rich do not live in kunai huts without electricity and access to basic services. Landowners do not scavenge through dumps for food. An independent nation does not borrow from its neighbors to feed her children."
True Papua New Guinean leaders will sacrifice for their people's prosperity and better living (gutpla sindaun).
Hope the message is driven into our minds.
Posted by: Bosaka Philip | 20 September 2021 at 09:01 AM
Eric Molong. This is an excellent write up! A well written piece that exposes the truth of who and what we really are as a nation. So rich and yet so poor. You described our status very well. I totally agree and endorse what you have said. Keep exposing the truth without fear or favor. Blessings son!
Posted by: Andrew Kwimberi | 19 September 2021 at 09:16 PM
I loved this critique. I only have one question. Why is corruption gendered in the sentence, "We have woven corruption into our culture so we don’t have to look at HER ugly face".
__________
That’s a fair point, Jacki, and I have now changed that reference, which I should have picked up in editing. Eric was using it in a stylistic way (like ships and nations are given female gender), but there was no need for corruption to be gendered in this remarkable piece of writing - KJ
Posted by: Jacki Leota Mua | Twitter | 19 September 2021 at 02:28 PM
Couldn't agree more. An excellent analysis by Eric Molong. Spend time to read and digest.
Posted by: Nigel Marandimari Andy | Twitter | 19 September 2021 at 02:25 PM
This article brought tears to my eyes. PNG is a nation with so much potential to be wealthy, but the greed of a few holds the keys to making a big difference and continues to block the growth of PNG.
Forty-six years of no major growth to making a difference in ordinary PNG citizens' lives.
Posted by: PNG Fashion International | Twitter | 19 September 2021 at 02:24 PM
This is some of the most powerful writing I’ve ever read. A brilliantly damning critique of neo-colonialism. Brilliant! Thank you Eric Molong and @PNGAttitude.
Posted by: Magpie Media Australia | Twitter | 19 September 2021 at 02:21 PM
PNG has always been a land of intense extremes and contradictions. But Eric Molong captures the essence of that in contemporary PNG in beautifully written prose. Well worth the read.
Posted by: Michael Bates | Twitter | 19 September 2021 at 02:19 PM
Direct hit. We are not independent and we are certainly not free. The truth hurts people, but what’s even more heartbreaking is our submission.
My heart cried as I read the words of Eric Molong’s PNG Independence Day piece, for sadly they are true. We are living in the latter part of Deuteronomy 28, my beloved PNG. Take off the rose-tinted glasses and be a voice for a voiceless people.
Posted by: Aiga Moi | Twitter | 19 September 2021 at 02:18 PM
This was worth reading. We are truly 'A Nation In Denial'. Thank you Eric Molong, there are so many aptly captured sentiments. Here are three that resonated with me....
"We elect puppets to speak on our behalf and mutter complaints when their strings get pulled and they drift away from us, having sold us out to better themselves."
"We have become complacent and have accepted chaos and madness as a norm. We have woven corruption into our culture so we don’t have to look at its ugly face. We have given up on the fight and made an unconscious decision to join them."
"We are a spoiled generation of takers. We have grown so accustomed to being spoon-fed that we think it is a right. They have created a broken nation and tricked her into thinking she is independent. They put words in our mouth so it can fall easily upon our ears."
Posted by: Dr Pamela Toliman | Twitter | 19 September 2021 at 02:16 PM
" No one is free, even the birds are chained to the sky" - Bob Dylan
Posted by: Bernard Corden | 18 September 2021 at 08:45 PM
Yes, writers are needed! We need the truth and freedom will follow and the truth starts with us! My brother Josh captured this beautifully in one of his blogs https://jgela.wordpress.com/2019/08/05/dont-fight-for-freedom/ . We "can be free but still be imprisoned by a lie". The ugly truths need to be made bare. For that, we need writers!
Posted by: Eric Molong | 17 September 2021 at 12:15 PM
It's not unusual to ask 'what lies ahead', but emphasis on the middle word and then by a milling of woes, serves to identify with those it might be cast as 'wondering wandering whatyoumaycallems'.
For delivering more than 'blam facts' and lamb flaps, writers are 'wanted'; no, make that 'urgently needed' and Eric has his banner high in the parade, progressing from a winter of 'this content' into a summer of language that connects.
Posted by: Lindsay F bond | 17 September 2021 at 09:31 AM
Eric's beautifully written article is both a lament and a call to arms. Papua Niuginians have been betrayed at multiple levels by their political class.
Most of them are impoverished subsistence farmers, the wealth of their country having been squandered or stolen.
The neo-liberal capitalists who infest their country have demonstrated what they can do when there is no-one to effectively call them to account. They offer crumbs from the table but the feast is for others.
This is happening to some degree at least in Australia, the USA and elsewhere besides, only mitigated by the hard won legislative protections that still survive and the neo-liberal politicians' existential fear of being ejected from office by the people they purportedly serve.
The pay and conditions of many, perhaps most, working people have hardly improved in real terms for more than a decade. Even the current pandemic induced recession has seen no significant positive movement in wages.
Yet business conditions are buoyant for the great international corporations, the world's stock exchanges are reaching all time highs as asset values skyrocket and the wealthy continue to increase their wealth at a tremendous rate.
Something is terribly wrong with the current economic model and PNG is just a more extreme example of this phenomenon.
I am pessimistic about the likelihood of of new and much fairer economic model being implemented unless and until an existential crisis simply destroys the current system.
This may seem highly improbable to most people but many unexpected and catastrophic things have happened in the past that would have seemed just as improbable.
So Eric's call to arms may yet bear fruit, just as the Communist Manifesto (1848) ultimately did. Whether the fruit is sweet or bitter is another question of course.
Posted by: Chris Overland | 16 September 2021 at 08:22 PM
On this particular day, Eric's depressive article should be a call to arms. It reflects to feelings of so many who have dreams and aspirations but just can't see a way out of the mire.
Posted by: Dave Ekins | 16 September 2021 at 12:08 PM
If it's any consolation Eric, PNG is not the only place run by greedy idiots.
In Australia we have our very own Donald Trump who has just been conned by the Yanks and Poms to buy nuclear powered submarines to 'combat' China and set us up as a prime target in the event of war.
Posted by: Philip Fitzpatrick | 16 September 2021 at 09:33 AM
The 'great dancing ground', hmm, you mean Ples Singsing?
Go here: https://plessingsing.com
Posted by: Michael Dom | 16 September 2021 at 08:16 AM
What an inspired diatribe. And so timely and true.
Posted by: Philip Fitzpatrick | 16 September 2021 at 08:13 AM
Standing on a road imperils being run over, injured and worse.
Yet as a bystander I am impelled in the flurry of Eric's (s)words.
In the mouth of one Tommy Baker, the words scale up to actions outrageous.
In the month of this September, let words scold less, yet state of courageous.
In the morph from clan to nation, frees electors hearts to head advantageous.
Posted by: Lindsay F bond | 16 September 2021 at 08:09 AM
The late Aneurin (Nye) Bevan was one of the finest orators in the UK parliament and once proclaimed:
"This island is made mainly of coal and surrounded by fish. Only an organising genius could produce a shortage of coal and fish at the same time."
Posted by: Bernard Corden | 16 September 2021 at 07:32 AM