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Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Papua New Guinea platitude: Reacting to Reg Renagi and his mates

 BY JOHN FOWKE

HOW WILL Julia Gillard help Papua New Guinea to become more independent and fight corruption through good governance if her operating agency in PNG is closed?

I am not known as a fervid AusAID supporter by any means, but if we in Oz and Julia Gillard and her Minister for Foreign Affairs are to be of help to our mates in PNG, how may this be facilitated in any other way but a material one; where the agreed material help comes with relevant advice and instruction?

By Reg Renagi’s own admission, his own generation of educated professionals and leaders of society are so weak, lacking in guts and imagination, and dishonest as not only to stall progress, but to send it into reverse.

How may Australia help in this regard, unless by the offer and the implementation of assistance directed at the problem? By hypnotism? By a national Help PNG Prayer Day?

The river of weakness and lack of resolution runs deep in PNG, as these educated people well know. Who in PNG will get up and turn the nation around?

All any of these people do, with such few exceptions as to be counted on fingers of one hand, is endlessly talk and propose and suggest. You are self-proclaimed champion boxers who spend your lives hitting the punching-bag but always shy away from the ring and the real challenge.

And sit back to watch the crooks become stronger and more numerous week by week.

Reg and his fellow educated professionals in PNG are musicians who play many tunes; music played according to who is listening, not music played from passionate feeling.

I find this immensely disappointing, whilst at the same time maintaining a full heart and high regard, in fact love, for so many old friends and their families who live in the villages.

These people have never had the opportunities that Reg and his mates have enjoyed, and they suffer a continuing diminution in conditions of daily life. Why? Because the educated generation has failed them absolutely and miserably.

We PNG-acquainted outsiders who are not able to do any more than talk and write are in many cases people who have worked hard and long as subordinates within PNG-managed institutions.

We have been putting up positive ideas, some of us for years, and there are some slight signs of acceptance - for instance, changes in the management at AusAID and Stephen Smith's announcement about funding for education and health through church-managed institutions.

These signs show perhaps, and while never acknowledged, that our ideas have caught the eye of those who control Australia’s inputs and aid delivery to PNG.

Forget about endless contributions on blogs, get together and make plans and actually do something instead of practising your famous Melanesian Way - talk, talk, seminars, 2050 programs, all this is simply horseshit.

When did we ever see anything positive come out of these magnificent plans? The Eight-Point plan, for instance? Plans, plans and more plans, accompanied by seminars and two-day stays at fancy locations. Tokwin tasol. Karana anina lasi. [Just empty air!]

Until you actually start kicking arse and getting people to come to work on time five days a week, accepting responsibility and working hard for that beautiful place which is your home, none of the problems you continually refer to are going to go away.

If you and your peer-group of some tens of thousands of middle class, educated citizens can’t hack it, the war's already over.

And the ghosts of people like Sgt Major Katui MM and Sgt Major Soa Ubia MM, who really cared, and who really fought and delivered for their country without the benefit of university educations and long white socks, will remain restless, disappointed, homeless spirits forever.

2 comments:

  1. We sometimes have to forgive my good friend Reg for his floundering thoughts but truth be told, there is some logic in what he’s ranting on about. Fair enough, Reg and his mates (including me) have been part of a generation of PNGns educated and at one stage or another, served in the government to our bit for the country. Didn’t wear a uniform but proudly sat around mahogany tables in Canberra, Beijing, Brussels, Geneva, New York and Washington negotiating foreign and trade relations.

    It came obvious when we met every diplomat and government official, what’s in it for us. Which was what we expected, after all, that’s what former diplomatic hawks in Washington and Brussels taught us. So how does PNG react towards such a question? Well, as our colorful history tells you, we try to formulate a negotiating position so as to establish a platform of norms that our partner must appreciate our development needs. In return we will allow them access in our markets for their private sector to trade. So the Armada of development assistance comes in. Our kids absorb your tax on education and health projects and return you’re mates can dig great big holes in our backyard looking for rocks, oil and gas.

    In all, we are delighted for the warm friendship but when you look deeper into what this relationship entails, than you see that it’s a corrosive relationship. Most of the money is spent on the blokes and shielas you are recycled public servants whose only training is hopping around the Arnhem Land teaching the Aboriginals what’s right and wrong and some have been farted out of Uni with a quest of fixing the dogs breakfast in Vulipindi. Yep, no fuckin experience whatsoever and telling my people what to do.

    Than there is the private sector that brings up trash from the south. Many have only run little outfits in regional Australia, they trooper up bringing little knowledge to help businesses. Than there are blokes like you John that have some affection to my wantoks because you got mates in the village who you keep in touch with and you see the poverty they live in. God bless your kind heart and the countless taubadas who are our dear brothers.

    But the sad reality is Canberra doesn’t think like you and they don’t appreciate the love and affection you have for our people. I’ve fought on many aid negotiations and we are forced to eat the blueprint of Canberra. We have little contribution and for the most part, it is littered with projections that are not in the interest of PNG. So when aid is formulated, it’s really not only for our benefit but for your mates as well.

    I remember the time when my bubu told me about the first time he met Mr. Tomisini, Kiap. All he did was tell us what to do, where to go, and what to say. If we didn’t, he got us beaten up. There was one time he wanted us to cross a river and all of us didn’t want to. He started shouting and cursing us saying bloody black girly girlies. Being the man he is, re crossed the river and to his surprise, my gramps and his squad was on the other side already. You see there was a bamboo bridge across the ridge.

    Minister Abal has made it clear in Alotau to Minister Smith and PM Gillard, we want less aid and more trade. We know the terrain of our country and it’s taken us a while, but we know how to deliver to our people. If you’re serious about helping us, for fuck sake work with us, rather than throwing your tax payers money in the torrid development current that at times is even to strong for the best minds in Canberra to fathom.

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  2. Anonymous12:19 PM

    Reg Renagi said:

    Hi John,

    Thanks mate, and how have you been?
    Have being very busy myself running training courses non-stop since Jan 2010.

    Recently had lunch with Gramham Pople, Malum Nalu and General Anthony Huai at the Weigh Inn before Graham's story ran in the local papers and on PNG Attitude. Graham told me that you just passed through so I missed my second chance again to break bread with you, share a ice-cold SP beer and spin some good yarns that may become future PNG Attitude posts.

    By the way, you overreated in your article. I was only trying to gauge reader's opinion about Australia helping PNG more in future by not constantly 'spoon-feeding' its former colony. I saw cuting aid and boosting trade instead may do the trick. Theres many more strategies DFAT can use in future but it the free handout (so it may seem...) approach is too plain materialistic.

    Will just see the responses from our friends on the blog before I directly address some interesting salients points you raised. This way the ensuing discussions are balanced so we are not seen to be misusing KJ blog by making comments for the sake of saying something different from the other guy.

    But I guess its what blogs are for. I do not see this as wasting one's time, but sharing some good ideas with others for possible solutions without saying one's views are better than the other.

    There is more ways to skin a cat as the saying goes ...

    Cheers,

    Reg Renagi

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