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Date Posted: 08:52:20 02/14/00 Mon
Author: Anonymous
Subject: Alternate grassroots perspective-how do my fellow educated PNGeans respond?
In reply to: 's message, "An alternative grassroots perspective-how do my fellow educated PNGeans respond?" on 03:23:39 02/14/00 Mon

> > OK!! Perhaps so. Now tell us what reality is?
>
> Here is an alternative reality. I'd like to ask what
> my fellow educated PNGans think.
>
> This was a grassroots poem written some years ago, but
> which has gotten circulated around through NGOs and
> grassroots movements. It isn't perfect but it
> expresses the outlook of many people in the village
> not blessed with the educational opportunities but
> observant anyway. These are the types of village
> people who are smart but aren't out to con others or
> otherwise yang themselves up ladder of progress at the
> expense of everyone else.
>
> Anyway read it and tell me if it is a wrong expression
> of the situatino today in PNG. I've always liked it.
>
> I liked my own old custom ways
> Which my ancestors handed to me
> I worshipped my Gods whom I adored
> For them I killed pigs before
>
> White men came from far away
> To change my way of life
> They brought with them some peculiar ways
> Which affected my whole life
>
> Before they came over to my land
> I had freedom to roam
> I hunted my food from shore to shore
> In the mountains I built my home
>
> When the sailing ships came into my bay
> I felt there was no doubt
> But I was naked so I ran away
> And hoped I won't be found
>
> The land was once my pride and joy
> Until white men arrived
> They took things over from me that day
> Or maybe I was bribed
>
> White men came and bewildered me
> They kidnapped people too
> Took them away to overseas
> Over-worked them til they died.
>
>
> NB: The last part describes the blackbirding that went
> to get slave labour for the sugar cane plantations in
> N Queensland on towards the end of the last century
> and beginning of this century. Also the forced labour
> that went to work the coconut plantations in the
> islands. Our tok pisin language evolved during that
> time.

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