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Date Posted: 15:00:52 01/16/00 Sun
Author: Anonymous
Subject: The Problem With PNG Part II

The point is that what PNG pledged at Independence to do, by and large, has not been done 25 years on.

To me there are several causes.

Firstly, we are a product of our environment and history.

Papua New Guineans were engaged in agriculture, archeologists say, from about 9,000 years ago. Now, that puts us well ahead
of the rest of the globe in farming the land. Others elsewhere were just emerging from the cave around that time. Yet, why have
we not progressed through from there as others have done?

To me, the simple reason is that there was no need to.

You planted anything, it grew. You did not need permanent homes or heating systems for protection from the cold. Everything
you needed, from food and clothing to heat and light, you had plenty of - from the natural environment.

There was no need to be innovative. The land mass was huge. It contained all the riches that man needed at that time.

Elsewhere, the four seasons dictated when you planted, when you harvested and when you rested. In those areas, the need to
plan ahead was important. You needed to be innovative to come up with better and faster ways of beating the weather, of
travelling from place to place and of keeping alive.

Not so in PNG.

Another reason is that PNG is a product of history.

These fun-loving people who loved and lived off nature were rudely awakened and forced to become subjects of foreign
powers in their own land.

They were never prepared for the interruption nor did they want the interruption - part of the reason why they were slow to get off
the mark and learn the introduced concepts.

And then there simply has not been time to learn all the tricks of western technologies, ideas and way of life.

Thirdly, the land was so divided. The friction between the newest migrants to PNG and the traditional landowners would have
been fiercer if the locals were united. They were not. If they hated the outsider, they hated each other more. It made it easy for
the outsider to divide and rule.

Those differences continue to this day and manifests itself in the strong tribal and regionalistic sentiments that abound.

Graft and corruption find safety in the wantok system.

What is good for self, tribe and region comes before what is good for the nation.

Until and unless this problem is properly addressed PNG can never really be strong. It would end up fragmenting.

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