By Martyn Namorong*

If someone asked you what violence is, you’d automatically have images of people fighting, husbands beating wives, dogs chasing cats, etc... What if I told you that if you find this article frustrating, boring, insulting, distasteful, shallow, biased, etc...? Then I’ve been violent towards you.

Violence is about being hurt physically, mentally and spiritually. The spiritual dimension of violence extends to any act that destroys relationships between people, the environment and the Divine.

Violence that exists in ideas and the way those ideas get transferred by subtle means through children at school, is very devious and perhaps the worst kind. The O’Neil Government recently announced it is getting rid of the Outcome Based Education System.

Many High School students failed last year and indeed the Year 10s found the exams quite difficult. That is AUSAIDs act of violence committed against young Papua New Guineans. Thousands have had their future dreams and ambitions crushed by a failure system introduced by Australians.

In my poem We were not savages, published on my blog and on PNG Attitude, I describe the violence that arises due to the misrepresentations of history so that Papua New Guineans feel bad about the past and think it was all bad. The last three stanzas read;

Many Papua New Guineans live with the inferiority complex of being former savages and primitives. We were not savages nor were we primitive.

For Papua New Guineans to rethink the nature of violence is very critical. At a time when many indigenous communities face pressures from resource exploiters, the idea of what constitutes a violent act becomes distorted.

For instance, if a miner is polluting the river and you start having babies with deformities or various skin disease, that is violence against indigenous people. Now if the people then take up the matter with various government authorities and it falls on deaf ears, the government is being violent towards it people. How is it violence? Because, both parties are destroying the health and wellbeing of indigenous communities.

So when a landowner group decides to shut down a mine or town water supply, the media automatically plays into the hands of the exploiters and the government, portraying these groups as being violent. “Landowners threaten to shut down...” is a good example of a headline that portrays landowners as violent. What if the headline read, “Landowners plan to shut down...” notice the change in tone and perception?

And it is perhaps the perceptions that are created about people and places that is in my opinion the greatest form of violence. For example, many red-skin Papua New Guineans would think of Bougainville as the place to avoid if one can afford to. I went there and found out for myself that Bougainvilleans are some of the most hospitable people. I felt safer walking around Buka Town and Kokopau then I ever do walking at Gordons Market in Port Moresby.

Sadly, many Papua New Guineans buy into the negativity that is generated about their country and its people. Some are so obsessed with condemning buai chewers but not once have I heard them condemn the violence of illegal logging, police brutality, experimental deep sea mining or the land grab under dubious Special Purpose Agriculture Business Leases.

And yes still on buai, some of the most violently oppressed people are buai sellers in Port Moresby. But this violence has sadly become normalized in the psyche of city residents. I myself as a sinfully proud buai seller, wonder why unhygienic Asian Kai-Bars in Port Moresby don’t get the same attention from City Authorities. Governor Parkop needs to also put up signs at the traffic lights to remind Asian shop owners to improve hygiene standards.

Indeed Governor Parkop could install free water supply for settlements but he won’t. He prefers paying for water to flow out of fountains protected by 24 hour security. Strangely though, it would actually be unpopular to provide free water to settlers. That is because some Papua New Guineans enjoy seeing the violence of their fellow country men and women deprived of one of the basics of life.

These same Papua New Guineans wouldn’t mind seeing a rich foreign company getting a 10 year tax holiday from the Government. So on one hand it’s ok for the Government to give money to the rich foreigners but not to fellow Papua New Guineans.

I was once walking through Jack Pidik Park in Port Moresby with my brother and I decided to talk about the interschool fights. He said kids just did it for the fun of it. That made sense to me. In urban settings the violence of economic deprivation is much starker. Hyperactive teenagers get bored easily due to the lack of attractions and activities to keep them occupied. I grew in a rural community so I see the contrast between urban and rural childhood. It is highly unlikely to see a settlement kid from Kaugere playing at the Water Park at near Pacific Adventist University.

It’s important to understand violence in all its forms if one is to address violence in communities. It is about putting violence into context so that one is not mislead into thinking that a reaction against injustice is more unacceptable than the injustice committed. This helps everyone understand violence better and hopefully generates a social conscience that leads to addressing violence in all its manifestations.

The greatest threat to addressing violence is when some forms of violence become “normalized” in the psyche of the masses. Then, the perpetrators are never held accountable and society remains a violent one.

* Follow Martyn on his blog The Namorong Report