John Fowke makes an impassioned plea for the middle-class to lead a social revolution and provides some excellent insights into the failures of our political system. But isn't part of the problem that our middle-classes are too comfortable to want to seriously challenge our corrupted elite...?

By John Fowke on PNGExposed

It is PNG’s middle-class – (the well-educated, salary-earners, professionals and tertiary students) – who by virtue of the clarity of their understanding of the dispossession of PNG’s citizenry, of the loss of basic rights and of equity in the common wealth of their lovely land, are not only qualified, but DUTY-BOUND to conceive and to lead a lawful social revolution to restore citizens’ rights and to foster honesty and a sense of duty everywhere.

The mass of the population, the villagers, the settlement-dwellers, these largely-illiterate or semi-literate people are ready-made victims for oppression by the exploitative bilakmasta class.. They MUST have the LEADERSHIP of people with a clarity of understanding of all the issues and of a path towards real reform. There are many people who are equipped to step in as groups based in their places of residence- perhaps as many as 200,000 people; those mentioned above as potential guides and leaders of a new society.

Dont hide behind words, you middle-class people, you salary-earners, professionals, technocrats, tertiary students.

There’s no way around it. Its your born duty and obligation to the nation which has made you a part of its educated, thinking,worldly-wise class. All that has to be done is something like what I will outline below, before signing off. Become active after some thought, and get together a few like-minded compatriots. With the emphasis on “..patriots.”

And stop putting it off endlessly – JUST DO IT!

All this mess is not PNG’s fault as a new nation. No. As a young man I was part of the biggest of Australias two major mistakes in its role as ruler of then TP&NG. I was a member of one of the teams which collected votes around the country in the first national election in 1964.

I was too immature to understand how dense, how incredibly blind, my big bosses at Konedobu, -and in Canberra at the Department of Territories- were to allow parliamentary representation to arise without full discussion and examination of all possible paths. How in a nation where land and what grows on it, and the bones of those buried in it, are the absolute basic bedrock from which social structure, culture, ethics, morality all arise..This was a society of small groups, each dependent upon and intensely defensive of its own resource of land, of rights to river, reef and island.

Here were no Barons whose landholdings and influence ran to Province-sized fiefdoms; here were no Manorial holdings comprising large acreages of prime farming land, here were no landowning Squires for whom landless share-farmers laboured all their lives, Here were no slaves bound to a Baron or a Lord for life. None of these. No; in 1964 TP&NG,, as ever, was an almost entirely egalitarian society with almost no tradition of hereditary class, hereditary privilege or poverty.Certainly a 99% classless self-governing society.

From day one the opposing interests of the Bullybeef Club – ( Pangu) – and the business sector and Missions allied with older and conservative village leaders – (Compass Pati, later National) – advanced and retreated, skirmishing as they solidified into opposing parties. That is how it all started. Parliament soon became an institution far from the understanding of the common citizen, remote, eventually becoming the object of derision and mistrust. This is no way for a modern, avowedly-democratic nation to be

So stupid, then, to allow a facsimile of the British Westminster party-based system to arise in the first House when none of the conditions which the party-system grew to meet in a heavily-class-ridden kingdom over several centuries in Britain. These conditions never existed in TP&NG. This is the source of most of PNG’s present-day unfairness and discontent. By their stupidity the Australians caused an isolated, selfish, greedy political class to establish itself in self-constructed, exclusive “clubs”. This most un-Melanesian ruling-class have established deep roots in this hitherto free, avowedly democratic if often unruly society..

Especially stupid when 100 or more LLGs – (then LGCs) – being grass-roots-based political institutions were well-established and well-understood throughout the land. The LGCs of today -and now there are many, many more of them, still remain as the basic, grass-roots building blocks for grass-roots control of their nation and its resources and its state institutions.

Then as now, parties possessed little of principle, little member-loyalty, and great personal, selfish ambition. There is no connection between the electorate and the elected.

This has to change if you are to fulfil the promise embodied in your lovely land and your constitution and your aspirations.

Get together with some others, like-minded, and prepare the way for your own Ward Councillor to suggest in a meeting that your current MP be asked to make a formal agreement to appear regularly at the Council’s meetings, to act upon reasonable requests pertaining to the welfare of the council’s constituency- being a large part of his own- and to bring his District Development funding to bear on reasonable and duly budgeted physical infrastructural needs. The MP should also take on the improvement of all National and Provincial services in the council area by liaison with provincial and Waigani-based officials and with the PM’s Department if necessary.

In return the Council should agree that depending upon performance, the MP would have the full support of the LLG constituency in the next national election. Such an agreement would be constitutional and might be accomplished peacefully with great benefit on all sides.

Lawful, transparent and productive of a much more settled, equitable and peaceful social environment if successfully publicised and acted upon. If in doubt, dig out the records of the Public Sector Reform Advisory Group* presided over by the late Sir Barry Holloway until his death two years ago. This group of idealistic and well-qualified PNG professionals began work in 2002 and built up a number of excellent policy-papers for parliamentary consideration. Policies which encompassed aspects of my own suggestion above. Whilst parliament did nothing with these the records and most of the people concerned are still available for you to consult. Perhaps you may take some of their insights and ideas to incorporate in a set of steps you yourselves, you middle-class professionals and students, decide upon. This is not brand new territory, I assure you. Go to it.

Good luck.

* Comment from ex-PSRAG staffer "About the Public Sector Reform Advisory Group. If the government had taken on PSRAG's 28 recommendations for improved decentralisation, MPs would have been restricted to their substantive roles as parliamentarians, JDPBPCs, slush-funding and MPs' patronage and fiefdoms would have been eliminated, provincial governments abolished, LLGs reformed and strengthened, auditing, inspections and accountability improved, the public service re-focussed and better trained, and the system of government and funding made transparent. We were hoping for some LLG improvements as an initial step towards broader reforms. In reality, a snowball's chance in Hell! Anyway, it is in the public record if PNG ever wants to pull itself up by the bootstraps."