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| Photo courtesy of PNG Electoral Commission 2013 |
By Tarali Tarlzen Hibuya
Introduction
Greetings to you all Papua New Guineans, especially working class, good citizens and students who'll be taking Term 2 holiday during the 2022 PNG National General Election (NGE) period (12th May - 01st August 2022).
For students, you will be taking holidays during 2022 NGE (4th July - 15th July) as usual especially during polling days as revised by Department of Education (refer PNG Loop)[9]. For working class, your employers will give you a day or two to casts your votes. For some, you will be casting votes at your locations, whether institution or work sites. In the following passages, more emphasis is directed at students because, they are our future.
For students, unlike other vacations you've taken in the past, this one is unique season, which arises every five (5) years. During this season (vacation) you are given a greater task by the almighty laws of this land to make better, wiser and fruitful choices for our future and our children's future. Remember, the life that we live, we borrow from our children and the choices that we make today are for them tomorrow. There are many choices we make in our lives, but this one is where all strings of choices linked - Politics is where social, economical and other aspects of nation's progress and prosperity is entwined. Thus, we will choose our political leaders in this season to ensure progress and prosperity are realised by us today and generations to come.
Choosing a right leader to lead us and to make our land a better place for future generations is our duty this holiday season.
As we embark on to that important project of choosing right leader, as students, let's close our eyes for a moment and think through.
What is the root cause of ongoing rampant crimes and corruptions in Papua New Guinea?
You may thought of many answers, but mine is only one and that is systems of "Bigman culture".
In Wikipedia a big man is defined as "a highly influential individual in a tribe...Such a person may not have formal tribal or other authority ..., but can maintain recognition through skilled persuasion and wisdom. The big man has a large group of followers, both from his clan and from other clans. He provides his followers with protection and economic assistance, in return receiving support which he uses to increase his status". Wikipedia [1]
The American anthropologist Marshall Sahlins has studied the big man phenomenon. In his much-quoted 1963 article "Poor Man, Rich Man, Big Man, Chief: Political Types in Melanesia"[2], Sahlins revealed that in bigman system , the "leadership is not ascribed, but rather gained through action and competition with other ambitious men".
In our own terms, the bigman, as many of you would literally define, it is obviously by the measure of how wealthy a person is with many wives, many expensive cars, or has many scenic and palace-like mansions or one who has many businesses. Or perhaps you might think, bigman is someone with big potbellied abdomen who can buy more cartons of beers and win jackpots in casinos. Or one might define bigman as someone graduated with PhD from a well-known university with higher qualification. Or one might define bigman to be someone who is a CEO of a major company politically appointed. Well, all these definitions of bigman are the reasons why crimes and corruptions are destroying us today. Many people tend to define bigman by all these means and it has taken roots into our society culturally nowadays, and that's why bigman culture radically thrives and that becomes the stronghold of crimes and corruption in PNG .
However, on the contrary, we forget to define it the other way. Irrespective of one's wealth, stature, tribal affiliations, qualification or gender, the bigman should be measured by his/her sacrificeable commitments displayed for the collective good of all mankind. The Bigman should be measured by the production of quality handiwork through applying his/her productive and corruptless work ethics. The bigman should be defined in terms of maintaining acceptable personal integrity by upholding cultural, religious and holistic mannerisms. Most importantly, bigman should be defined in terms of selflessness and steady demonstration of unconditional love for all humankind regardless of gender, qualifications, tribal groupings, political affiliations, or social status.
In absence of these values, the "bigman" means nothing of importance, thereby bigman culture flourish.
Bigman culture and Political Power
The bigman culture and political power are in hot romance. Curiously bigman culture and political power, can be deduced as one entwined devil who does not believe in institutions of the government. Neither does it believes in the effectiveness of the law of our land. It can be equated that
Bigman Culture + Political Power = Corruption
The bigman in its quest to acclaim political power, creates impetus for crimes and tribal fights in Highlands provinces and rampant Corruptions in PNG. In 2014, Steven Howes, wrote an article about elections in Papua New Guinea, in which he titled "PNG’s elections: the most expensive in the world, and getting worse" [7]. Howes was basing his analysis basing on government spendings only but this also applies to candidates spending spree. Thomson Fafugian in book by R J May et al (2007) [8], reported that the
"...National elections in Papua New Guinea, particularly the Highlands Region, are
something that people look forward to — the educated elite, community leaders,
churches, businessmen and village people alike. Elections are a time when
money, pork and beer flow into the province and everyone wants to participate".
For the rich, politics has become do-or-die affair and so the reasons for violences and the election malpractices.
Another evil effect of this system of Bigman Culture is that it eats away the greatness in all of us. Bigman undervalue people, because he will see ordinary people as poor or illiterate or valueless. By doing this, bigman depletes the development energy in our country and seriously raise questions about our undertakings of citizenship. This uncalled for divide between the liberated bigman and blinded citizens have led many people to believe that we do not have an equal stake in our country. We seem to forget our rights and self-esteem, and look up to bigman as saviour and provider of all our needs.
Instead of development and progress, bigman culture ultimately breeds, I should say, devil-upment and regress.
In this country, the bigman has become the government. He loathes over others for simple reason that he can afford a balance diet where millions go cap in hand begging for food. The bigman triumphs because he can afford mansions in a country like this , where countless people are homeless, sick and unclothed. Once again, he doesn't care.
Bigman Culture when in political power, there will never be social security to cater for unemployment, old age or ill-health because he view his followers as valueless and unimportant.
Project eradicate bigman culture
The critical questions to ask ourselves are:
Do we have the power to cure and eradicate bigman culture? Do we have the zeal and will power to dismantle and neutralise this equation that breeds corruption?
Our answers should be fatty yes all the way.
Remember, when you stand up against bribery, nepotism, election rigging, etc in this National General Election, you are in actual fact fighting the systems of bigman culture. Bigman culture will be performing at its best during this NGE with massive convoys of vehicles, massive gatherings, expensive posters, expensive grandstanding and promissory speeches with all credits to one person namely "me, me, me" and that is Bigman Culture at work in its fervent to seizure our rights, our pride and our future. The bigman will give you cash for vote. Bigman will buy you cartons of beer and make you merry all through the period of election. However, the bigman culture acclaiming Political Power will breeds corruption, crimes, tribal fights etc.
During this holiday, be on a mission to deliver a project: Project eradicate bigman culture. Let's go ford to our small family unit, clans, council wards, districts, and wider provinces to preach about eradicating Bigman Culture which when marries with Political Power, will surely create doom and gloom for us and for our future. Let's take this holiday to resolve and break the epicentre of corruption, malpractices in election, crimes, tribal fights, etc in our society, which is none other than "bigman culture".
We should be prepared to differentiate who is bigman and who is "right leader" .
I hereby, propose several mechanisms to identify our good choices . In doing this, we should be able to promote well being and minimise ill-being. The PNG system of bigman culture thrives on persuasions , bribes and intimidations . Hence, once these malpractices are minimised, the bigman culture as a philosophy of suppression and oppression will suffocate.
Mechanisms to choose right leader
1. Build individual self-esteem
In Papua New Guinea today, there is an urgent need to reorder our value system. It is an emergency.
A person's standards and self-discipline set, based on the common sense and wisdom of knowing what the proper moral rules and disciplines are, and the amount of willingness to see themselves and others abide by them.
Every individual is a unique existence of this world, thus our individual's freedom of choices must not be influenced by bigman through their conniving tongues and materialistic bribes. We must not be intimidated or threatened to forcefully garner our support for their accumulation of wealth. We must know our own worth, our uniqueness and our individual rights.
As we are going towards the date of 2nd - 22nd July 2022 (polling periods), we must resolve to judge candidates not by what they have in terms of monetary value or wealth or stature, but what they can offer in terms of nation's collective welfare. Wealth, simple wealth should no longer be measured of candidate's worth.
2. Identify government or candidate with foresighted policy.
We need a caring and loving government through their affiliated political parties and the soundly foresighted policies.
A caring government can do so much by creating and enabling conducive environment to help the majority of our people by offering policies that can soften the gab between uncaring rich and the blind poor. For instance, the introduction of SME program by Marabe government was one of milestone achievement for citizens.
As it is revealed in National SME Policy [6] handbook, "the SME sector has the potential to generate over 50 percent of formal sector employment in PNG and contribute up to 50 percent of our GDP", which displays foresightedness to improve the economy and standard of living holistically.
We only need to choose a leader who can deliver and ensure this policy is implemented .
3. Choose a leader who has no record of crimes or corruption
Candidates with criminal records are disproportionately wealthy and famous so they have both the means to contest elections, as well as the incentives. These candidates thrives on the system of "bigman culture".
For this kind of "bigman" the rule of law can be viewed as potent cure to excesses of the rich.
The candidates who has records of crimes such as involving in tribal fights, stealing money, gun smuggling , fraud etc must be dejected in our choices .
4. Identify candidate who is supportive to your education
The leader with vision to support you in your education is someone who has love for his people and our children's future.
Knowledge is power. Everybody needs to pursue knowledge with energy. It liberates and tears down the cover of irrational and repress the "bigman culture".
Leaders who have records of paying school fees, buying books, buying computers or putting up a classroom for a school is a kind of candidate who should be in one of our choices.
For instance, Governor Undialu through his HUEF paid fees for five years to all tertiary students. If this was not done, some would have left school already. Further, through HRDF, Timon Takili was supplying books and computers to schools in Hela.
We need a leader who can do such.
5. Identify candidate who can vigorously fight for what's ours in the floor of parliament
In our choices , identify a leader who has a record of fighting for what's ours without fear or favour for the common good of people under his care. For instance, James Marabe has a dream to "Take back PNG" which is driven by the fact that most of our resources are taken cheaply by foreigners through deceits, fraud, bribery and persuasions. His dream is for the common good for all Papua New Guineans.
Conclusion:
Finally, I hereby urge each one of us to take responsibility for the sake of our children. We are borrowing this life from our children. Our actions today determines how our children and how our mother earth will sustain in the future.
Sound, corruption-free and stable government, sound economy for the nation and better, wiser and clean society will all be realised today and when we start today by making right choice to choose our leaders.
Avoid be bribed , intimidated, or take part in it in 2022 NGE.
Good lucking in choosing a right leader, in doing so, will eradicate old fashioned "bigman culture" practices in our society.
♦ End
References:
[1] http://bit.ly/3wEujSq
[2] James Whitley ("Social Diversity in Dark Age Greece", The Annual of the British School at Athens 86 (1991:341-365) applied Sahlins' ethnographic model to instability in settlement patterns during the Greek Dark Age, 10th-8th centuries BCE.
[3] Marshall Sahlins (April 1963). "Poor Man, Rich Man, Big Man, Chief; Political Types in Melanesia and Polynesia" (PDF). Comparative Studies in Society and History. 5 (3): 285–303. doi:10.1017/S0010417500001729. S2CID 145254059. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 October 2013.
[4] Strathern, Andrew (2007). The rope of Moka: big-men and ceremonial exchange in Mount Hagen, New Guinea. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521099578. OCLC 698948824.
[5] Waiko, John D. (1993). A Short History of Papua New Guinea, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-553164-7, p.9
[6] Ministry of Trade Commerce and Industry, National SME Policy (2016) , p.iii
[7] https://devpolicy.org/pngs-elections-the-most-expensive-in-the-world-and-getting-worse-20140512/
[8] R J May, Ray Anere,
Nicole Haley & Katherine Wheen (Ed 1997), The Shift to Limited Preferential Voting in
Papua New Guinea, p.81
[9] PNG Loop, (2022), https://www.looppng.com/elections/school-term-dates-revised-112266
