Not an Elite – AND PROUD!

 

Above: Boat operators at Buka Passage

Before dropping out of medical school, I always thought that getting a first degree was everything. Having then dropped out and finding out that the education system is just a FAILURE TRAP, I’ve realized that Sir Mekere was right when he described corruption of the system as being “systemic and systematic”. Many commentators have gone further to call the corruption of this system of government as being like cancer.

The use of the term corruption or corrupt can be applied in terms of the bribery, theft and deceit being commonly implied or more broadly it can refer to a system of governance that is morally bankrupt and broken almost beyond redemption.

This corrupt government system is like a corrupted computer system that consistently spews out garbage to the people. So what do we do when the computer spews out garbage? First we take it to the techies or PC geeks to sort it out and if they’re unable to sort it out we buy a new one.

Why do we attempt to fix the computer? Some say to improve productivity, others say because we just don’t like the headache. And essentially, it is because we as humans don’t like the inconvenience and trouble caused by a broken system.

A computer is made up of software and hardware. The Government is made up of ideas (software) by which the politicians and civil servants (hardware) run the country. The ideas that drive our country are foreign. The people that run our country are local.

In medicine a foreign intruder into humans is called a pathogen. Most often, these foreign bodies enter into humans and cause diseases – they corrupt the body.

What we see in our country is that while the people suffer, foreign interests prosper. Why? Is it because the ideas upon which the justice system is based are foreign. Is it because policies and laws are foreign and being foreign, they facilitate the prosperity of foreigners at the expense of indigenous people.

How many of you readers have read the Constitution of Papua New Guinea and understand it? That document purports to have its legitimacy by consent of a people who have probably never read it or understand it. The reality of Government in Papua New Guinea may that be the Judiciary, Executive or Legislative, is defined by the Constitution and enabling legislation and conventions. Have the people given their informed consent to that document.

Now, it isn’t necessarily the fault of foreigners that this is the reality. They come into the country and play by the rules so to speak. Unfortunately, the education system has been pretty much producing garbage who can’t make the system work in our interest. Like a corrupt computer operating system, you send ignorant kids to school and the CORRUPTED education system spews out ignorant elites who screw up the country.

We were given a system that our colonial masters understood but we didn’t have a full grasp of. Now, instead of tweaking that system to benefit our interests, the elite have sold our souls to predominantly foreign exploiters. The elite have sold us out and continue to do so.

So you get educated, become an engineer and engineer the destruction of your people. Even better, become a pilot and fly in the exploiters into your country. Be a lawyer and assist the exploiters rip off your people. So, you’re a law abiding citizen – you must have peace of mind being an engineer or geologist at Ok Tedi who is destroying the Fly River. Much worse, you may be an accountant at an accounting firm that helps greedy corporations work out TAX MINIMIZATION STRATEGIES (basically - tax evasion in its legitimate form) that ensure they do not pay much tax to the government.

If you think 109 Members of Parliament are evil, think of the thousands of nameless faceless elite who are basically facilitating the Great Robbery of the CENTURY – the exploitation of Papua New Guinea’s indigenous people and the destruction of their natural heritage.

You know how the colonizers used to use the natives as trackers so that they could track the natives and “pacify” them – it’s happening in Papua New Guinea today and many don’ realize it.

The Education system sells everyone the FALSE IDEA of kisim save na painim wok. The reality is that only about 100 000 people are formally employed and 400 000 others dependent on those workers. The rest, about 6.5 million Papua New Guineans work the land of their ancestors using traditional knowledge. Their western education has very little relevance to their daily survival in remote rural communities.

Unfortunately, after 8, 10 or 12 years of being brainwashed with the false idea of being involved in the ‘modern lifestyle’ many colonized minds return to their communities as ‘failures’ and for the rest of their disempowered lives, dream of that romantic notion of modernity while living in the reality of the robustness of their cultural and natural heritage. They easily sellout to exploiters hoping to gain that modern dream and soon discover they’ve been hoodwinked.

Those who do ‘pass’ become ‘elites’ and soon find out that their ‘pay’ is not enough to sustain a ‘modern’ lifestyle which their teachers brainwashed them about. While they end up paying heavy taxes on their first pay packet, rich miners get 10 year tax holidays. When they go on strike as the doctors did earlier this year because the pay is crap, the Government takes out a Court order and forces them to go back and work for a crap pay. But when the miners threaten the Government, Peter O’Neil and Byron Chan do a back flip and pike that would have won PNG Olympic Gold in Synchronized Swimming.

It is important that Papua New Guineans realize that their so called elites a failing them. Yes foreign interests are at play but they are only successful because the so called elites suck up to them and the sheeple suck up to the elite.

The modern State and the Constitution as well as the westernization of Melanesia are realities that we need to deal with. The elites are doing a crap job at dealing with it. Sadly the sheeple put too much faith in their so called ‘intellectuals and elites” just as they wrongly believe politicians who have failed them for 36 years will save them after next year’s elections.

That is why I’m PROUD I’m not one of those so called intellectual elite. I believe being a buai seller I have more dignity than one of those so called highly educated law-abiding compradors who are selling off our country for less than peanuts. I remember how my teachers used to warn us against becoming buai sellers but instead join the elite who are ripping off their people –SKUL GUT! KISIM SAVE NA KAMAP CARGO BOI blong rip-off system!