Australian and New Zealand peace keepers talk with villagers in the aftermath of the Bougainville uprising. Photo credit: Ben Bohane – wakaphotos.com
Papua New Guinea (PNG) is the most diverse nation in the Pacific island region, and possibly the world. In PNG alone, there are more than 800 different language groups. Cultural practices and traditions vary from place to place. Further, the human diversity is compounded by its topography. The open seas, rivers, mountains, valleys, marshlands and so forth are natural barriers to communities interacting. The lack of affinity to a nation is understandable given the isolation and insulated existence of communities since time immemorial.
Most communities within PNG only came into sustained contact with each other after World War II. The nation remains a vague entity. The nation as a form of political entity has little significance to populations who have relied for thousands of years on the immediate security provided by the clan and tribal unit. Bonds in clans and tribes are created, and reinforced through familial and genealogical connections, institutionalised rituals and communal endeavors and sustained levels of exchanges and linguistic similarities.
The lack of any sense of nationalism affects the development of PNG as a modern nation. A common national identity is an important prerequisite for PNG’s development. Since independence, White and Wainwright have argued that the lack of any sense of nationhood has been at the root of many problems the country has faced. Law and order problems in PNG highlight this. Dinnen has attributed the law and order problems in PNG to a lack of any ‘sense of common identity’, as amplified by a relatively short exposure to centralised administration.
Amidst all its socio-cultural complexities, linguistic diversity and the limited historical connections amongst its peoples, how has the nation fared since independence? In the lead-up to independence in 1975, the Constitutional Planning Committee (CPC) undertook a momentous exercise of writing the constitution of PNG. The Constitution represents the collective will and aspirations of the people of PNG following what Gelu described as an ‘exhaustive’ process of consultation.
In their attempts to find homogeneity in PNG’s diversity, the National Goals and Directive Principles (NGDPs) were envisaged. The CPC also recognised PNG’s diversity as a national ideology. One is bound to hear references to slogans such as ‘Unity in Diversity’. Such proclamations acknowledge the resilience of Papua New Guineans to co-exist as a united nation. It celebrates tolerance of each other’s cultural and linguistic differences. However ‘Unity in Diversity’ has its limitations.
Urbanised settings in PNG are central locations where cultural, linguistic and regional groups find themselves living together. Outbreaks of fights and skirmishes in urban areas such as Port Moresby, Lae and Mount Hagen have always been among differing tribal, regional or linguistic groups. In contemporary PNG, it is a dual reality for citizens. Papua New Guineans source their identity and security from both their primordial connections while abiding by the ‘top-down’discourses extolling PNG’s national unity.
A case in point was in the aftermath of the violence at the Gordon Market in Port Moresby in early 2011. The Gordon incident saw two different ethnic groups from the Highlands region of PNG going on a rampage. No visible sense of authority exists in a place where different groups seem to counterbalance each other’s numerical strength. Triggered by the mindless alcohol-induced acts of one youth, the subsequent violence resulted in the death of several persons. Immediately after this incident, non-Highland groups condemned the acts as barbaric and uncivilised. Some Papuans even called for the repatriation of highlanders back to their provinces.
Marginalisation of customary landowners and control over land has shown that localism will override any sense of affinity to fellow citizens of the nation. The events that led to the Bougainville civil war had the same ‘insider-outsider’ features. Indigenous Bougainvilleans felt that they were encroached upon by mainland Papua New Guineans. The resentments resulted in a fully fledged civil war that spanned almost a decade and saw more than 20,000 people killed. Nation building is therefore a challenge. The reality in PNG, as in other Melanesian countries, is that the nation is not the only source of identity and security. There are social units such as the tribe whose existence have more direct bearing and legitimacy on peoples’ lives. The challenge: development and other forms of interventions in PNG and Melanesian countries should be informed by the diversities in this part of the world. There will definitely be no quick-fix or universal models of development for ‘nations’ that to date do not exist.
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