LONG before Papua New Guinea became an independent nation in 1975, people lived according to their own traditional structures, norms and values.
The decision to establish PNG as an independent nation-state was an external initiative, derived from the 1946 Trusteeship Agreement between Australia and the United Nations and stimulated by the worldwide decolonisation movement of the time.
At independence, PNG was given responsibility to govern its own people and was provided with a Westminster system of parliamentary government.
The social spectrum of PNG now ranges from traditional village-based life to modern urban living. These interlocking systems of traditional and modern governance impact greatly on the developing national culture of today’s PNG.
In national government the key players, the leaders of factions and alliances and their close supporters, have systematically manipulated the process of political legitimation.
Observing our current political state, one would have to conclude that instability continues to breed instability.
We have consistently suffered instability under mediocre leadership and governance. In fact, the existing political conditions at a national level are rather poor when compared to our traditional systems.
PNG constantly struggles, even after four decades of nationhood, to adapt to a realistic awareness of the western political system on which its own governance is based.
Of course, to accept and adopt ideas which are alien is a difficult mountain to climb in a nation that is multicultural and in which people have different needs, perception and beliefs.
This is the complex cultural mix through which Papua New Guinea is manifested.
Represented in government, we have members of parliament from different cultural groups who are there to speak for their own people.
They try to negotiate their peoples’ needs using western components such as political ideologies, political parties and voluminous legislation.
For us this has become tumultuous: regular challenges to legitimacy and authority occur in government, government structures and policies are ever changing, political instability continues.
Our leaders, when taking office, swear an oath to lead on our behalf. There are no foreigners in charge of the government. These are our own people whom we trust to run our country.
Yet we hear them quarrel among themselves and see them fail their responsibilities and observe them run down their public office.
How have our state institutions become so corrupted?
Even though the legislature, executives and judiciary are mandated by our Constitution as independent bodies with clearly defined and distinct powers, they interfere with each other seemingly without thought for good governance.
Does this mean our cultural values are inadequate or is it our leaders’ inability to adapt to western style governance?
Why is our rule of law so frail? Is it clashing cultural systems that weaken the rule of law, or is it our abuse or misunderstanding of western elements that weaken it?
I think that perhaps the problem has nothing to do with western culture; rather it lies with our inability to learn, adapt and assimilate our own cultural structures and values within western norms and principles.
In one respect, I see this as more a problem of leadership.
Explicitly, those who are involved in serving the public interest are conflicted.
They compromise civic values with their personal values. In short, despite their roles and responsibilities, they demonstrate self-interest ahead of public interest.
These two visions of the house which is the nation are destroying the purpose of the house, which is national unity.