Our 'Big Man' Leaders Must Operate At Higher Elevations To Mitigate The Inherent Risk Of Secession

For those of us aspiring to become 'big man' leaders in our contemporary PNG society, it is important to understand and bear in mind always that in whatever decisions we make, there will always be this underlying inherent risk of secession and our decisions must always be purposeful to mitigate this secession risk.

The desires for secession is strong among independent communities. Traditionally isolated Melanesian communities exist as interdependent pockets of independent communities who are always ready to liberate themselves. Bernard Narokobi forewarned that "Melanesians are not and have never been slaves to [practices of injustice that suppress them], if they believed these were obstructing them. They liberate themselves by establishing new communities with new hopes and future.“

Now that we are connected by a more wider communities, this need for coexisting interdependently is greater with much greater risks. As Stephen Covey explained in 'The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People', the highest form of existence is interdependency. We move from dependency to independence then onto interdependency where we must bring our independence to coexist interdependently.

GoPNG must strive to become effective and efficient to create dependency on it. Unfortunately due to GoPNG's incompetency, ineffectiveness, inefficiencies and partiality, pockets of independent communities continue to exist in our country. An independent people are in a position of power. People in a position of power will have a lesser need for affiliation with an incompetent and partial GoPNG and these stems from our 'big man' leaders and our lack of foresight about our inherent risk of secession.

Will the ‘big man’ MPs and leaders continue to create perceptions of injustice that will stir up desires to break free? What right does an incompetent, ineffective, inefficient and partial GoPNG have to claim sovereignty over an independent people?

These are rhetorical questions to get our 'big man' thinking and for us to operate at the right levels to provide leadership in our contemporary Melanesian society. In our modern Melanesian society, regionalism thinking is one of the things weighing us down that we are unable to rise to greater elevations to see our inherent risk of secession. We practice regionalism until it is too late, like the recent debates now in May - June 2024 of our Parliament on referendum results for Bougainville, and then we reacted by echoing sentiments of nationalism but in the eyes of an increasingly learned population our regionalism thinking and unequitable redistribution of wealth has already belittled us.

Let Bougainville be a lesson, for all of us who hold aspirations to become 'big man' leaders in our Melanesian region, that being impartial and creating distributive justice perception is important. We don't have to look outside and afar to find this operating philosophy in Great Grand Chief Sir Michael Thomas Somare's 'Kaikai Bun' Tingting.

We who hold aspirations to rise to and attain 'big man' status and aspire to provide leadership in our contemporary Melanesian society should aim to lead and live for more. When we live for the greater utilitarian good, we can live on less by being impartial and equitable in the redistribution of our country's collective wealth. The ultimate price after all is to ensure continued unity of our country into the future. To blur the inherent lines of ethnicity and regionalism we should rise to operate at higher elevations and focusing on a Greater Melanesia is an example of such elevations to work at and from.

Postscript: This post is intended to be rhetorical in presenting a challenge to us, the constituents, and the politicians putting their hands up to represent us in our Parliament. The people are challenged to work towards achieving our self sufficiency from whatever support the government is providing now with its own constraints; the politicians are challenged to lead and manage the government systems and make the system become efficient and effective in serving their constituents. In between these competing mutual interests is the tandem 'sweet spot' that must be reached: when the government is incompetent and government systems incapable, the people can continue on with less disruptions in our business of life and living. Thus an independent and self sustaining communities of people will have a lesser need for an incompetent government. Raising the stakes higher is this poser "Does an incompetent government need to continue to claim sovereignty over a self sustaining independent people?"