A 'Police State' May Just Be The Solution To Our Failing 'Big Men' & The Failure To Curb Rising Anti-Citizenship Behaviours

Failing 'Big Men' Allowing The Rise Of Mercenary Servants & Anti-Citizenship Behaviours

I think it was March 1997 when I was first abruptly introduced to the phenomenon of 'mercenary soldiers' in the infamous 'Sandline Crisis' right on our very own solid shores. The word 'mercenary' is often used as an adjective to imply being 'influenced by greed; working merely for reward.' The popular example noun is hired soldier. Mercenaries are considered heartless. They have no loyalty to state or country or its citizens but are in it, or whatever service that they are hired, for themselves. I wonder how many good citizens, especially in the public sector, have been turned into mercenaries and are currently pretending in the service of our country? Increasingly citizens are disheartened and are taking the mercenary pathway. I don't blame them, especially when the 'big men' are constantly perceived to be not doing the right things. The 'big men' are expected to inspire a shared vision, challenge existing processes, encourage the heart and enable the subordinates to act. They are expected to be just and fair in propagating positive influence from their positions at the top echelon of our contemporary society. In their failings they are allowing the mercenary attitude to blossom and flourish below them.

Our 'Big Man' Concept Can Still Be A Force For Good

PNG is a Melanesian country and a collectivist society still deeply rooted and steep in tradition. The status of ‘big man’ must not be rubbished or dismissed in a hurry as ancient or antique. In PNG people work for their leader and in return the leader looks after people’s collective interests. Modern day ‘big men’ still wield dominant influence on the masses. They can be a force for good if we put in the right ideas into their heads. For instance, when the US colonized Japan right after WW2, five star US Army General Douglas MacArthur ran a program to put the idea of democracy in the Japanese heads. He started off with the Emperor of Japan who at the time was very eligible to be prosecuted for all the WW2 war crimes. But Gen. Douglas reverted to let him walk free in the promise that he will use his influence to convert all Japanese to accept ‘democracy’. He said Japanese’s are humans, they have minds, they can be converted if we put in the right ideas in their minds but we must start with the person they look up to. Japanese at that time before the war believe that the emperor was a direct descendant from the Sun god. Similarly our ‘big man’ concept can be leveraged to propagate positive influences.

Why A Positive Justice Perception Is Important From 'Big Men' Leaders

An attitude is an evaluative tendency to respond to some specific object, situation, person or a category of people. Our individual values and beliefs influence our attitudes. Attitude toward justice perception can have a critical effect on citizens' behaviour toward our country and our GoPNG. Positive citizens' attitude makes an important contribution to good governance of our country at all levels. GoPNG will want from its citizens commitment to the country and good citizenship behaviour. But leaders of the country must create in us, the citizens, a positive perception of justice especially in distributive justice and procedural justice. Distributive justice concerns the distribution of common wealth, resource and power. Procedural justice on the otherhand concerns the following of established processes and procedures. Citizens perceive justice if the decision-making processes and procedures and punishment are applied consistently across people and across time, free from bias and based on facts. Justice perception is influence by both individual and PESTEL environmental factors. But a positive justice perception will often rest on: 1.?leadership?(i.e. understanding importance of positive justice perception - knowing the way, going the way and showing the way), 2.?structure?(i.e. having clear set of policies, processes and procedures in place) and 3.discipline?(i.e. commitment to every time following the structure).

The failing 'big men' are allowing this observable rise of ‘mercenary’ public and state servants as well as this noticeable escalation of anti-citizenship behaviours from the general public.

Again Why ‘Big Men’ Leaders Need To Understand, Manage And Maintain A Positive Justice Perception

They say that everything rises and falls on leadership. Who we are speaks so loudly, people can't hear us. Even if we are to tell the truth. Unfortunately this is the real danger with having a bad reputation and integrity issues in leadership roles. Worst is that this is the ‘information era’ with free flowing dissemination of information and ‘big men’ leaders will constantly be reminded about their past black spots which will continue to contradict what they say in the present. The more questionable and compromised ‘big men’ leaders like these continue to hang around in the corridors of power, they will be doing the country more long-term damage by impacting negatively on citizenship behavior. The demoralization of the people becomes evident as they develop anti-citizenship behaviours and this unfortunately is noticeably appears to be escalating exponentially. A good example is the wide spread 'sakim tok' observed during this COVID-19 lockdown and isolation period.

In the absence of a positive perception of justice from the ‘big men’ leaders, the mercenary pathway looks attractive and rewarding for public and state servants as well as for the general public, where every person exist for themselves.

Look around us and you will note rising countless cases of these anti-citizenship behaviours being openly and shamelessly exhibited with no care at all.

The ‘Two-Sets-Of-Law’ Perception Reinforces Procedural Injustice & ‘No Care’ Attitudes

Adding to our woes of the failing ‘big men’ leaders is this perception of ‘two-sets-of-law’. When the public witness double standards in the application of law and punishment, where there appears to be two sets of law, one for the rich and well offs and the other for the rest of the society, a perception of injustice in procedures is further reinforced. And with this comes increasing anti-social and don’t care attitudes. We (PNG and PNGns) need to act fast to arrest this negative downward spiral in anti-citizenship behaviours.

So How Do We Get Back To Winning With Our People?

A GoPNG with the aim on 'recovery & restoration' is needed: a battle line focusing on winning back the minds and hearts of the people; to recover the grounds we have lost in our progress; and restore constituents confidence in our governing structures and procedures. These, structures and procedures, we have their guidelines already provided for in our Constitution. But, we now appear to have deviated far from them and not achieving the desired expected results by not following them. A ‘cultural revolution’ leveraging off our Constitution to win with our people can be our way forward.

The ‘Cultural Revolution’ To Be Guided By The Intentions Of Our Constitution

The need of a ‘Cultural Revolution’ refreshing on and leveraging off the intentions of our Constitution to find realignment again and to provide leadership in a contemporary PNG Melanesian society, is needed now more than ever before we are overwhelmed and intimidated into aping the rest of the world. Culture is a loosely coupled system of values, assumptions, beliefs, norms and behaviours shared among the members of a human group and differentiate that human group from other groups. The word revolution in the context here is taken to imply ‘a turn around’. Therefore a ‘Cultural Revolution’, as used in this context here, is to imply that we have deviated way away from our plan as enshrined in our Constitution that we need to review and refresh on our Constitution's intentions and be embolden in doing the right things for our country according to our plan. As they say, if we do not have a plan, chances are that we will be working to fulfill others’ plans.

Whatever strategy (and especially law and order policy) our GoPNG may have, it is said that culture will eat that strategy and that policy for breakfast. PNG is in need of a cultural revolution, leveraging off our Constitution to win back the minds and hearts of our people. When our hearts are in their right places and our minds’ visions are clear, we cannot go wrong on our missions.

An Authoritarian Police State To Herd Our People Into Doing The Right Things Right

Maintaining law and order in this ‘cultural revolution’ and transition period will be the key step of this mission. This will involve creating an authoritarian 'police state' to herd our people into doing the right things right during this transition. There is allowance in the Constitution which is implied in the Fifth Goal and National Directives of the Constitution which emboldens us to continuously seek to adopt our ways of ruling the people according to our attitudes and responsiveness to the governing methods and to doing it 'The PNG Way!' The freedoms guaranteed under the constitution are not absolute or complete freedoms and these freedoms can be regulated or restricted by GoPNG for the purpose of public order or etc. Besides it must be realised that the traditional Melanesian society is never a democratic society and an authoritarian government using the police as the ‘legitimate force’ will not be something new and out-of-place.

An authoritarian police state would mean now that some liberties will have to be sacrificed, i.e. minimize liberty for prosperity, as well as turning the ‘wheels of justice’ faster. Democracy is never a one-size-fits-all and there are countless examples of thriving prosperous economies of countries with less liberal democracies in the world.

In this authoritarian police state, one of the first liberties to restrict should be the freedom of movement which must be enabled by the passing of the ‘Vagrancy Act’. Enforcing it must start with securing and cleansing the seat of power in the capital city by rounding up of the ‘undesirables’ in POM City. You would not agree to the rounding up of these 'undesirables' in the present state of democracy, but, when the 'police state' comes into existence, that I hope will become the first task to execute. Round them up, lock them up, profile them, process them, discipline them and then release them with an order to leave POM City. I leave the category of 'undesirables' to your imagination but I think we can tolerate some bad in exchange for much good.

The next strategic step to consolidate on the absolute power of the authoritarian state is to aggressively go after to remove and eliminate illegal guns, especially, in tribal communities around the country. This can be done by engaging the Long Range Reconnaissance Unit (LRRU) of our PNGDF to conduct aggressive incisive covet operations within the country to disarm and remove illegal guns. The LRRU should be authorised to use all legal force where necessary. Where to start is not a problem because there are countless of these illegal dangerous weapons and their locations on display in the social media posts. Power respects power. Aggression respects aggression. If the authoritarian GoPNG does not come down hard on tribesman who have no respect, regard and fear of law and are daring enough to be displaying publicly their 'illegal' arms now, they are going to be a torn in the side to maintain law and order in this democratic to authoritarian government transition! Such displays of illegal arms amount to internal terrorism and represent a clear and present danger in the threat of violence. These or such people, starting with their known ‘big men’ leaders, needed to be aggressively rounded up and such notoriety forcefully curbed! Otherwise when aggression detects meekness, that will be real threat to the authority of the authoritarian GoPNG in maintaining law and order.

The final important step to win back with the disheartened public and state servants and the general public must be the rounding up of all those citizens, both ordinary and prominent, with questionable cases of breach of law pending against them and expedition of their punishment under law. Here we note the strategic intent to remove illegal arms from the tribes ahead of this step which now should mitigate the threat of arm confrontation should the prominent citizens of interest, who may be pursued by the law, be taking refuge among their armed tribes. This phase must also involve giving lawful effect to the ICAC (Independent Commission Against Corruption) Bill to enforce the ‘Whistle Blowers Act’ and the ‘Proceeds Of Crimes Act’. Paul Baker of the National Research Institute articulated it here as "Anyone who becomes wealthy in office, or substantially enhances their prior wealth (land and other property etc, here and overseas) whilst serving in office is highly suspect, and should be probed by the Ombudsman, Auditor-Gen, Fraud Squad, and the Tax office. Public earnings and assets of deemed leaders should not just be filed discreetly with the OC, but become public documents able to be scrutinised online." All wealth found to have been accumulated under dubious or corrupt means, the accounts should be frozen, assets seized and earnings from sales of these assets forfeited back to the State.

When the people and citizens get a sense of security and justice through the authoritarian police state, then perhaps positive citizenship behaviors will start to return and be displayed more and more by all of us.