Fellow Papua New Guineans
Help me understand you. I see our famous "attitude problem" not letting up and I just have to ask some difficult soul-searching questions.
What makes us behave the way we do? We can camp out there in public, and slumber on like we're in our private backyard while the world passes by. We defecate and urinate in the bushes nearby (or corners of buildings and fences) and yet seem unfazed by the blatant stench that invades the air. We throw buai skins and litter right where we sit and stand, and vomit buai sputum on the nicely built pathway, roads and bus-stops on which the rest of the world must also trod. We paint an ugly picture of our pavements and consequently ourselves. While we drive about we toss out our litter like our whole nation was one big rubbish dump. We make fires right there on the roadside. We go days without a bath and don't always smell the best. We smoke in PMVs while mother and baby cough it up beside us. Doesn't it cross our mind that such behaviour could just be "not nice"? How about "yucky"? Too strong?
Help me understand. Is it because we were visited by "civilised" people only recently that we're a bit slow on matters of hygiene and cleanliness and common decency? Perhaps being less than a century into modern civilisation renders it difficult to comprehend such simple standards? Maybe it'll take two, maybe three more generations before we see such change. I'm wondering if we ever wonder about our own mindset and behaviour.
I'm worried that we're losing our sense of dignity. You know—the inherent dignity that God gave to all man when He created us in His image and likeness. The kind of dignity that requires us to pay sufficient respect to ourselves and our bodies and to fellow man; not to mention to God's natural handiwork that surrounds us.
I'm worried that we no longer see ourselves worthy of that self-respect that should provide the restraint against such loose behaviour. What can we do to remind ourselves of that value that God Himself stamped into you and me? Is there any possibility that we can see such immensely valuable truth? I'm sure if we understand that divinely-ordained value in our own lives and bodies we'd pay careful attention to the way we treat ourselves and each other.
Help me understand. Have we lost sight of this? Or have we just not caught it yet? Education doesn't seem to help. I see highly educated and wealthy people behave no different. I wonder how a citizenry of such high-calibre can behave in such a lowly manner. All that awareness and education and wealth seem impotent against the strong negative mentality and attitude that possess us (as opposed to us possessing it). Not even exposure to "city-ness" seems capable of making a dent in the mental bars that imprison our mindset and determine our attitude.
I don't mean to offend you. But truth often is offensive cause it disturbs our comfort zone. If I do by my words, I hope we realise how much more of an offense we cause fellow city-dwellers (including expats) who appreciate cleanliness and hygiene and decency. By the mere fact that they have to drive or walk passed an eye-sore of bodies, litter and spittle, and to sniff the stench... ought to make us rethink our circumstances...and our mindset.
But that depends entirely on whether we have some capacity to commence such a train of thought. Or perhaps the comfort of being among so many people who think and practice the same debunks the need for a positive deviance in the mindset. It takes a lot of courage and strength to "be different", to say "change starts with me", and to start going against our own crowd.
Could I trouble us to give it some thought please? Think long. Think hard. Think deeply. We might see a way out of our self-imposed mental prison. And when you find a way out how much better will life get for you and everyone else.
We can't wait on politicians (who by the way are a summary reflection of the kind of people we are) to bring the change down...
We've got to take it up to them...
God Bless,
Ganjiki
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