Beyond the Coral Sea: Travels in the Old Empires of the South-West Pacific. Michael Moran
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there.
‘But what about your future?’ I was moving into a dead-end.
‘So? No one gives a shit about us. Politicians just want money.’ Isaiah was from East New Britain and had parallel tattoos on his cheeks.
‘We’re bored and no future. That’s the problem.’
I realised with alarm that my group had grown into a small crowd that surrounded me. They pushed forward not to attack but desperate to explain, to justify themselves, expecting me to provide an explanation, an instant solution.
‘Everyone hates us. No tourists come because the newspapers report so much violence.’
I said nothing but the headline in the newspaper in my hotel screamed of the rape of three nurses at Mt Hagen Hospital and the theft of an ambulance. The thieves were demanding compensation for the return of the vehicle or they would torch it.
‘Violence is terrible in the Highlands. That’s why I chose the islands.’ I was out of my depth.
‘You’re lucky. You have money to travel,’ said a boy from Oro Province wearing a bedraggled feather in his hair.
Beavis and Butthead cartoons flickered on the screen behind the heavily-barred windows of the ‘Jamaica Bar’. Papuan reggae music was playing somewhere. I was a distraction but not a solution. Some drifted away and sat under the trees again. Large spots of rain from an afternoon storm kicked up the reddened dust.
‘Well, I’d better be going. Nice to have met you. Gideon, Isaiah …’ I shook their hands.
‘Tenk yu tru long toktok wantaim yu, bikman.1 All the way from London! Enjoy our country.’
They remained standing and smiling as I headed back. This encounter with wasted potential, cynicism, and the crushed optimism of youth left me feeling depressed and impotent. The cultural diversity of the country meant that there was tension between youths from many regions thrown together by unemployment. In traditional villages in the past, fear of neighbouring peoples and respect for the authority of the elders would have limited the freedom of the young. The notion of respect had almost disappeared, but not only in Papua New Guinea. London and Sydney were similar, but this country was poor and the politicians corrupt.
Many observers blame the present law and order troubles on the premature commitment Australia made to the granting of independence in 1975. At the outset, an inappropriate West-minster-style two-party democracy was imposed on the country with legislative power vested in a national parliament. The national government devolved power through nineteen provincial governments. The country joined the Commonwealth with the Queen as Head of State, and a governor-general appointed as her representative. Papua New Guinea covers a vast area (it is the second largest island in the world) and possesses such extreme cultural diversity that the growth of a properly integrated strategy for development has remained a perennial challenge. The first Prime Minister, Sir Michael Somare, was an able and popular politician, but the many emergent parties have become increasingly unable to establish clear ideological principles. Political candidates pursue personal or regional goals at the expense of party policies.1
Most Papua New Guineans still live a subsistence lifestyle in villages quite separate from the influence of the cash economy. The villagers have become convinced that, at both the provincial and national levels, politicians are self-serving and uninterested in their welfare. Traditional social arrangements had already begun to disintegrate under colonial rule. The adoption of an inappropriate Western legal system has only exacerbated the agony of cultural fragmentation. Tribal fighting has resumed in the Highland provinces, but under more murderous rules than in the past. As the traditional society in the village disintegrates, many young people flee to the urban ghettoes of Port Moresby and Lae to face almost certain unemployment followed by a descent into crime. The challenge remains to evolve a system that combines the strengths of traditional leadership with the ideals of modern government, giving due legal weight to the fraught claims of land ownership by the numerous clans.
On my return to the ‘executive floor’ of my hotel, I passed psychedelic kiosks and wrecked cars in the oppressive heat and scalding rain. Luxury expatriate enclaves seemed to be going up everywhere on higher ground. Segregation has made this a city divided against itself. The cool, spacious lobby transported me to a different planet to that inhabited by my ‘new friends’ on Ela Beach, and the grim reality of their settlement homes. This was the arena where exploitation and ‘aid’ were strategically planned by company generals. The sunset from the elevation of the executive floor was sublime; copper and tarnished brass shot through with blue. This luxurious scene was decidedly different from the wild 1920s when Tom McCrann’s hostelry in Moresby displayed a notice in the saloon:
Men are requested not to sleep on the billiard table with their spurs on.
At dinner there was an astounding mixture of guests. A tattooed Scot was having dinner with an Asian engineer.
‘Glad you’re on the fuckin’ project, Wang. You’ve got a degree.’
A German trio who had run out of time were attempting to negotiate a price for the ethnic decorations on the hotel walls. A heavily-tattooed Pacific islander in a black sleeveless singlet, chiselled black beard and jeans patched with grandmother’s chintz was eating soup and tugging at his pearl earring. A Belgian photographer with a ponytail was talking to a glamorous Parisian collector of artefacts from the Maprik region who had a gallery in Aix-en-Provence.
‘Every week I ’ave ze fever on ze exact same day!’ she exclaimed in desperation.
A newly-rich Highlander was eating a roast chicken, juggling greasy drumsticks in both hands and attempting to talk on a mobile phone. Pallid Englishmen and tanned Australians were earnestly discussing football and drink. They had the weak eyes and the furtive mouths of social casualties, bolstering their own false optimism or drowning betrayals in liquor.
‘The free drinks are from five thirty to six thirty. Don’t come after or we’ll have to pay.’
‘Right, mate!’
‘They’re tough men the South African rugby team!’
‘Blood oath! Fuckin’ tough!’
‘Hides like a rhinoceros!’
‘More like a fuckin’ elephant, mate!’
‘Fuckin’ tough.’
‘Yeah. Fuckin’ tough, real men.’
‘Fuckin’ tough!’
‘Yeah, fuckin’ …’ and so on, endlessly, whilst downing bottle after bottle of South Pacific lager.
A huge butterfly enamelled in iridescent blue battened against the glass door leading out to the swimming pool. A Chopin nocturne floated across the lounge from the Papua New Guinean pianist playing a grand piano. I wandered over at this unexpected appearance of European culture and spoke to him.
‘You’re playing Chopin,’ I rather pointlessly observed.
‘Yes. I studied classical music for many years. Do you have a request?’
‘Not classical. Jazz. Can you play “Misty”?’
‘Sure. If you like jazz you might like my novel. It’s on the music stand.’
A small pile of paperbacks entitled The Blue Logic: Something from the Dark Side of Port Moresby by Wiri Yakaipoko was stacked on one side above his fluent fingers.
‘What’s your novel about?’
‘It’s a crime novel about Moresby. Plenty of it around here to write about.’ I could hardly disagree.
Chopin, jazz and crime are an odd mixture. Unexpected conjunctions and unpredictable outcomes were to become a feature of all my travels in Papua New Guinea. I went to