By VOHNGU RARAHA
Iron Bottom Sound
TRAVELLING from the ‘bus stop township’ past the PM’s volcanic home island we stopped to refill gasoline.
It was midday and the ‘ghahira rua dika’ (stone/rock-two-dreadful) stood out proud on top of the homes of the dead World War II activities both human and non-human.
There is no kwaso this time because news had it that somebody died from it a few days ago. Suddenly the fear came back; we must refocus in our journey.
As a matter of urgency the expedition through this place is haunted, not by the dead but by the living.
In case we are moving into foreign territory without realising, because we did not know when we became a “dependent” nation.
On top of this the other ‘wantok’ heard that there are plans to take parts of our dependency into independency.
Before the recent social unrest and before political independence in 1978 and before foreigners came our ancestors did not ask for political independence.
For the very reason that they know that they were politically independent people by birth.
On our own we are independent since times immemorial. Inter-dependent countries of the world that are Independent countries were demarcated out with imaginary lines.
Consequently to be truly independent is when your mind tells you that your country is independent.
Another attempt to clarify this, raises questions of are we going to stick to the old jargons of independence “from” or becoming independent “of something”?
As a matter of fact Demo Adaisi’s article tends to state that the idea for ‘secessions’ came after the ‘war’ between Guadalcanal and Malaita, I don’t think so.
The idea to ‘breakaway’ from the rest of the Solomons by the ‘western breakaway movement’ did exist prior to the ‘Solomon war’.
So to put things straight Western Province at some point in time was thinking of not joining the rest of the Solomons.
I don’t have any problems with that, because at that time it was crucial and critical for the leaders to make some stand on whatever reasons they have.
Whether or not to support Solomon Islands independence is a tune that most leaders at that time may not sing along with.
For the very reason that we will confront today, that is independence from whom? If on the outset we are thinking of gaining our independence from another (Solomon Islands) then I think the boat we are in is not on the Iron Bottom Sound with Savo close by.
Rather it is somewhere in the middle of the bush with only the meaning of the great “ghahira rua dika” close by. That is the dreadfulness of navigating at a wrong direction.
Maybe the sovereignty mentality was there or maybe it was merely an abstract suspect, the entity such as “Solomon Islands” did not tingle.
When we gained our hope for building a country together in 1978. Of course be independent, Malaitans are independent people, so as the people from Western Province and any other compartments in the country that we have divided ourselves into.
Save for later because now so much have been said to be ‘independently cured’ after “independence politically”.
People are still talking about independence. But let me kindly ask aren’t you independent yet or are we slow to decolonise?
Human rights and the fallacy of ‘freedom’! Just to add on that to be independent.
When people ask for independence politically they (may) wish to assert their own religious and cultural identities; religion is out of the formula in the Solomon’s our case, because Christianity is ‘the’ religion.
Our cultures posed a little bit of problem, because we have too many cultures. It was not supposed to be a problematic had we respected each other as our religion had taught us to. But we sidetracked.
We forgot the essential elements that our religion had taught us. Therefore the late leader Solomon Mamaloni reminds us in the phrase he coined, ‘a nation conceived but never been born’, and the curse ‘a nation amongst nation’; to describe this country he stated the agonising thought of the people independent villages, tribes, clans, family and at last individualism.
So what we should do is to respect the culture and tradition of each other. If anything that the National Government of Solomon Islands (and provincial governments cannot do) did not do then it is that it did not legislate in this important area.
There is nothing done to legislate custom and traditions or even its operations across borders or cultural mental maps.
Now why did Dr John Roughan points to the politically elected government when he said, “in fact, many of the troubles that plagued the country – lack of law and order, crumbling economy, weakening of social bonds, serious disrespect for institutions – was laid at the feet of political leadership at all levels”.
It is because of the fact that they were given the voter mandate politically through the electoral process to legislate and govern. With this mandate politicians faced the challenged to handle the issue of cultural differences.
They did not even want to move on from there. What they did obviously was resort to the old defense of “neutralism”.
Now this is it! It is the system, it is the imposed system, and it is this alien system. What is wrong with it? Definitely Solomon Islanders cannot run this bloody system.
In a nutshell, it is alien and therefore introduced. But what happens to education, what happened to the educated elite. This is the problem! We cannot move on because we have not reached a common understanding on the values in which we should uphold.
Why is that so? Well it is because getting to a compromise is not what is ‘native’, most especially with what is alien. I guess the system must blend to suite the purpose of governing its citizens.
This era is a critical era, in which the people of the Solomon Islands must be well versed with the ‘map’ that draws our political future.
The struggle for independence that some of us support (at this time) and I believe we all should support is for our brothers and sisters in West Papua, Kanaky and depending on your own judgment more autonomy for Bougainville.
But for the further disintegration of this country I think our leaders should be more truthful to us.
Truthful in a sense that the Government of the day should clearly state whether or not it will tolerate ideas of provinces breaking up into different countries.
Maybe not ‘disintegrating’ but dis-engaging culturally and politically. For the former reason what could the Government say, they have done little to appreciate the difference.
But for the latter one it is a highly contested part. Give time and express your willingness to be independent countries because it is not a difficult task to state that gaining your independence from something or someone is from the start a psychological and mental slavery issue, that is bent on keeping up on the wrong navigational materials.
It would be a different story if it were to be seen as an affirmation of political destiny.
I would like to see people liberated from oppression for that is a moral and ethical cause.
For the journey it has just begun and the initial SOS signals are lit.
Can we shoot-up the naval emergency rockets in the jungle?
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