PATHWAYS TO DICTATORSHIP, O'Niell not to far from the despots.
PETER O'NEILL FOLLOWS THE SUCCESSFUL MODEL OF ADOLF HITLER AND BENITO MUSSOLINI USING INFRASTRUCTURE CONSTRUCTION TO WIN PEOPLE’S HEARTS AND MINDS
By Martin Haku
By Martin Haku
Peter ONeill’s oratory abilities are not even close to matching that of Papua New Guinea’s Founding Father Michael Somare and of many current highlands politicians. ONeill is not even on the same planet as Adolf Hitler in terms of charisma and the ability to mesmerise the audience. Comparing Peter ONeill with Adolf Hitler seems bizarre on the face of it but looking deeper, there is one thing about Papua New Guinea’s current Prime Minister that follows the Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy strategy for winning the hearts of the people, as it took place in the years between World Wars I and II. That is the creation of infrastructure, lots of it, over a very short time.
HITLER’S NEW ROAD WON THE PEOPLE’S HEARTS IN GERMANY
Hitler’s infrastructure legacy began with the first modern superhighways in the world. Known as the autobahn, this new road infrastructure won the hearts and minds of the German people. This resulting popularity gave Adolf Hitler the green light to complete the transition to a totalitarian government. That began one of the most tragic pathways in history, ending with the human atrocities which Hitler’s Nazi movement is best known for. The German people did not respond until it was too late to reverse course.
Construction of the autobahn road network began in 1934, only nine months after Hitler became Chancellor. In a little over 5 years an astounding 3500 km of road was constructed, engineered to the level of perfection the Germans are known for. It is indisputable that this infrastructure was impressive to the German people and helped secure Hitler’s political base which allowed him to become an indisputed dictator. Opposition to the Nazi regime fell dramatically in the electorates in close correlation with autobahn construction.
Overall, Hitler used road construction as convincing proof to the German people of the ability of he and his Nazi party to get things done. The Autobahn was Hitler’s showcase of the products of the new regime’s ruthless energy and organisational capabilities. This effectively dulled the German sensitivities and outcry as the highway construction ruthlessness turned to ruthlessness against political opposition, neighbouring countries, and eventually human genocide.
Like Peter ONeill has done in PNG with his road building project, Hitler purposely began construction in many places simultaneously, 17 to be exact. Thus, the appearance of immediate, strong change was more visible to more Germans.
“This is not merely the hour in which we begin the building of the greatest network of roads in the world, this hour is at the same time a milestone on the road towards the building up of the community of the German people.” -- Adolf Hitler
In all his infrastructure construction projects, Hitler insisted on quality construction “that would last a thousand years”. Other infrastructure that was marked by Hitler as being of high priority and built in the early years of the Nazi regime included flood control projects involving dam and canal construction, rehabilitation of public buildings across the country, and construction of new government buildings, roads, bridges, and port facilities.
Technological advances by German scientists also flourished during the Hitler years. Television, jet-propelled aircraft, guided missiles, electronic computers, the electron microscope, and data processing were all developed during this time, as well as the less illustrious advances in industrial murder factories and racial research. Important innovations in basic physics (1938), hormone and vitamin research, automotive engineering (the now world famous Volkswagen was designed as Hitler’s car for the people), pharmacology, and synthetic gasoline and rubber.
The German people were largely delighted to see this progress and became even more supportive of the same Nazi regime. The power given to the Hitler and his Nazi political party was never given back, but became increasingly corrupted towards purposes more horrible than could be imagined. Today, more than 70 years, Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party, despite all the infrastructure and technological progress, remains an acute source of embarrassment for the German people and a shameful black spot on what would otherwise be a proud and impressive national history.
BENITO MUSSOLINI’S STRONG LEADERSHIP STYLE, SUPPORT FROM THE CHURCH, AND MODERNISATION OF THE RAILWAYS MAKES HIM POPULAR WITH THE PEOPLE OF ITALY
The leader and later dictator of Italy before and during World War II was Benito Mussolini. Mussolini came to power almost a decade before Hitler. World War I had destroyed the Italian economy as it had in Germany, and the resulting disgruntlement of the population eased the way for the fascists to take power. As with Germany’s Nazi Party, it took several years to establish a fully totalitarian regime. He presented the image of strong leadership and after a history of weak leaders and overall government disorganisation, Italians were captured by the confident style.
After Mussolini made peace with the Catholic church and increased government support to them four-fold, Pope Pius XI told the world that Mussolini had been sent to earth “by Divine Providence”. This proclamation further solidified Mussolini’s support by the Italian people. Behind the scenes, a number of strong economic groups that had helped put Mussolini into power reaped the rewards, accumulating unprecedented economic control and vast political fortunes. A class of newly rich developed who attached itself to the government and parasitically sucked the nation’s blood, during a period when the average Italian worker’s income was only a fraction of that of most other European nations. Mussolini relied increasingly on slogans and propaganda to stay in power.
One of Mussolini’s early moves was to privatise economically weak state owned enterprises. In fact, Mussolini generally relied more heavily on private enterprise to create sufficient economic stimulus and infrastructure development to win the hearts and minds of Italians. During the 1920’s the fascist regime focused major infrastructure development programmes, including the electrification of the railways and similar transport programs. Existing regional railways were connected, the entire system was modernised, and efficiency was greatly improved getting from one place to the other. The second longest tunnel in the world was constructed as part of the modernisation programme, an impressive engineering achievement that significantly increased Italian pride in themselves and the Mussolini government. Large sports facilities and arenas were also constructed.
There was also limited takeover of strategic natural resource exploitation areas, notably oil.
HITLER AND MUSSOLINI VERSUS PETER ONEILL: USING INFRASTRUCTURE EXPANSION AS THE PATHWAY TO DICTATORSHIP
Dictatorships too often spring up only when the people of a nation allow the leader to take total control. No intending dictator advertises this as their goal, but achieves it by deception. They always begin by using some device to win the hearts and minds of the people.
Two of the worst dictatorships in world history, that of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, used massive infrastructure construction programmes as a centrepiece of that strategy. The combined the material products with the projection of strong, “can do” leadership. As public support for their governments grew, they moved to suppress political opposition and then public dissent. The result was a totalitarian state whose excesses eventually ventured into the twilight zone, casting deep and lasting scars that lasted well after the totalitarian state had collapsed.
Like Hitler and Mussolini, Papua New Guinea’s Peter ONeill places heavy emphasis on building impressive roads, proposing large dams, and high profile building renovation in his infrastructure development plans. Like Hitler and Mussolini, he links the infrastructure with the appearance of strong leadership. Like Hitler and Mussolini, privatisation, which often led to personal enrichment of cronies, played an important role. Most damning of all, Peter ONeill follows Hitler and Mussolini in pursuing the parallel goal of making his political party (in ONeill’s case, the Peoples National Congress) overwhelmingly dominant. Achieving that, it becomes a small step to make that party into the sole legal party of the state.
In the case of Germany and Italy, a primary reason for embarking on a massive infrastructure building scheme was to reduce chronic unemployment. In both these countries, the jobless included many skilled professionals. Putting them to work, even at low pay, resulted in the creation of high quality infrastructure that remains functional today.
In contrast, Papua New Guineans are mostly unskilled. Even those graduating from tertiary institutions tend to compare unfavourably against similar graduates from other countries, and manufactured products produced by the country are invariably subquality.
Moreover, in strong contrast to what Hitler and Mussolini did, Mr ONeill is content to built PNG’s infrastructure using heavy foreign involvement, particularly by the Chinese. A K6 billion Chinese government Exxim bank loan, repayable with interest, is used to hire Chinese construction companies which hire and bring to PNG hundreds of Chinese higher level managers, who are put in control of low paid unskilled Papua New Guineans to build the roads the country needs. There have been continuing complaints of inefficient use of that loan money because of demand for kickbacks by government bureaucrats and local politicians.
The quality of the infrastructure is being created in PNG by the ONeill government in some instances looks conspicuously subpar. The urban roads appear of higher quality. Overall, the lack of emphasis on quality appears to be another conspicuous difference between the ONeill plan of infrastructure creation and that of Hitler and Mussolini. Infrastructure being built in PNG under Mr ONeill will be lucky to last a decade or two, rather than achieving Hitler’s thousand year goal.
The poor quality of road construction in PNG is particularly evident in rural areas. Only last week came the embarrassment of one MP, Mr Tommy Tomscoll, getting stuck in a new road because of its complete lack of graveling and overall proper engineering. It would take much more money to make all these new rural roads into all weather permanent roads, but local economics do not justify this in many areas where the roads are being constructed. Even with projected LNG money, funds required for completing such infrastructure will doubtfully be available, particularly considering the recent budget overruns caused by spending and major increase in the national debt since Mr ONeill took office.
While the same basic strategy being pursued in PNG is like that of Hitler and Mussolini, the headlong rush to build infrastructure in Papua New Guinea under the Peter ONeill government is more singularly being focused towards achieving above all, a strong political base for the Prime Minister. Creating infrastructure that lasts or which greatly reduces the high unemployment rate of Papua New Guineans, is conspicuously absent as being significant objectives.
Overall, indications suggest that Mr ONeill and his Peoples National Congress Party are trying to win the hearts and minds of the Papua New Guinean public in the same way as Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. In the case of Hitler and Mussolini, this enhanced public support was used as the open door to create a totalitarian state in which the leader reigned supreme. It appears that Mr ONeill has the same objective.
The longterm outcomes of dictatorship are unpredictable, but often tragic. While it is highly unlikely that what happened in Germany or Italy under Hitler and Mussolini will occur on anywhere near the same scale in Papua New Guinea, a descent into totalitarianism in PNG under Mr ONeill is certain to do more harm than good. PNG leaders do not have anywhere near the track record that would allow benevolent, honest dictatorship in PNG as Fiji, Singapore and Malaysia experienced. At the very least, Papua New Guinea’s national treasury is likely to be ransacked under totalitarianism and the country bled dry.
