TAMING THE BEAST
A wild beast from the jungle will always remain that – a wild beast. No matter how many years are put into taming it. Even if from birth, the beast is domesticated and trained by humans to recognise and conform to acceptable standards of behaviour, that beast will always remain wild and “uncivilised” at heart. And it is to be approached with caution at all times.
Are we humans any different? Or are we just putting on a façade and take off the mask to reveal the true beast within?
A lion brought up in a household as a household pet for 5 years and later released into the wild had no trouble whatsoever joining a pride and integrating into the lion society. Although he recognised his former keepers and invited his wives to come say hello, in the end he remained a lion. A crocodile kept as a household pet for 15 years turned on its keepers and attacked them. A boa constrictor turned on its keepers after 10 years of being “domesticated”. Other “pets” like tigers and leopards have been known to do the same. Hence the saying that you can take the animal out of the jungle but you cannot take the jungle out of the animal.
Papua New Guinea has experienced contact with the outside world for over 100 years now, the last 40 of which have been as a self governing and then politically independent state. Yet the behavioural patterns evidenced throughout the country call to mind the behaviour of wild animals. Watching some National Geographic movies of animals in their natural settings makes me believe that none of us are truly educated or as civilised as we would like ourselves to be.
So are we Papua New Guineans like these animals from the jungle? How is it that we cannot take the jungle out of ourselves after we have been taken from the jungle?
We put our self interests and welfare before that of the nation, friends and community; our politicians while preaching unity and one nation on the one hand, import their relatives and wantoks into national capital (and other towns and cities) to influence the outcome of elections on the other; our people forget that a game played on a field in another country thousands of kilometre away act as if it was a matter of life or death for them and react with extreme violence at the outcome of that game; we treat our symbols of national identity as temporary tags and rags of no significance; we quickly and easily forget matters that affect the community, society and nation which we are an integral part of which has significant social and economic ramifications for everyone and refuse to forgive the slightest personal insult to us even if that has no bearing what so ever on the quality of our life except our feelings; we always come up with the best and most novel excuses in the world to do nothing but take the opportunity to complain at the top of our voices whenever we can hoping that someone else will correct the cause of our complaints for us.
Now what is the best way to tame an animal? Keep it fed and it will stay quiet and content and let you get away with almost anything. And that is exactly how the outside world treats us. We are toothless dogs just good for barking. When a bone is thrown to us, we fight over it while someone else runs off with the meat.
That is PNG. That is you and I for we are PNG.
On the eve of the Pacific Games while we are heading for history and glory, I hope we take time to reflect of what it means to be a Papua New Guinean. Let us stand up for our country in all ways – together and as one – against corruption, against violence, against being second class in our own land. Our athletes have shown we can be first class. Can we as a country pull together and be first class as a nation in all other things?
