The
Australian Pocket Oxford Dictionary defines the word “insidious” as: 1.
proceeding inconspicuously but harmfully (an
insidious disease). 2. treacherous; crafty.
Oxford
English Minidictionary defines the same word as “developing gradually and with
harmful effect.”
In
the publishing world, the word simply means having the power to publish and hurt
someone.
Insidious
publications come in the form of libel, lampoons, character defamation and
fictitious manipulation of events and human behavioural patterns closely
congruous to those of individual living persons.
Insidious
publications become criminal when they are directed by one author to a
particular individual living person. Insidious publications directed to deceased
persons are excusable, unless the survivors of the said deceased consider
otherwise.
Where the same descriptions are provided in
favour of groups of people, communities, certain classes of society and
countries – these are exempted as excusable descriptions in works of fiction
because the receptor entities to which such descriptions are directed are
considered a collective whole. Thus, the
author of Satanic Verses can be
confronted by a collective group but not necessarily by an individual in want
of retributive justice.
Such
publications can also be seen as criminal if the same author consciously and
consistently directs his/her work of fiction to the same targeted individual
for as long as one to ten times in a row, or for periods lasting from a week up
to three years or more. In this particular case it is the right of the victim
to file charges against the author.
Insidious
publications are not good things for a Papua New Guinean writer to get involved
in.
Sometimes
a writer can dislike another person so much that the temptation to publish
insidious material against that person will become irresistible, and the
chances are that the author can fall into that trapping as easily as he/she
holds the power to publish at will.
The
end result is that the person on the receiving end might suffer stress,
emotional turmoil and in some cases a complete breakdown. Such cases are found
in the work environment, particularly through group emails, newsletters, public
noticeboards and forums of sorts.
In
the publishing world, however, both the author and his/her publisher are always
in agreement with what to publish. That whatever they agree to publish must
not, among other things, defame, degrade, devalue, or even seek to destroy an
individual living person. By that we mean precisely that a book, particularly
work of fiction, is published according to the terms and conditions signed in a
contractual negotiation between publisher and author. It is the responsibility
of both parties to uphold the principles of fair publishing.
Yet
whatever rules there are in place some of us tend to use good looking stories
or even poems, other than our own, as means of getting at somebody. When our
adversaries, the ones we are targeting, confront us for explanations we say
they are exaggerating, they are being paranoid. So they go away more
embarrassed than ever. That of course gives us more power and freedom to continue
publishing and hurting them. We thenceforth sit and wait for the slightest
provocation on our part that will cause them to explode. There will be abusive
language and violence involved on their part which will be quite to our
advantage. Then, of course, the courts will decide in our favour.
When
we, as writers, find ourselves in that kind of false victory, it is wise and
imperative to step back and offer a much more judicious look at our own work.
If we are lucky we will realize our shortcomings and walk away.
Leo
Tolstoy once wrote a fable in which a man took a lion on a tour of all the
wonderful things man had done as a civilized being. There were statues of
important men, standing tall and erect all over the city. For each, the man
provided an explanation of who achieved what and when, etc. In the end the man
turned to the lion and asked what he, the lion, thought.
The
lion said: “If lions were in power there would be statues all over the city of
all you men lying flat on the ground.”
A
lesson enough, perhaps, but the important thing is to uphold the necessity of
ethics in any mode of publication.
Postscript
We published the article above because we are
wondering if the poetry that the National Weekender publishes has a certain project that
most Papua New Guinea writers are not aware of. Is there an entity within the
so-called populace of Papua New Guinea writers that would wish us to look at
our own sense of creativity differently? In essence, what do we mean by
authentic Papua New Guinean writing, whether written within or without but
which contains strong and genuine interests that are appealing to the people of
the country. And what about that poetry or literature that seeks to undermine
the philosophical foundations of a given community of people, institutions, individuals
and the like?
A colleague recently asked storyboard if he
was familiar with the Ern Malley affair? “In the 1940s a couple of Australian
poets reacting against modernism sent in poems purportedly written by a new
poet called "Ern Malley" to Angry Penguins magazine owned by Max
Harris. Max fell for it and published them as genuine.”
We fear the same sort of tactic being used
in the National
Weekender’s writers’ forum. But we sense something far more sinister
and insidious than the Ern Malley affair, the sort that would pass off in some
quarters of academic preoccupations as organized projects of “structural
violence.” Hardly surprising is the fact
that only a mere handful of these poets is recognized as a Papua New Guinea
writer. The rest are Ern Malley pseudonyms en masse, plus the Weekender
editor’s own poetry appearing over and over again under so many pseudonyms and,
of course, poems of one or two UPNG academics who, sadly, can’t publish
anywhere else in the world but through this forum.
It is true, in the final analysis, that
literature has lost its true value as such through the writer’s forum of the National Weekender.
