Women at the helm

The logo of the University of Papua New Guinea.

The most powerful intellectual industrial organization in Papua New Guinea, UPNG’s the National Academic Staffing Association/Union (NASA/NAU), has recently changed its status from a male dominated executive to a strictly female one. All its office bearers from the President down are women.

Industrial Registrar, Mrs Helen Saleu, herself a product of UPNG, described this as historic when informing the PNG Trade Union Congress Executive that “UPNG NASA has an all round female executive as an industrial organization.” At a special handover-takeover function organized by the new executive at UPNG she pointed out that “NASA as an industrial organization has achieved some of the landmark decisions [in the country]” and encouraged the new executive to continue that leadership role “in bringing about positive changes which benefit many other institutions in the country such as the National Research Institute, the University of Technology and others”.

The new executive was voted in on 10^th October and the function referred to above was held at the Ulli Beier Cultural Centre on 14^th October.

The new executive now consists of President, Ms Elaina Butuna (from Milne Bay and a lecturer in the School of Natural and Physical Sciences); Vice President, Dr. Anne Waiko (from Milne Bay and a senior lecturer in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences); Treasurer, Ms Henrietta Simon (from West New Britain and a lecturer in the School of Natural and Physical Sciences); and Secretary, Ms Lois Stanley (from Manus and a lecturer in the School of Law).

Meantime, the male membership population of NASA welcomed the election of the new executive and rendered support for them through former president Dr. Peter Petsul who the current president acknowledged as one “who had successfully negotiated the [almost single line looking] salary package for the 2009-2011 term which expires at the end of this year.”

For over three decades NASA has always been at the forefront of all industrial battles and negotiations, making history along the way which not many of us may care to acknowledge. But it is true of our claim that it is indeed one of the most powerful industrial organizations in the country. From the late 1970s to the present NASA has initiated and caused changes to take effect which in turn not only affected the academia but also the public service, indeed the entire work force, throughout the country. Thanks to NASA virtually all the departments, government or private, enjoy the benefits of Domestic Market Allowances, Risk Allowances, Compassionate and Maternal leave benefits – all in line with the academic industrial union’s persistent call for a single line salary for all, irrespective of race, creed, class or gender.

While we can say that some of NASA’s battles have been fought and won we can still concede that there is a lot out there that remains challenging. NASA is well aware of that. With that in mind storyboard decided to give the President a few posers and the response received was invaluable.

On the question of the single line salary this was the President’s response: “NASA has been a pioneer and advocate for a single line salary based on equal work for equal pay principles at the University of Papua New Guinea. This in our view has been partially achieved in the 2009-2011 MOA where national academics can apply for international market allowance (IMA) based on academic and professional merits.”

On the question of accountability and transparency at all levels of UPNG’s performances: “UPNG is a public institution and therefore must be accountable to the people of PNG. This is a public university; both management and academics must be accountable to the public in the delivery of their services. All public funds must be accounted for under the Public and Finance Act.”

On the quality of staffing: “The quality of academic staffing and retention of staffing is essential, based on the attractiveness of the salary remuneration packages and conditions offered by the University at competitive labour market. I do not think remuneration packages are attractive enough to lure international professionals to be competitive with the nationals on equal terms. If you convert the Kina to US or Australian dollars international professors will be worse off at UPNG than in US or Australian universities.”

Other issues at heart affecting NASA? “NASA needs assessment survey or household and income survey, improvement in staff accommodation, the housing scheme of the national staff that needs to be finalized, development of forward looking corporate plans, establishment of a resource centre, creation of a data base for NASA members and the spearheading of an ‘Alliance of Academic Council/forum of PNG’ as a non government body that should encourage participation from other academic associations from various universities in the country; also increase of fund raising efforts for mentor activities at UPNG and support the administration in the development initiatives to provide quality education at UPNG. The alliance should meet annually to exchange ideas that affect learning at respective universities.”

At this point President Elaina Butuna took a slight pause to place an emphasis on NASA’s involvement at both community and national levels. She pointed out that whoever the stakeholders were in carrying out the projects of the Law building and the Science IV building, should consider 2013 as the deadline for the two to be completed. And she continued: “On the national front NASA thanks the Governor of NCD for his leadership and support for the tabling of the Equality and Participation bill now before the Parliament. The executive congratulates the government of the day for taking a bold step in approving the bill which countries like the US and Australia took over some 100 years to support in recognition of women. Actually, without the aggressive support of the US Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, the Australian government and the UN support for this bill would not have been possible in a traditionally male dominated society. NASA appeals to our good 109 members of Parliament to pass the bill for the sake of your children and posterity. Together we can build a strong vibrant society and together we can achieve the goals of Vision 2050.”

And now for storyboard’s final question, what would the President, as someone from Milne Bay, have to offer by way of advice and words of encouragement to the people of that province?

“I am proud to be from Milne Bay and to join the list of Milne Bay pioneers in various fields of achievement, such as Dinah Frank and her book, Under the Mango Tree, Dame Josephine Abijah, the first female parliamentarian and her book, A Thousand Coloured Dreams, Alice Wedega being the first nominated indigenous member of the LCG and her book, Listen My Country, and many others. Being the first female president of the National Academic Staff Association of UPNG is a special honour and privilege especially leading an all round female NASA executive of an industrial organization. This feels extra special yet it is a daunting task but I am confident with my team to meet all challenges as they themselves are intellectuals and respected citizens in their own right. NASA in my view has taken on a new frontier in its leadership role showing the nation that indeed when it comes to brain power both men and women are on equal footing. All our male NASA colleagues were pleasantly surprised and delighted to see us take on the union’s leadership role. Equally so, the Vice Chancellor, Professor Ross Hynes and his senior management team was delighted and pledged their support for my new executive team. I have pledged our support to the UPNG Management team to ensure that UPNG as a premier University of the Pacific lives up to its expectations both now and in the years to come. My team has a catch phrase, “Excellence in innovative academic leadership”, which we stand on during our term of office. We must rise up and take on new challenges and be partners in nation building.” 

                                                                       

A poem by Melissa Sete

                                                                           

                                 DRIVEN AWAY

Let he who has not fallen

Launch the first boulder

Food and wine

Merriment and laughter

Disguised pride and unforgiven feuds

All these flowed crimson

From the devil’s lips

Tainting the beautiful mural

Set upon by angels

Four years before

Dark shadows flitted in and out

Among foreign silk and fine satin

Leather shoes and crystal cutlery

A meek voice cries out

From where it has been driven

‘What God has joined, who is man to separate?’

Both names have already been inscribed

In tablets of stone

And blood from my womb

Has long before

Fused 

                                                                                          

Lahara’s poetic stance

...it is the smile given with the gift of corn, cassava or pawpaw fruit that makes storyboard value lahara’s poetic stance so highly.

When it’s lahara the first thing that comes to storyboard’s mind is music, and the best of jazz pieces at that, plus whiling the afternoon hours away waiting for that ticket from the employers to fly back home to the village.  In the village there is that long stretch of white sandy beach upon your favourite island such as Rourakata, and the lobsters, the clams, the reef crabs and occasionally for the faithful youth escort of the village to the islands a moray eel or two sizzling over the fire.  (The youth would need that delicacy to look after you well.)

That is how it feels when one flees the city like Port Moresby. But the question that comes to our minds now is what Port Moresby has done to us to force us to escape its significance as the capital of our country. We need to go back to storyboard’s jazz selection of music and reconsider.

The jazz music in question usually coincides with the yellow or gold petals that hang down from tall trees all around Waigani campus in November. In some laharas there is often sufficient drizzle to warrant the arrival of the season. And the flowering trees respond to the season with long hang downs of yellow and gold, so much so the campus and its surrounds bursts into flames of just that – yellow and gold. But not so this year. The atmosphere all around looks as desolate as ever. There has not even been a slight drizzle as yet and it seems this could continue until December. Even the fashionable Highlands women amble about the campus with umbrellas not so much to keep out the rain as to stop that damn sun beating down on them mercilessly. But even they look settled. They don’t want to escape the city. And storyboard believes that our attitude to the city should be like that. Good old Port Moresby.

So then, when there is such a season as lahara any time of the year it is true that storyboard becomes overtly poetic in sentiment, composing or reciting poetry wherever he goes, much to the annoyance of those who walk past him, taking quick disapproving looks at him and then walking on. But what matter. Poetry is beauty; poetry is truth.

The best poems in our lifetime come to us during lahara. It is that time of year, if you are living in Milne Bay, when the direction of the seasonal winds change and begin flowing west and southward so that the northern coastal waters are calm and tranquil as ash spread over water. The waters become so clear that some mornings you can take a peek from your canoe and see the floor beds of the ocean clearly from 20 to 30 feet.

Lahara then becomes that season of credence in a year when we think seriously about recharging our batteries, wherever we are. Hence, the significance of the Lahara program at various UPNG campuses and open colleges throughout the country. Since poetry of the lahara season rules the day people from all walks of life think of coming back to school to rekindle. They may be teachers, public servants, business men and women, informal tradesmen and women, ordinary folk of our country, villagers and so on – they know that at one point or another there must be a common meeting ground for us all to gather, re-consider, reflect and feel refreshed. Ah, good old Lahara.

Sometimes in lahara the southerly winds get a little restless, the weather becomes rough, but it is always in those rough moments that we get good messages coming to us from those higher up in authority. For example, as storyboard writes this he cannot help but recall the prime minister’s visit to the Waigani campus some months earlier. At that time storyboard felt enthralled to see his students from Hela all dressed up in traditional regalia to welcome their fellow villager back to the campus.  It was at this time that this villager promised the Waigani population that in his government all education must be free. That every child from prep to Grade 12 at high school and beyond must be given the opportunity to replenish, to rekindle and be free as a citizen of our country. That anyone from prep to Grade 12 and beyond is a representative of our nation’s intelligentsia. And it is his government which will make that as a reality.

But, as storyboard always says, the best poetry of our country usually comes out at lahara. And this poetry has a lot to do with the future generations that surround us a good number of which is found right here in the nation’s capital. Some evenings, as storyboard walks home, these representatives of our very future come out to greet him with kind words. Sometimes with baked corn, cassava or pawpaw fruit, all given away for free. Storyboard fidgets a bit then, trying to find a coin perhaps to give back, but there is often nothing left in his pocket to give away because the day has been exceedingly harsh on his daily budget. Still, it is the smile given with the gift of corn, cassava or pawpaw fruit that makes storyboard value lahara’s poetic stance so highly.

                                                                             

A poem by Deborah Kayuwa

The sands of Rourakata

Hand in hand we walk

The sands of Rourakata

Regarding footprints

Of a thousand lovers

Before us, eyes locked

Smiles sealing the bond

Of our friendship

A slight breeze

Turns you into burnt paper

I grip your hand firmly

But you are ashes in the wind

I search the moonlit sands

Shining ever so bright and white

For a touch, for a presence

But there is something so black

And magical about this whiteness

This pureness of spirit and serenity

I awaken crying, my face

Buried in my palms

Ah, lover, would Rourakata

Be ever kinder, would a sigh

Suffice as orison just to undo

The spell and bring you

Back to me?

A benchmark in PNG literature

Some of the writers at the workshop at the Australian High Commission on the eve of Independence celebrations

This year’s Independence celebrations will no doubt include over 40 years of Papua New Guinea writing, now having come of age as our national literature.  By a national literature we mean those works on Papua New Guinea written by Papua New Guineans. The first such works were gathered for literary journals as early as 1968, and these were immediately published as “words of paradise” in several journals and anthologies such as Kovave, Words of Paradise and Black Niugini Writing.

Since 1968 Papua New Guinea literature took many forms and a categorization of these as we have noted innumerable times range from protest writing to autobiographies, social commentary, oral literatures and traditions, criticism and genre experimentations. Somewhere along the line feminist theory took its place as a PNG literary discipline under the subheading of gender studies.

Today, through the publications of such works as The Unpainted Mask by Steven Winduo, Gutsini Posa by Regis Stella, Ripples in the Pacific by Paulias Matane and A Remarkable Journey by Carol Kidu we see that such writing, as a “holistic” representation of all creative endeavours, forms a new benchmark in the nation’s literary development. Such writing is now being read widely and studied at universalities throughout the world, including the Pacific region.

Such a literary development was noted to be steady in progress, though there were decades when writers fell silent for one reason or another, but that rate of progress indicated a sure homecoming of a new type of national as much as global literature that was destined to look complete.

A question that comes to mind now is whether or not Papua New Guinea has written enough. That question is best answered by a member of the present generation of writers and scholars, Charmaine Sialis, through the following observation.

“Can PNG literature in its current state of existence be questioned? Absolutely not! It is evident through the number of authors and their works we are reading now, and from the various points of view drawn from these writings, that there is definitely such a thing as PNG literature.”

Sialis continues: “But it is now up to each and every one of us to familiarize ourselves with the material available in PNG literature for educational purposes. Young people are the ones that will benefit more from this because they will learn more about their background and where they originated from. Since [the present generation] grew up in a modernized society, many may not know about their traditions and cultures. By reading PNG literature and applying it [as knowledge], they will be able to preserve our cultures and traditions; therefore, as future leaders, this will ensure the prosperity of Papua New Guinea.”

A question of importance, however, dwells on the amount of intellectual impact this national literature has on off-shore readers, critics, researchers and scholars. That question is usually answered by viewing the thoughts and opinions of outsiders on what we have produced so far as our literature. Critics from the immediate neighbouring regions, such as the Pacific itself, eschew PNG literature but only to a cautious degree. Critics and scholars such as the Indo-Fijian Subramani usually remark that PNG literature can be viewed separately and in its own right. Viewers from neighbouring Australia and New Zealand are seen to be more direct than that, but with a certain air of empathy.

Paul Sharrad from the University of Wollongong in Australia had this to say when he visited UPNG last week. At a private function hosted by Dr Steven Winduo he was somewhat of the opinion that though much has been written to date, that could only be recognized globally if there were seen some pro-active participation from our literary crowd with the international one.

Of course the implication noted there is how much we can achieve at global level after having (for an undergraduate, for example) spent some four years working towards a basic degree in literature. We can only market ourselves internationally if the content of what we study runs shoulder to shoulder with what other tertiary institutions in the world offer. At present, what we see as challenging from assessments and evaluations such as those of Sharrad’s is the fact that what we study at home as literature might lack the substance of canonization in literary studies overall. What Sharrad is hinting at there is that our literature students might leave after four years of strenuous study without knowing who William Shakespeare is or what province he comes from. After all, what is a cultured individual if he lacks the classical aspects of his own culture?

One other point raised by Sharrad which storyboard found intriguing as much as challenging. That since Sharrad himself specializes in postcolonial literature which covers much of the Pacific including Papua New Guinea, and since he is the only one in Australia teaching such a trend in course offerings, there is apparently no one else to teach it upon his retirement. That implies that either there is no one else, apart from his own students at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, or that none of our own academics (particularly the young crowd) is considering taking up such a challenge in Australia or in any Australian university as yet. But the amount of professorial movements Dr Steven Winduo seems to be doing these days should indicate some bright prospects in that direction.

Paul Sharrad is highly regarded in this field of academic preoccupations. We must be grateful for his honest opinions on PNG literature to date. That certainly gives us, as a group from this little corner of our nation’s development, cause to celebrate. Paul’s postgraduate students once upon a time included Regis Stella, along with several other Papua New Guineans, including Australians themselves. His extensively researched book on the work of the Samoan writer, Albert Wendt, called “Albert Wendt and Pacific Literature: Circling the Void” has become a monumental publication both for PNG, the Pacific region, and the world. He himself is no stranger to Papua New Guinea having spent the best part of his youth at the Port Moresby International High School.

The seniors: Paul (left) and Russell at UPNG.