Critical Literacy: the Bottom up Approach's first step!

10 September 2007

Fidel Castro, Cuba's ageing revolutionary, was driven by a dream! Back in 1959 he won control of Cuba and he planned to make his people the leading South American nation. But he faced a serious problem! Yes, Cubans for the most part were poor! And yes, few had much schooling! But poverty and lack of schooling wasn't exactly the problem. There was something much deeper! The problem he faced was clear as the great, big beard on his face: his people were miserably poor at reading and writing! In fact, most were illiterate!

He knew his people well! No matter how deep their yearning for the better life, in spite of them being truly blessed with rich soil, plentiful rain and a wonderful climate, they suffered a profound weakness. Too many of his people couldn't read or write! Basic math skills and a fundamental understanding of the world escaped them. No matter what his plans were, no matter how much money Cuba's sugarcane brought in to government's coffers still little change would take place if this profound people weakness--illiteracy--continued.

Fifty years ago, then, Castro saw the problem and determined to do something about it. Cuba wasn't a rich nation! It had a very hostile neighbor (USA) camped right on its door step and most of its people clamored for a bigger and stronger army, more government jobs, anything but literacy! But Castro stuck to his plans. No, before anything else he set in motion a national literacy project to tackle this national problem. And he succeeded! At this moment, for instance, Cuba enjoys a higher literacy rate than even the United States, twenty times richer!

In fact Cuba, among only a handful of countries worldwide, boasts of almost 100% literacy. We in the Solomons, for instance, in the very near future, this year in fact, will gain from Cuba's high literacy rate. More than 50 Cuban medical doctors will fly into our country to take up two-year residency to practice their medical skills in our many rural clinics. Next year perhaps another 100 more will be at post as well.

What does all this say about our own country! Our current literacy rate is close to what Cuba had fifty years ago . . . about 40% of our people are literate. Yes, over the years we made progress, from 24% for men to 19% for women, in the early 1990s to the current 4 out of 10 persons reading and writing. Unfortunately, the 1999 national census presented an over rosy picture of our literacy achievement. It's hard to accept that in less than 10 years the nation jumped from an average 25% in 1988 to 70% in 1999. No, our current rate is much lower and only slowly is it climbing to where it should be.

Some might think that the secret of Cuba's literacy success was Fidel Castro: the Strongman, the dictator, he forced his people to learn to read and write or else. Nothing is further from the truth! Yes, the Cuban leader made it clear that literacy was a national goal and everyone--men, women and even small children--were expected to learn this skill and quickly so. But the carrot rather than the stick was his favorite tactic! Not force, nor jail or anything like that. Students, trained in national schools, were expected to repay the government for their schooling by teaching their younger brothers and sisters and even their parents on their own time.

Currently, we in the Solomons miss out on our student population helping out in a national-run literacy campaign. For instance, I know of not a single Solomons school--primary, secondary or tertiary level--which teaches its students how to teach literacy. The next two months, for instance, our 4,000 students who recently sat their entrance exam for secondary school remain in class without taking any special training to help them to teach literacy to their brothers, sisters and parents. We have a huge workforce right under our noses waiting to be used to help the nation get on top of our illiteracy problem and we fail to use them.

This week Solomon Islands publicly recognizes the depth of our literacy problem. The first step in solving any problem is to accept that there is one and a serious one at that. Secondly. much like Cuba's Castro, we have to come up with a workable plan which tackles the problem head on using the resources at hand. It took Cuba less than five decades to turn a country around from illiteracy to full literacy. Our government's Bottom up Approach's first step, then, must be in this same direction.

J. Roughan
10 September 2007
Honiara

Pain before gain!

27 August 2007

The present Government knows that before its 'Bottom-up Approach' gains traction special attention is needed to get it off the ground. The previous 29 years of 'top down' and BTO (Big Time Operations--Taiyo, oil palms, Gold Ridge, Honiara itself,etc.) pushed by pervious governments wasn't working for the whole of the Solomons. Yes, certain areas seemingly did well but most villagers not so.

Certain parts of our islands--the land and villagers close up to these big businesses got the jobs, were serviced with more education, medical, communication links and transport than those further away. Their local economies were strengthened by the infusion of big money from these firms. The 'Bottom Up Approach' won't work this way. It wants to act like a mighty ocean tide lifting all village groups and not just the select few close to big business enterprises.

Last week Government created a new unit within the PM's Office to show its commitment to achieve its development objectives through the BUA policy. This is but the first step on a very long and difficult journey. In other words, pain, lots of it, will be the lot of many villagers before they see great gain.

In the late 1990s I was touring villages along Guadalcanal's North Shore, between Honiara and Visale. I was sharing with villagers along the way how Solomon Islands Development Trust understood this thing called development. One point I raised rather strongly was the idea that as important as money is to life, on its own, it has little to do with development. Of course it's needed but if that is all you have--money, $$$, funding, etc.-- than you don't have much.

I shared with my listeners of that day that, for example, as important as a clinic building (church, school, community hall, etc.) is for health, it won't be developmental unless people's lives are changing at the same time. Buildings, roads, wharfs, etc. are important but more important is how much people have been changed in the building up of this infrastructure. Development is about people! Development should be about giving a people a chance to change, to grow, to become more.

Back in mid-1960s, for instance, when the anti-malaria program was just starting up the conventional wisdom of the day was to spray everything in a village with DDT. In a typical spraying, health department officials asked villagers to temporarily leave their homes (DDT was highly toxic and best not breathed in or allowed to touch the bare skin) while the spray team got on with their job. Village people were asked to wait outside the village while the walls of each house and building were thoroughly coated with a white spray which stayed on the walls for weeks.

This kind of spraying was quite effective. Malaria cases dropped dramatically. School kids, small children and adults were all helped and quickly so. But at what price! Yes, probably 99% of local mosquitoes died during the spraying and for more than 10 years we were almost free of malaria. Perhaps if people at the same time when spraying was going on were also asked to help out--getting rid of stagnant water pools, brushing back village tall grass, suspected malaria patients seeking treatment quickly, etc.--then our terrible malaria outbreak in the early 1990s would have never hit us!

When I shared these facts with my audience in and around the Aruligo area, I was met with hostility. I stopped my talk and spoke directly to the young men who were murmuring, rather upset at the things I was saying about development. Obviously I didn't know the Solomons, didn't have a clue what it means to live village life and most importantly was on the wrong track. I asked the group: "You're angry aren't you?" Their quick response was a sharp "Yes!" "Thank goodness!", I said. "You really do understand what I'm saying. That the secret of development is not in money but in people, going from can't to can do, for a people to grow and become empowered!"

This is what BUA is all about . . . the 'Bottom Up Approach' in which all people, all levels of society and all leaders focus on how to harness the power of people to change the Solomons from one that worked in past years for a select few and left the majority of people waiting on the side of the road while the big car/truck/bus sped by. The first years of BUA are going to be tough! So many leaders and not a few of their followers have over the past three decades hitched their development wagon to the old discredited BTO . . . logging, mining, companies, etc. Understanding that the village is the future will take them by surprise. Hopefully many, if not most, will see the errors of the past led the nation to the days of Social Unrest 1998-2003.

J. Roughan

27 August 2007

Honiara

A brief history of Solomon Islands!

9 July 2007

We started off well enough, then went down hill. Our first years of independence were filled with promise but during the middle years we got ourselves lost and into trouble. Fortunately we have been given a second chance to start again. However, it's important to be clear where, how and why we failed in the first place.

From my lights, the 1978-1986 years were a period of growth, optimism and determination. The nation's transition from colony to independent state went off smoothly. During those years, we experienced no conflict, no bitterness, no healing of war wounds and overcoming deep seated hatreds. UK's $35 million golden handshake during this period allowed the nation to start off its bank balance in positive territory. Yes, in spite of the down turn in commodity prices--cocoa, copra, fish, etc.--across the world, we were still optimistic.

However, the nation was finding it hard to balance its books; medical, education and other social costs servicing villagers were rising higher by the month. In summary, in comparison to what was to come the nation's first eight years could claim to be Solomons' Golden Era!

Our collective troubles arrived with Cyclone Namu's destructive winds in mid-1986. Not only did this ferocious storm destroy Guale's rice crop, tear down many bridges, leave more than 100 of our people dead, it changed our leaders thinking. It was clear to our leaders that a prosperous and dynamic Solomons was going to take more than a few years of hard work. But the leadership and many of their followers were impatient. A short cut had to be found! Villagers' forest wealth was thought to be that short cut!

Politicians of all stripes--central government, provincial level and village leaders--thought they saw royal road out of poverty and a neat way to prosperity--round tree logging. During the 1986-1997 period, then, the round tree export of people's logs set a pattern. The growing volume of log exports was linked to a dubious development theory: Solomons only weakness was that it lacked sufficient funds. If log exports brought the country millions of dollars, then could development be far away?

Round tree logging exports did bring millions of dollars, not so much for the nation but for individuals, not necessarily those who actually owned the forest wealth. However, during these years the quality of people's daily lives in the rural areas began to serious slide. Basic health, education, transport and communication services weakened. In Guale's Weather Coast, for instance, these services dried up so badly that village life became poorer than what people had experienced during pre-independence years. Is it any wonder that the most bitter of conflicts took place on that coast? This period of Solomon's history is rightly called: The Leaden Era!

Ulufa'alu's 1997-2000 years of governance tried to address these gaps, to emphasize rural investment and bring the nation's political elite and moneyed power-brokers into line. Immediately, he faced three parliamentary motions of no confidence but what was happening outside the walls of that house ultimately proved too much for his government. By mid-1999, it became clear that a fundamental difference lay between those who ruled--the political elite--and those who were the real owners of the nation's resources--the villagers.

Thus began our Toxic Era: five years--1998-2003--of disarray, weakness and drift. Fortunately, had it not been the village sector with its strengths and determination, the nation would have sunk below the waves and would have been destroyed. Government institutions couldn't perform the basics of government--education, health and law and order. Villagers at the time basically fed the nation, kept young, elderly and the sick from disease and were the foundation pillar for peace and order.

In 2003, this unhealthy local scene changed dramatically. RAMSI, over the past four years, stiffened central government's backbone by strengthening its courts and prison services, revamping police personnel and re-ordering the nation's finances. It is clear that the solution to our foundational social and economic problems is best accomplished by enhancing The Basic Life--peace, social services and modest economic life for the majority (villagers) first--and then extending that goal to the urban centres. Not the other way around!

J. Roughan
9 July 2007
Honiara

Making BUA work!

2 July 2007

The present government is wedded to making the Bottom Up Approach . . . BUA work! But the village, the very place where many different groups of people live and work, all are waiting for the BUA to root and quickly so. Men and women, young/old, educated/less so, business minded/gardeners, healthy/sick, well off/poor, informed/uninformed, etc. etc. all are waiting to see things happen and quickly so.

To make rapid and deep change at the same time among all these different groups will take much work, abundant resources and trained personnel. For the past 28 years, the Solomons Ship of State has been sailing in the opposite direction. Now all of a sudden, the focus is off the BTO, the Big Time Operation, as the best if not the only road to the better life for the majority of our citizens. Of course BTOs like GPPOL, Gold Ridge, Taiyo, etc. are national assets but these have never been at the centre of the typical villager's life.

Among all these different groups which group/groups, then, hold out the best and quickest return on the government's investment of time, energy and resources. Which group is the key to all the others? In other words, is there is one type of village person, if targeted immediately and forcefully, would translate to have a major spin-off effect on all the others?

During the early days of BUA, government's funds and needed personnel are limited to turn villagers lives around for the majority of people. If, for instance, the government would focus--money, personnel, resources--on the poorly educated young people group, then those very same resources could not at the same time be spread out to other villages groups. But the government wants to see an almost immediate positive response across the board.

My choice for that key group is village women. They already have a track record and are a commanding presence in any village life. Not only did they feed thousands during the Social Unrest period--1998-2003--they literally protected the smallest, weakest and most vulnerable of village society. Even with severe limitations, they jump started the national economy from below zero in 2002 to over 5% in 2003!

With little or no assistance from outside forces they marshaled their small resource base to keep village life from collapsing and fall into chaos. During those 'bad old days' when central authority structures--police, justice system, prisons, treasury--were experiencing free fall, the backbone of village society--the woman--kept a weakened society alive.

Even outside groups are now appreciating the value of village women. Last week, for instance, the United States Women of Courage award was presented to one of our own women in recognition for her work during our trying years of the Social Unrest period. Ms Apollonia Talo of Guale had worked for many years not only as a wife and mother but had seen it as her duty to work closely with the Guadalcanal Council of Women and later on Peace and Reconciliation Committee.

How positively village women's lives are raised up should be the yardstick measuring the worth of government's 'Bottom Up Approach'. Once the BUA is going for a few years we can measure its success when the typical village woman can be assured of quality education for her little ones. When sickness strikes, she can be certain that the local clinic carries the correct medicines with a trained nurse on duty. Modest amounts of money for personal use will be there for her because her garden produce will fetch that money from the thriving local market.

BUA is certainly the way to go. No new government could possibly reverse what is seen across the board what should have been happening since 1978. But it is important that a major effort to get it started indeed happens as quickly as possible. We can not allow those who over the past 28 years have been sailing the Ship of State towards the reef to ever return again.

J. Roughan
2 July 2007
Honiara

A Friendly Word to the Opposition and Doubters!

18 June 2007

Prosperity, progress and peace do not begin in Honiara. These basics root first in the village and then they spread to our urban centres. This is the basic message that should be drawn from our first 29 years of history. Unfortunately, since 1978 independence days our political masters were determined to bring the trappings of a dynamic society by passing around the rural majority and hitch their prosperity wagon to an urban minority.

And the reason why the village is central is simple enough! The wealth base for the nation's prosperity is owned and controlled by the villager, the rural majority. He/she through the clan, line and tribe own and control the nation's rivers, lakes, land, trees, ground, reefs, fishing areas etc. in which the food, shelter, medicine, water, etc. are found to keep human existence going.

Of course, if wealth is narrowly understood as simply cash and money, then Honiara and its smaller rural versions, the provincial capitals, lie at the centre of prosperity. But dollars and cents are a human invention so as to easily count, measure and distribute the real wealth of the nation, its natural resources, especially its people. Dollars and cents, gold, silver, etc. in themselves, are not wealth but stand for real wealth.

Unfortunately during our earliest years, every government of the day traveled down the wrong path and were convinced that the Three Ps--prosperity, progress and peace--had to go through Honiara first and then on to lives of village people. The three pillars of 20th century life--cash, Honiara centric and men and men alone as decision makers--defined what it meant to live in the Solomons in the latter part of the 20th century.

Is it any wonder, then, that those who actually own Solomon Islands, the country's Resource Owners, rebelled? The Social Unrest years--1998-2003--was a national wake up call that prosperity, progress and peace that every citizen thirsts for comes only when the majority of the nation are responded to positively. The miracle that occurred was not that we had terrible things happening on the Weather Coast and a few other hot spots but that so few Solomon Islanders took up arms, rebelled and went down that same dreadful road.

2003, then, became a watershed when the national downward spiral came to an abrupt halt. RAMSI arrived, separated the chaos workers from their guns, strengthened the state's basic forces--police, courts, prisons--for unity--and gave the nation a chance to re-invent itself anew. Unfortunately, the former government failed to grab this golden opportunity to turn the nation around, strengthen the village sector though better services and jump start the economy. SIDT's 7th Report Card in August 2005 showed how low the people still marked the Kemakeza Government's in this respect.

Chinatown's April Riots of 2006 were a flashback to the 'bad old days'. This incident reflected the fear people had of a return to 'business as usual'. That the old forces of 'cash, Honiara and male domination' were once again on the rise. That the 21st century's new pillars of life--'food security, village centrality and women/youth in decision making positions'--was unraveling before their eyes.

A quick and easy survey of today's people would reveal that the present government's--Grand Coalition for Change--popularity rests on the fact that it has publicly embraced the village as central to its work. For the first time in 29 years, a government of the day has placed the rural population at the centre of its planning and will rise or fall on how well it reaches out, services and listens to these people.

That is why it is important for the Opposition to realize that there's no other way to go but to seek 'prosperity, progress and peace' by going first through the village and only when these are rooted there will the urban sector of our society grow and prosper as well. It has taken us 29 years to find this secret and now it's up to all of us to put it into practice. Focusing on 'increasing the quality of village living' is not a passing fad, a political gimmick or quick fix. It is either through and with the villager that all our well being depends or no one will gain it for long.

J. Roughan

18 June 2007

Honiara

Happy Birthday - SIDT!

11 June 2007

Twenty-five years ago, 6 May 1982, the Solomon Islands Development Trust began its reachout programs to the people of this nation. This week, 12-14 June 2007, its long term director, its founder and many of its workers will celebrate these 25 years of service. Old Staff members, although some many years retired, will return from their villages and provinces not only to celebrate SIDT's remarkable achievement, not only to renew old acquaintances but to reflect what made this small group of people tick. What was it about this tiny organization that kept it going in hard times as well as in good?

From the very beginning, SIDT was blessed by the presence of a strong Board of Directors, men and women, all Solomon Islanders, who were determined to make this newly founded NGO work and work well. Board members were not selected by name but the organization they worked for--NPF, SICA, Government, etc--sent their best representatives for monthly meetings. Reuben Moli, Malaita's recent Premier, for instance, was SIDT's first Board Chairman and held that position for many years.

A second most important strengthening pillar was the Board's determination that all donor funding would be carefully noted and spent exactly what it had been sent for. Yearly, then, SIDT's Board of Governors religiously ordered that an Annual Audit, done by an outside firm, would be conducted on the newly created organization. And so it was! For the following 24 years, each year, an external audit of SIDT's financial records was kept. To this day, each and every audit that has been accomplished remain part of this NGOs record base.

But as important as these two pillars are for any organization to grow and prosper, more, much more is needed. The coming together of two different personalities--Abraham Baeanisia, first director and John Roughan, advisor--brought a unique chemistry to the newly born. It's hard to over emphasize this special relationship since both individuals complemented the other in so many ways. Where Abraham was truly a village person, a born and bred Langa Langa, John's New York City urban roots was unmistakable as well. Abraham know everyone, in and out of government while John's connection with the Church, overseas groups and international connections proved to be a perfect match.

Even these strengths--dynamic Board members, yearly financial audits and a serious professional working admin team--would have never been enough to pull SIDT through 25 years of development work. What other things helped make this NGO tick for so many years?

Of course any NGO, whether from overseas or locally based, needs constantly to learn from its own workers but especially the people for whom it says it is working for. For instance, in the early 1980s SIDT's basic work pattern was to reach out to village people. What it saw there was the need for villagers to understand more deeply, be aware of and reply to the shifting meaning of development. Early on most villagers thought that all that was needed was money, lots of it, to accomplish their development goals. SIDT's approach emphasized the absolute need for community strength, organization skills and dynamic leadership to make any money received work well for the whole village and not just for the few.

But that development approach is not everyone's cup of tea! Simply visiting village groups and sharing this 'story' wasn't enough. During the late 1980s the organization began publishing a quarterly magazine, LINK; then it branched out into drama, having a men's touring theatre group soon followed by a women's theatre group. Still even with these added new ways of getting the development word out--village level workshops, LINK magazine, touring theatre teams--more was needed. It targeted governments of the day. Since 1989 it has conducted 7 separate Report Cards in which the people of the nation marked different governments how well or poorly it was doing in servicing their own people.

In the early 1990s, then, SIDT changed its tactics. Villagers themselves during this time taught SIDT as well. People's deeply seated feelings that, although they agreed that organizational understanding, awareness of local strong leadership and community empowerment was needed, they also made it quite clear that modest amounts of money were also vital to their progress. That is when SIDT pulled its touring teams off village visits and asked its workers to remain in their own districts demonstrating the four vital areas of The Good Life: sleeping under treated mosquito nets nightly, building a family toilet, planting a supsup garden and upgrading the family kitchen.

Looking back over the past twenty-five years history of SIDT is instructive. No matter what experts say, keeping alive a complex, multi-layered and dynamic institution is never a case of one or two things. Of course outside help in the form of dedicated people is essential. Then a proper chemistry among its workers is critical. Couple these elements with a vision/dream to make things better for the least of our people becomes achievable. And that is what SIDT has tried to do: "strengthen the quality of village living". These past years, then, have become the first chapter of a long history to come.

J. Roughan
11 June 2007
Honiara

Death, the profound mystery!

29 May 2007

Three of our Big Men--Joses Sanga, Bart Ulufa'alu and now, Lloyd Mapeza Gina--all have left us over the past month. Their passing away brings home, in no uncertain way, to each of us that the road they traveled will be ours as well. Some in the near future. For others, the passage of years must flow under the bridge called time but there's no doubt we too will travel the very same road. All are destined to die!

Some call death absurd! But absurd means that which has no meaning and cannot have meaning. Our God can and did not create an absurd world. For most of us, however, death is a mystery . . . something that has more meaning than we have understanding.

Pain and suffering are close relatives to their ugly 'Big Brother', death. But make no mistake about it, these three--pain, suffering and death--are firmly of the same family. All three lie at the heart of the mystery of life. To fully explain one of them would be to make all three clear at the same moment. But since Adam and Eve walked this earth no one, including Christ himself, fully explained death and its two sisters, pain and suffering. They lie, however, at the heart of why God created this kind of world and made all three parts of the normal pattern of living.

On 2 April Solomon Islands was forced to learn the very same painful lesson. The Western and Choiseul provinces' tsunami wiped away in a flash the lives of more than 50 of our people--the very old, the very young and those in the prime of their lives. Our Prime Minister publicly questioned the meaning of such an event. Why had the tsunami happened? Why did it hit us? He found no easy answers!

Some attempt to link the bottomless mystery of suffering and death with there being no God. How can a merciful and all loving God allow such suffering . . . the tiny infant thrown into a fire by a drunken rebel soldier, the mass gas attack by Sadan, Hiroshima, etc? Few of us think this way, however. Others link suffering, pain and especially death to God's punishment . These and similar questions Christ never answers. Instead of answering, Christ acts. Do we want answers to the death, pain and suffering mystery, then we find it at the foot of the Cross!

The Lord works and watches over his creation, which he loves, perhaps not with human love but with, in Dante's words "the love that moves the sun, the other stars."

Death's mystery was so close to us at the Bart Ulufa'alu's burial service at Holy Cross Cathedral on Sunday last. The country's elite--political, business, church leaders--confronted the ultimate in there lives. Death looked us all in the eye and boasted that everyone in that church would be traveling the road some time soon. For death, ten days, ten months or ten years are all the same.

The essential factor that Jesus introduces into the death mystery, however, is the absolute faith in the omnipotence of love. Jesus is a free man, the only truly free man, the only man who has loved and believed with sufficient daring both to free himself from fear, from money, from habit, from the law, and from death, and to free others from the same things. During his life the sick were freed of their infirmities, the greedy were liberated from their love for money, the lustful from needs of the flesh, sinners regained their innocence and even the dead were restored to life--Jairus' daughter, Lazarus, Jesus himself.

The reality of death over the past month has struck the nation like a lightning bolt. We are not only rational creatures but believing ones as well. Death leaves us gasping for understanding, for insight. God owes us nothing yet we are his children! These are the two ends of a chain which we hold in our hands but is tangled up at our feet. Both ends are real even if we can't explain how they are.

J. Roughan
29 May 2007
Honiara.

Speaking Truth to Power!

21 May 2007

Journalists, reporters, public writers, essayists, photographers and a newly established group, 'bloggers' are following more and more a dangerous occupation. In the last ten years, for instance, more than 1,000 of these individuals have been killed in the line of duty, not a few of them murdered in cold blood because of their work.

Philippine radio announcers, Iranian commentators, African and South American writers have felt the sting of bullets, the crushing blow to the skull, the wounding by car bombs and the clang of prison cell doors, all in payment for the work that these media personnel have been doing. In other words, the writer, commentator, journalist, announcer 'speaking truth to power' has been paying a dear price, sometimes the ultimate price, their very own lives.

This week Solomon Islands' Media Association is joining up with PINA (Pacific Islands News Association) to host a full week long training and information sharing sessions high lighting the work of those working in the difficult field of media--getting news out to the public. Underlining the whole week's proceedings is the fundamental fact that the media's basic work pattern is to 'speak truth to power'!

Persons holding political power immediately come to mind but other power brokers must not be lost sight of as well. Those who control large amounts of money--business people, bankers,
company directors, entrepreneurs--must also be fair game for media's focus. Don't forget those who hold significant power by their position in society--church leaders, government agents, opinion makers, media personnel themselves, etc. are legitimate focus also. In each and every case the newspaper reporter, media person, TV/radio commentator, the journalist brings a most important influence to bear when they present 'truth to power' to these kinds of power-people.

But facts, cold, hard facts on their own are rarely the same as publicly telling out the sober truth. Truth is more about taking the facts of a case, interpreting them fairly, accurately and timely and then sharing them with everyone but especially those holding power.

Normally, quoting Sacred Scripture rarely convinces people of the worth of a media statement. Obviously the authors of Scripture never had the Solomons in mind when they were writing to people in the Near East during the pre-Christian era. I have noticed, fortunately, over the past few years that writers to the Letters to the Editor of our newspapers resort less and less to arguments from Scripture to make a point. Of course, Scripture has its place in daily discourse but rarely should it be imported as a proof of media statements. It mostly acts as a reminder to readers that we live in a Christian ethos and value system.

The 1998-2003 period, five year Social Unrest event before the advent of RAMSI, was media's testing time. In my estimation, our media leaders, including myself, failed the nation big time. The print media and radio outlets did not live up to our obligation to 'speak truth to power'. I was under no illusion during those years that the "Boys with Guns" knew exactly where I lived, what organization I worked for and indeed had a pretty fair idea who were my family members.

No media member at that time craved trouble much less martyrdom. Many of us knew about murders, some even had a good idea what "panel' beaters out at Ranadi meant and some also worried about the day light robberies that went on at the Ministry of Finance almost on a daily basis. Few of us, however, voiced out our dismay, publicly questioned these antics and made little attempt to throw our considerable weight against these crimes and those criminals.

But unlike most other dangerous media areas of the modern world, it wasn't the State or state-sponsored hoods who stopped us from reporting on crimes right under our very noses. Unfortunately, it was a well founded understanding of the "Boys with Guns" who pushed us to unusual silence. Even today, it is less, much less, the government and its agencies which 'buy' our silence.

Self-censorship, not so much outside force, too often fuels our silence, lack of seeing the obvious and sows timidity within our souls to 'speak truth to power'. During our Social Unrest years, the legitimate fear of the gun kept many silent. What is it today that fuels our silence?

J. Roughan

21 May 2007

Honiara

Chaos, re-birth, renewal!

30 April 2007

Solomon Islanders have come a long way in a few short years. Less than 4 years ago, the nation found itself in the middle of a man-made disaster. To put it bluntly, the nation-state was seriously failing its people. People were being brutally murdered, thousands more suffered great distress and there was little anyone was doing to change the situation.

Schools across the nation were operating at half strength--teachers' salaries had not been paid for months. Village aid posts, provincial clinics and even the nation's central referral hospital in Honiara had only a handful of staff at post and less than sufficient medicine at hand to work with. Government ministries' daily output seriously limped. The Ministry of Finance, for instance, collected few funds yet was expected to pay for government services with money that just wasn't there. In a word, the nation was sliding head first down a slippery slope towards chaos.

Then, things turned for the better. Over the past four years (2003-2007), RAMSI silenced the militants, took away most of their weapons, the economy bounced back and is now well on the mend. Who exactly, then were the groups responsible for this amazing turn about, this re-birth?

There were a number of major actors that brought the nation back from the brink of chaos to re-birth. Of course RAMSI's help in re-structuring the police force, the return of a re-invigorated justice and prison system, strengthened government ministries and, if not a booming economy, certainly a vigorous and well performing one has made all the difference in the world.

But the most important and least recognized elements in the nation's re-birth can be traced to the two groups of citizens who had been so negatively impacted by the Social Unrest years. I speak of the nation's youth and its women!

The first group--the nation's youth--were the ones who lost the most during the Social Unrest years, 1998-2003. Youth keep both eyes glued to the future and during the nation's chaos period, it was that very future which was shattered. Paid employment, jobs and self employment just evaporated before their eyes. In the '80s and '90s, employment grew at the modest rate of 3 to 4% a year but during our chaos period it reversed to a negative rate. SIPL, Gold Ridge, tourism, government jobs, etc. collapsed.

During the nation's re-birth days--2003-2007, it would have been so easy for youth to have rebelled, to be the seat of much trouble but that didn't happen. In fact, just the opposite! Young people still flock to the schools and when the churches call upon their participation, e.g. the recent Carrying of the Cross through Honiara, Auki and Gizo, they appear in their thousands. The Iraqi situation is instructive. Both Solomons and Iraq experienced the landing of intervention troops in the same year (2003) but with far different consequences. Only one RAMSI soldier has been killed in almost 4 years while in Iraq thousands have died.

The second most important group that has brought about the nation's re-birth are women. During the Social Unrest years they kept the nation fed, cared for the sick and were the major reason why peace, order and tranquility ruled village life when the nation's security forces were practically non existent. During the current re-birthing period--2003-2007, women continue to exercise significant influence in the peace building process. They have experienced the worse of the Social Unrest years and want no return to that period of distrust, uncertainty and fear.

These two groups--youth and women--then, must be the focus for investment--seasonal worker schemes, new employment opportunities, etc.--for national renewal. The Pacific Forum's RAMSI Review team is currently in town. This two person team would be well advised to listen carefully to youth and women representatives since it was they who have been the major factors in the nation's re-birth and are a key to its renewal in the years to come.

J. Roughan
30 April 2007
Honiara

Cyclone Namu to the Tsunami!

23 April 2007

Cyclone Namu--June 1986--triggered off a ten year national downward spiral which ultimately lead to our Social Unrest years of 1998-2003. Could our recent Tsunami disaster be the first step to building up the nation for the 21st Century?

More than half our present population wasn't born when Namu's winds, the Solomons most destructive natural disaster in history, killed more than a hundred of our people, pulled down thousands of village homes, dozens of school buildings and literally washed away major bridges, road systems and wharfs. But in a more profound sense, Namu's physical destruction was less powerful than its psychological effect. Namu's cyclone winds were the first step that lead the Solomons to its toxic years of Social Unrest.

It's hard to believe people's great enthusiasm, hope even joy that they greeted Independence Day, 7 July 1978. At long last--85 years of colonial rule, 1893-1978--was ending. Our own 'boys' would now run the country, the national wealth of a vibrant population, significant natural resources of timber, food, fish, copra would fund our independent years and especially our people's dream and vision for a better life for all could now come about.

1978 through 1986, then, were the nation's Golden Years. Not that village life was easy but people had great hope. Unfortunately, the price of copra, fish, timber and palm oil weakened worldwide. What cost one bag of copra to buy in the 1970s, took 3 bags of copra by 1983. But for the people of that time, it didn't really matter! If we worked hard, pulled together, then great things could still happen. However, it became clear to certain leaders of that time that real development--reaching down to the village level--would take time, really years. They couldn't wait!

Newer leaders sang another song. Development happens best, they promised, if villagers sold their timber wealth. Cyclone Namu's destructive winds encouraged this kind of thinking. Round tree logging exports, these leaders said, was the royal road out of poverty. Log exports alone lead to national prosperity. Development planning and hard work were too slow. For 10 years--1987-1997-- then, the resource owners followed this poor advise and unfortunately, some parts of the Solomons still does.

When the Ulufa'alu government came to power in mid-1997, it tried to reverse this destructive trend but was opposed in and outside of Parliament by groups of leaders who had become quite rich and influential through the export of round logs. They were determined not to allow any kind of reversal even if it meant weakening the national fabric. This ten year period of time--1987-1997--, I call our Leaden Years!

But worse was to come. From 1998-2003. our Toxic Years, the organs of the state--police force, judicial and prison systems, central government's ministries of finance, medical and education, etc.--weakened considerably. The state failed its people in its most basic work of protecting them. The only bright spot in Solomons during this whole period was the villager's ability to keep the nation fed, secure, protected and hopeful. In fact the village sector was the major factor that jump started the economy from below zero in 2002 to a robust 5.8% in 2003, months before RAMSI landed on our shores.

This toxic period saw the Family Charity Fund sucking tens of thousands of dollars from the poorest of the poor. Taiwanese business houses promised millions of dollars if it could dump tons of toxic waste on unsuspecting villagers along Makira's Weather Coast. Conman, Noah Masingku, promised the Cabinet billions. National leaders claimed thousands of dollars by lodging fraudulent compensation claims. Other crooks were more direct! They brandished high powered weapons in the Ministry of Finance to demand thousands of dollars for dubious rights and claims. Government's response to this day light robbery was curious. It constructed an iron fence around the ministry. Government had no appetite to actually go out, search for the robbers and bring them to justice. These criminal acts and total disregard of the people dominated the national scene during these 5 years!

Thank goodness RAMSI came in and for the next four years--2003-2007--, brought us breathing space. Over the past few years, then, loyal officers and public servants re-vamped the police, re-vitalized the judiciary, prisons and public service and helped to bring back part of the dream and vision that sparked our earliest independence years. This four year period is our Restoration Era!

Now, am I too bold to assert that our recent Tsunami waves echo another new beginning? Do people sense a period of real recovery from a time of severe destruction and chaos? Are the dreams and visions of our first years of independence returning after our terrible Leaden and Toxic years have begun to disappear? Please share with us your thoughts along this line!

J. Roughan
23 April 2007
Honiara

Once bitten, twice shy!

16 April 2007

Solomons' citizens in Western and Choiseul provinces now know first hand the terrors of a major earthquake followed quickly on by tsunami waves. It's not an experience they want to live through a second time. Once and once alone is more than enough! Yet, these people can not simply pull up a few tent pegs, move down to their original seaside village site and be expected to start life all over anew. Some thousands of them have been badly 'bitten' and who blames them if they remain scared.

It wasn't merely a matter of a single major shake--8.1 on the Richter Scale--but the constant and continuous after-shocks, many registering over 5 and 6, which so traumatized them. In the two days following the main earthquake on 2 April, scientists world wide counted thirty other major rumbles in the same area. Each time the earth moved under their feet, Western and Choiseul people expected another massive wave crashing in and they were sent into bouts of fear and panic once again.

Couple their first hand experience of a heaving earth followed quickly by a massive sea water flood, and it wasn't surprising that the local rumor mill churned out false stories that with every newly felt shake a brand new disaster was on its way. Some times these rumor-stories would add a bit of color that a ship captain had witnessed sets of gigantic waves out at sea heading for Gizo which already had been pounded by the first big wave. People's reaction would be immediate: flee back to the safety of the foot hills and higher ground.

All their lives have been lived near and, in some cases, right over the sea. For as many years as olos of villages could recall, the sea had been a trusted friend. Didn't it provide abundant food--fish, shell fish, seaweed, etc.--all rich in protein. Wasn't it the only sure way of traveling from island to island to visit family and friends? How else could business be carried out in this watery world of ocean, sea and surf and islands unless by sea? Now?

How would sea resources be harvested again if the sea which had been so friendly to people for so long now seemingly had turned and become an enemy. Many think, 'Can we ever travel its waters again safely?' In the Indian Ocean's Great Tsunami, 26 December 2004, peoples of Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, etc. were also devastated by the sea much the same way that villagers in Western and Choiseul province were . The fishermen and people of Southeast Asia too suffered the same fears that now grip our own people. Now more than 3 years after their tsunami ordeal, still some of these people have yet to overcome their fear of the sea.

Hence, Government's post-tsunami rehabilitation plans, especially that of rebuilding home dwellings, is bound to run into the whole land issue. In the Solomons there is no such thing as 'un-owned land'. Although there may be pockets of contested land among village groups, and only a few islands have been completely surveyed, still 'free' land just doesn't exist. The State, in fact, owns precious little of that resource, less than 5% of the total 28,000 sq. km. which makes up Solomon Islands. Also, Government is not really at liberty to confiscate land from people and in the present case would simply compound an already serious problem.

But the present case of a people desperately in need of housing and given a situation that many victims are refusing to return to their original sea side dwelling, perhaps this is the time for an in depth review of land, its meanings, its uses.

Immediately after Cyclone Namu in mid-1986, a Washington-based organization--INTERTEC--sent a team of experts to assess Namu's destruction. Although it's been more than 20 years since this cyclone hit us, still our older people who experienced its force, do not forget at all its serious destruction, when more than 100 of our people died. INTERTEC's guiding principle is that the best time to introduce serious social change is immediately after a major disaster.

For example, Cyclone Namu highlighted how its high gusting winds destroyed many a village house because local building techniques--poor strapping of posts to joists, over use of nails (which had a tendency to rust in the near-sea conditions) rather than cane straps, etc.--had crept into villagers' house construction. INTERTEC's visit to the Solomons immediately after the cyclone alerted the government of the day to remind villagers to return to the stronger building codes of before which could better weather cyclone winds.

Post-tsunami days when rehabilitation will begin in earnest would be an excellent time to reshape village house construction, re-site new villages and in general review living too close to the sea. Already Climate Change is upon us! Not far in the future Climate Change will show its power in the form of higher sea levels, more severe storm patterns and perhaps our recent brush with a major earthquake and tsunami could act as a wake up call for the whole nation.

J. Roughan

16 April 2007

Honiara

Responding to a disaster!

10 April 2007

Immediately after our recent earthquake/tsunami disaster, it was a straight forward thing to count up our dead, missing and injured. Finding out how many homes. houses, buildings and personal possessions the tsunami wave destroyed, although more difficult to work out, is being addressed as these lines are read. The hardest thing to figure out, however, is how best to
respond to victims personal losses, deep psychological hurts and their feelings of total devastation.

Of course the trauma-effected villagers' immediate physical needs--food, shelter, water, clothing, medicine--are continually being rushed to the affected sites by ship, launch, aircraft and helicopter. Now exactly a week after the disaster struck on 2 April at 7:40 in the morning, many of the above mentioned goods, services and personnel--overseas and local--are reaching out and touching the majority of the 6,000+ victims.

But deep traumatic scars villagers, especially children, experienced are only now slowly surfacing. Almost a week after our Big Shake--an 8.1 earthquake immediately followed by major tsunamis--Solomon Islands National Disaster Management Office (NDMO) continues to process the many reports flooding into its Honiara office lying east more than 200 miles from the
quake centre.

The earthquake by Richter Scale standards was really a severe shake and because the under ocean epicenter was so close to the surface--about 10 miles deep beneath the earth--large roller waves were almost immediately felt in the vicinity. No early warning signal of impending wave action could have been sent. In fact, Australia's eastern coast facing the Solomons, more
than 900 miles from us, felt the very same wave action less than 3 minutes after the first major tremor hit us. Imagine Solomons' villagers sitting less than 20 miles from the quake's epicenter!

Our death toll currently stands about 40 but, unfortunately, is on the rise. Missing people who were thought to have escaped to the hills behind the typical village are now too often being found under the debris of their collapsed homes and buildings. Our death toll would have been far higher, however, had not two factors played their part in keeping many of our village people from perishing.

Unlike the great Indian Ocean tsunami of 26 Dec. 2004, ours rushed ashore only minutes after the big shake at 7:40 when the vast majority of people were already out of their homes, getting ready for garden work, going about business and living the typical village life pattern. It was literally a life saving experience for them to actually see and feel the strange goings on of the ocean fronting their villages. Reefs, never before seen, now lay exposed. Erratic wave action--up and down the beach in rapid succession--put fear into people's hearts.

The second saving factor that proved helpful was the very word tsunami. This strange expression was no longer a foreign sounding word but one that carried deep meaning. Many had seen TV footage or at least had heard about the terrible events in the Indian Ocean only a few years back. It didn't take people more than a few seconds to put two and two together to what was happening as they stood mutely in front of a seething ocean. Mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts, older siblings, etc. snatched up the smallest of children, ran for their lives to higher ground without turning back to homes for extra clothing, food or anything else. Their most precious possessions, their kids, came first. All else was secondary.

The NDMO is also looking beyond the tsunami victims most pressing immediate needs--food, shelter, clothing, water, medicine, etc.--to the deep scars generated by the earthquake and devastating waves. As in the Indian Ocean tsunami victims, fishermen who had made their lives from the sea now feared it so much as to refuse to return to the sea, to go out fishing. What had
been their friend for many years, now, in a twinkling of an eye, had became a distrustful enemy.

Tsunami affected children are even more at risk. They do not have the words, the vocabulary, to describe their feelings, their hurts from this upsetting incidence. Specially trained trauma counselors will have to come in and be part of any emergency response team. At this moment, the NDMO is actively searching for just such persons. The serious wave action of last week may
have returned to the sea but its movement still swills around Western and Choiseul people's minds and hearts to this day.

J. Roughan
10 April 2007
Honiara

Failing the Farmer!

2 April 2007

Worldwide there is a concerted effort to push small farmers off their land! This type of action is taking place in spite of the fact that more than half of the world' 6 billion people keep body and soul together through their own efforts to produce the food necessary to feed the whole world. Yet, strong forces are hard at work to force the small farmer, the peasant, the tiller of the soil to abandon their lands.

The reasoning behind such moves is not hard to find. Large, industrialized and urban populations think that the best way to produce food is through the corporate farm structure. Obviously, these huge, agricultural industries produce vast amounts of food, vegetables, fruit, grain, etc. but at serious, expensive and climate-changing costs. Their production methods include absorbing tremendous amounts of water, using serious amounts of chemicals and they have an insatiable thirst for ever scarce fossil fuels. To insure that these serious and mounting investment costs are repaid and repaid at great profit, people across the globe must be forced to buy, certainly not
produce, their own food. Having small farmers who currently feed the majority of people across the world doesn't fit well in with the need for corporate profit.

Our own small farmers on the other hand can not be faulted in the overuse of precious fresh water. The rains alone are the only water they use. Because chemicals and fertilizers are so costly our gardeners hardly make use of them in their food production techniques. Our women gardeners rarely, if ever, depend upon fossil fuel consumption--petrol, kerosene, diesel--to
produce a healthy harvest of organic food.

Our nation's 'Bottom Up' approach--raising the quality of village living--directly fights this modern-day movement. The present government's accent on rural development is not simply an add on to everything else that a government does but the village focus lies at the very core of what it intends to follow for the next three years. Fortunately, our efforts to travel this direction are attracting other like-minded nations. Some of these lie on the other side of the globe and sincerely applaud what they see is going on here in Solomon Islands.

India, for instance, with its 1/2 a million (yes, half a million) villages--as many villages as we have people--is naturally attracted to other nations wedded to the idea of strengthening the lives of village people. When the newly appointed India's High Commissioner, Mr. Satya Mann,
presented his credentials to our Governor General and Prime Minister last week, he went out of his way to promise India's help to our small farmers.

During his formal talks with the PM, Mr. Mann was already promising to send specialists in rural farming to visit our people. He also asked for dedicated teams from our own country to officially visit his country to study how India responded to the needs of the back bone of Indian food
production, its village people. He was particularly outspoken in assuring us that our 'Bottom Up' approach was the wave of the 21st Century.

That is why India's promises to assist our food producers to become more efficient, more connected with the market and more self-reliant is welcome news to government's efforts to reach out to our village population.

But in this very same arena of international assistance, Taiwan, Cuba, Venezuela and Iceland are also singing from the same page as the Solomons. Recently, for instance, Taiwanese food experts traveled to the Solomons to show our farmers the worth of value added products to raise their income levels.

We are all aware of how many pineapples, mangoes and bananas land in our market during the November-February months each year. December, as we know, is our pineapple and mango period. Honiara's Main Market at that time is overloaded with these fruits. We truly have a glut of a good thing. Taiwan's experts, however, demonstrated how the typical farmer, especially the youth of a village, could begin to line their pockets with impressive amounts of money by preserving these fruits, making jams and jellies and drying these delicious fruits for package sales in stores around the country.

But government efforts don't stop there. It currently makes available $10 million in soft loans for farmers to begin small income generating projects focusing on adding value to the crops that the farmers already produce.

Isabel currently markets coffee, Western Province cans tuna, some provinces are eyeing vanilla production and still others are testing out the making of fruit jams and jellies. The Government's $10 million dollar soft loan offer is only a warm up. If local production takes off, then serious amounts of money will be made available. Our Melanesian Spearhead Group, also would
more than welcome these value-added products. These are different ways of helping our farmers, not failing them!

J. Roughan
2 April 2007
Honiara

You've come a long way!

26 March 2007

It seems so long ago but in fact it was only 'yesterday' when one thinks in terms of Solomons' history! Today's story begins in 1958. It was my first experience with gathering children for our small school in Tarapaina, Small Malaita. I had only come recently landed in country sailing from Australiaand I was completely raw to Solomon Islands life.

Traveling along Malaita's East Coast by small launch I was tasked to pick up school children for our small school located at the northern end of Small Malaita. When I would arrive at a coastal village I was suppose to convince parents, especially the father of a child, that it would be great thing for him and his whole family if one of their young offspring would return withme to our small school.

It proved to be a hard selling job! Convincing parents of those days to allow their little ones to travel to a distant school more than three hours away by hard rowing was not something they easily accepted. However, when I thought a father of a child was beginning to come around to my way of thinking, I resorted to a bit of bribery. Producing two sticks of tobacco--a strong currency of that time--out of my hand bag, I was able to convince most fathers that it was a good idea to have at least one of their childrengo to school.

So there it was! School fees during the late 1950s was two sticks of tobacco that I gave the father of the school child. When I tune in these days and listen to SIBC's nightly Surface Messages sent by different schools across the country, I'm speechless. Today's schools now demand hundreds, even thousands of dollars, which parents somehow find and pay it out, year afteryear.

Within in a few years, however,--the 1960s and 1970s--many schoolmasters were actually asking for and getting school fees. Modest amounts, for sure, by today's 'big money' standards but a whole lot more than what I wasreceiving only ten or so years before.

In less than 50 years, then, how far this nation has traveled. In the late 1950s I was forced to bribe a parent to send a child to school. Now, parents actually line up in front of the school, hand over hundreds and in some cases, thousands of dollars to secure class room places for their childrenin schools across the nation.

Back in the late 1950s, as said above, it was hard work convincing a parent to allow his child to attend school, doubly hard if the child was a girl. Yet, slowly, very slowly, people's view of education began to shift. Families experienced the difference that an education could do for their
children. The educated child, at that time basically Standard 7 for the majority, won the job, the overseas university place, the government position, etc.

In other words, it didn't take Solomon Islanders centuries to recognize now valuable education was even if it demanded an investment of 'big bucks' paid up front. The villagers' Education Love Affair has journeyed far. They had originally thought that schooling, education, training being 'a while man's thing' to a worthwhile investment for Solomon Islanders. Society, in less than 50 years, had turned a corner! What had been seen as a strange, foreign idea has now became main stream and has become a major influencethat defines present day Solomons life.

These personal memories are shared with those workers who currently labor in the nation's development trenches, those working to have more women in the halls of power, youth seeking employment, etc. My villager experience has been an eye opener. These people are not dumb, not completely welded to the past and certainly not simply locked into old ways of doing things just because they have always been done that way. Yes, my story of the 'two sticks of tobacco' turning into 'thousands of dollars' took a few decadesbut it shows that it can be done.

J. Roughan
26 March 2007
Honiara