Well - given the title of my blog, I thought maybe it was time to try and impart a bit of food for thought rather than the flight sim diatribe I have delivered in recent times. Rest assured however that there will be more to come!!
For those who don't know, my brother John is a musician of some repute in PNG and through the Pacific. His band, "Hausboi" have provided me with a lot of food for thought over the years. His music is, in the best sense of the word, simple... yet it manages to capture the essence of PNG and its people and portrays an overwhelming sense that Papua New Guineans, as fractured and misunderstood as we are, are truly a proud people. The song "Melanesia" below really captures this spirit....
But IMHO, I think Hausboi’s first album is still his best effort to date. From the number one hit “Highway to Paradise”, which recounts the journey to paradise from Lae to Madang (Madang was once crowned the prettiest town in the South Pacific); to the song “David”, which was written in the Bipi language by one of the Bipi Villagers to tell the tale about my father David’s ill fated boat trip in the 1970’s that resulted in my mother and father almost perishing in the wild blue yonder somewhere north of Manus Island; to the beautiful ode to our late mother entitled “Tineh Helenah” (Mama Helen) and the stirring melody penned by my father in memory of his late wife entitled “Mara Sikar”. However, the title track from the album entitled “Niugini Stylee”, I believe delivers the most poignant description about PNG and PNGans, who we are and what we are about. As Hausboi so poignantly put it:
"Emi passin blong yumi
Yumi ol png
Emi stap lo blut pinis
In a niugini stylee"
Translated:
"That is the way we do things
We Papua New Guineans
Its already in our blood
In a PNG style"
For outsiders looking in, to understand PNG and PNGans you must come to accept that indeed blood is certainly thicker than water. Niugini Stylee is in the blood and things that are in the blood are certainly very difficult to eliminate.
For PNG and its leaders, the lesson that Hausboi paradoxically delivers is clearly that real change can only be imparted by looking at how we change “what” gets ingrained in ones blood. What are they things about “Niugini Stylee” that we want to keep and what are the things that we want to change?
In my various leadership roles, I talk about real change and what mindset this requires. In particular, I espoused my particular (and potentially innocently plagiarized) definition of insanity, which suggests that if you keep doing the same thing, you will keep getting the same result or as I put it to some of my team, if you keep walking in that direction, you will keep arriving at the same destination.
I certainly do not have all the answers, but what I do know is that I am immensely proud of “Niugini Stylee” and would not want to change the vast majority of all that is good about my country. Equally though, I fear that if we do not rid our blood of the ills that we confront, then “pasin blo yumi” will ultimately lead us to a destination that we do not want to imagine.
The question for us all is, how can we help impart the change that groups like Hausboi try to deliver with their music!?!
In a Niugini Stylee...........
