Thursday, December 15, 2011

Two Prime Ministers - 2 parliaments

If nothing else , the situation in Papua New Guinea today  should remind the world that just having the parliamentary process doesn't mean it will work ( both parties in this poor country believe in it ) . That seriously dangerous  myth that Form is content has caused the 1st world to invest heavily in free elections in the 3rd World when any sound engagement with another country MUST face the fact that if the people aren't already sharing and developing their wealth : no amount of ballots will help them achieve that .( How effectively do the leadership represent both rich and poor ?)
(If the press could kill the quickfix myth that drives such stupidity before it gets a life of its own the world would be a different place) . Even progress brings hope so nothing is impossible here .
Greenlabor here in Australia are dumb enough to let our sequestered carbon burn or rot ( Bush fires in the last decade ) rather than face  up to the sound foreign policy fact that schools can be built , and issues of development pushed , with timber  NOW left to rot in eastern Victoria

If 1% of the money that has been spent on trying to set up a process of democratization by the West in the last 2 decades  had been spent on education and engagement on the above matters - amazing what is possible .
This problem of accepting mere perception  is not going to go away and its going to cost the west big in instability due to the waste of investment  . If leaders of poor countries do not address inequalities in their own country  and find ways to grow them ( with help of outsiders ) hope inside the country is denied ( the issue here and in many places)  .The  Big man politics of old never worked --but what's the alternative / Why is big man politics now so common and threatening ?
The answer is quite simple - because the philosophy which set up schools and hospitals and basic care for the poorest people in a country has been abandoned . The missionaries had it right and its time for non believers to dig a lot deeper,  before they , like the USA go and spend their future on trying to impose democracy on some poor country ( like Iran ) because "its meant to work "( techniques that have god power? )

I am not suggesting that helping the poor  is simple . Infact Christians and other market advocates still have a long way to go to understand why Islam is more popular in their rural areas ,,, and THEN what they can about it ( my point is that poverty is perpetuated by simplicity stricken philosophies of governance  as much as it is by a scarcity of  resources. The singlemindedness that has made  secondary industry so successful in the West  is far too simplistic to be the main model in relation to earth care issues ).
All intervention must also recognise how things like rural poverty ,and the means to avoid it,  are being ignored by those whose quick fix is the successful models of western development;( majority of people in the West ???)  which simply do not work in the very sensitive but uniquely resilient world of  agriculture and environment.

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