Reflections on Papua New Guinea in the late colonial era. Spark, Ceridwen, Seumas Spark and Christina Twomey (eds) (2014) Australians in Papua New Guinea 1960 – 1975. University of QueenslandePress Pacific Studies series, 352 pp, ebook, AUD38.50, ISBN: 9781921902437.

Abstract

In this very readable volume 14 Australians reflect on their experiences in late-colonial Papua New Guinea (PNG), either writing their own contributions or in a couple of cases being interviewed by the book's editors. Additionally three Papua New Guineans comment on Australians they encountered as colleagues or mentors when they were emerging as part of the soon-to-be independent country's indigenous élite. The book's Australian contributors were There To Help, mostly in medical, educational or public service roles, and thus collectively their retrospectives continue a literary tradition of reminiscence which began with members of the early colonial German and British administrations. By the same measure the volume reflects a less confident paternalism in the twilight of the colonial period. In the book's three sections (roughly dividing the contributors into health, education and public service workers) we read of the village level experiences of teachers, patrol officers or medics as well as reflections on policy and decision making from those involved at higher administrative levels. For readers unfamiliar with the social and political climate of the country as independence approached, this book might serve as a handy, anecdotal, overview. Several contributors are candid about the degree of ethnocentricity they brought to their work, and which they worked to overcome as time went by. Others unwittingly display a lingering naïvety about Melanesian worldviews. The majority are, explicitly or implicitly, to some extent equivocal about the value of their contributions in hindsight. They remember the 1960s and 1970s fondly, and for a number of them who, like others, experienced those heady, promising times the light of expectation has subsequently dimmed a little. A number of the Australians indicate in one way or another that they knew each other during their time in PNG, and because the Papua New Guinean contributors were in collegial or mentoring relationships with some of them, the book has a clubbish character. The editors state (p. 2) that there is a lack of writing about the 15 years to PNG's independence. This is an odd claim. I have several shelves of publications concerned with the period, among them pieces by some of the contributors to this book. Indeed, on receipt of the book I found myself wondering what the benefit of another volume of personal reminiscences could be. A considerable amount of its anecdotal substance – the conditions, prejudices, obstacles encountered and small triumphs achieved – has been in circulation for several decades. As someone who lived in PNG in the period under discussion, I found my nostalgia aroused as I read, but my hunger for further insights remained unsatisfied. The three Papua New Guinean contributors attest that they experienced little or no racism in the period under consideration, while several of the Australians refer to the bigotry they occasionally witnessed. There are stories about defeating the discriminatory practices in some bars, for example, where dress codes were applied to exclude most indigenes (for example pp. 190–91, 242), and incidents of undeniable racism encountered, overcome or deflected (for example p. 248, pp. 279–84). These references go some way towards countering assumptions some contemporary readers might have that the decline of legislated discrimination in the late colonial era was fully reflected in social practice. But they also gave me pause to reflect on my own experiences of the time. In Port Moresby, at least, I found the degree of racism among the majority of Australians dismaying, and my particular circle of indigenous friends and acquaintances of the time – highlanders mostly in labouring and domestic service employment – told disturbing stories of the brutish personal attitudes and behaviour of their employers, particularly in the domestic sphere. The reminiscences of those Australians are unlikely to appear in any worthwhile publication. Nor are those of their mostly non-literate victims, sadly. They would provide a needed balance to a dominant narrative that Australians in Papua New Guinea in the last decade of colonialism were mostly engaged in a well-intentioned and sympathetic nation-building endeavour. While the reflections and reminiscences of the Australian contributors made for solid and reasonably rewarding reading, I was more stimulated by the comments of one of the Papua New Guinean contributors, Charles Lepani – who has had a long career as a public servant and diplomat, and latterly as PNG's High Commissioner to Australia – on a much more recent period. Interviewed by one of the editors, Lepani begins by reviewing his career but then shifts to a candid discussion of PNG's political relationship with Australia, particularly with reference to development aid and the negotiations over the establishment of an asylum-seeker processing centre in Manus Province. He is a consummate diplomat, but there is no doubt about what he sees as the relationship of dependency and the paternalism which still colours Australian political and media attitudes towards, and representations of, PNG.