Hon. Powes Parkop on Somare’s legacy unites PNG
In March, Papua New Guinea united like never before. It took one man, his legacy and his vision for us to come together. The 14 days of mourning hosted in Port Moresby, in honour of the father of the nation, was history in making.
There was unprecedented outpouring of love and respect for the man who personified the value system PNG was built upon. Peace, Unity, Humility!
Death is a great teacher! When the Grand Chief passed away, it taught the land of thousand tribes to set their differences aside and be ‘wan kantri’ again. It taught politicians to put their agendas on the back-burner and be better leaders instead.
It taught the citizens of the nation, the value of their freedom and rights, taken for granted today. It taught our children to take pride in the golden history of our young but extremely complex country. It taught the world how PNG maintained a beautiful balance between age-old customs and modernization. Every evening at 6 pm, Sir John Guise Stadium came alive and transformed into a place for stories.
Stories of courage to stand up against colonial masters, stories of sheer audacity to stitch together a country, stories of help given with no expectation in return, stories of a statesman who left no one behind, stories of love from those he mentored and raised, stories of regret from political rivals! Story-telling became a form of history, a form of immortality too, passing from one generation to another.