Freeing the Solomons from 30 years of history!

J. Roughan

11 June 2009

Honiara

Freeing the Solomons from 30 years of history!

 

Since 1978 the Solomons has been steering its Ship of State using a foreign-crafted constitution which basically failed the majority of its citizens. In 1978, for instance, Solomon Islanders were convinced that a Solomons Basic Life, especially within villages, would be theirs in a reasonable period of time.

 

Yet, 30 years of experience has demonstrated a different history, one which raised the life style of a relatively few in number but at the expense of the many. The nation's resource-rich wealth makers, commonly known as landowners, have seen their portion of national wealth reduced while those who owned very little and with only a smattering of formal education and little business experience profited enormously over the past three decades.

 

A political astute group managed to capture the State's enormous wealth for their own benefit. Legally, constitutionally but often with other dubious methods this group guaranteed that national wealth flowed first and foremost to their pockets and less and less to those who really owned the Solomons, the villager, the lien and the tribe. Honiara, for instance, over the past thirty years, absorbed the lion's share of income, services and employment while at the same time this very group weakened the heart and soul of the nation.

 

Our Social Unrest years of 1998-2003 were a poignant reminder that this state of affairs must not continue. Of course poor development practices, land issues, corruption and plain poor leadership all played their part in making the Solomons the poorest nation of the South Pacific. However, even if each and every one of these negatives would be corrected, something more fundamental is needed.  A serious and substantial, almost radical, change in how central government leads this nation needs addressing. If not, then we its people, are doomed to repeat our descent into serious social discord once again.

 

People's deep desire to change from the current centrally dominated governing order to one closer to the people and responding to the bulk of the nation's citizens is to seek some kind of State Government system. Thirty years of working within a centrally controlled governing method makes it hard to think outside the box. The Constitutional Congress members in their daily deliberations feel this tension of 30 years of experience but at the same time, they sense a deep yearning of people for a new way of governing and working with different levels of society.

 

It's not merely a matter of shifting central government's power to the state but that village communities themselves become major benefactors of this deep shift of power from a centrally dominated form of government to the newly defined state. After all, it is they, the villager, who actually owns, controls and administers the nation's basic wealth: the land, trees, minerals, water, reef and fishing grounds. For more than three decades, however, these very owners have been left out of the governance equation reduced to mere spectators in the running of their own lives. 

 

RAMSI's presence has been a necessary but stop gap measure. The nation has been gifted a great chance to study exactly what went wrong with us and then given the chance to set up a constitutional review committee which could come up with a document that actually reflects the reality of Solomons culture, custom and tradition. This new constitution aims to get things right for the next hundred years or so. 

 

Constitutional Congress members currently struggle daily to craft a new Constitution--a home grown one reflecting local priorities and needs--which would guarantee that the nation's wealth ends up making life both healthier and certainly less onerous for the majority of its citizens. This  mind numbing work is not simply an exercise to change the constitution because of some kind of fad or whim. Our very existence is at stake.

 

Our Social Unrest years left the nation with many murdered people who seek justice, hundreds of families torn apart and thousands of displaced people who want their lives brought back whole once again. The recently created Truth and Reconciliation Commission depends upon the good will and work of citizens who are sure that their future will be a whole lot better for them than the past. A new Constitution which shifts substantially the power back to the citizens of this nation in the newly created States and the on going village communities has a much better chance of succeeding than continuing on with a failed constitution of the past 30 years.