Are we slow learners?

J. Roughan

27 January 2010

Honiara

A few years ago, a famous boxer lost a fight he had every reason to believe he should have won. His trainer, an Irishman of many years  experience, knew his friend should have never lost the fight. Why didn't his boxer see the left hook that knocked him out for the count of 10? Each night the trainer would review the video of the fight and each night the trainer was disappointed. No matter how many times the trainer reviewed the video, the boxer never saw the left hook that floored him.

 

One day, some one asked the trainer why he kept on viewing the same video, night after night. No matter how many times he saw the video, it always showed the boxer taking the left hook to the chin and crumpling him to the boxing ring's floor. The trainer's response was simple: "I'm hoping some night my guy will see the left hook coming and duck the punch!"

 

There's a bit of madness going on here! A fair definition of madness is to keep doing the same thing over and over again and hope for a different outcome. The boxer's trainer will never see a different outcome of the fight but will be forced to see the same thing happen time and time again on the video. Something new has to be done!

 

Yet, aren't we doing much the same in our own country? In June this year, for instance, we hold our 8th national election. In each and every election since 1980 we promised ourselves to elect better, more dedicated and people-accented members to sit in Parliament. Yet each election year we rule out half our citizens, refuse to look at women's worth and vote in only men. Why is it that worthwhile and gifted women still remain outside the political process and the nation continues to vote in only men?

 

At each national election we vote in leaders whom we hope will take our nation to new heights, make ordinary citizens' lives prosperous and insure that country has the peace it richly deserves. Over more than 30 years of national politics and in eight separate elections--which have been conducted peacefully, orderly and fair,-- we have elected more than 300 men but only a single woman to this high office. Aren't we acting a little bit like the Irishman mentioned before? We expect to bring the country to a strong, economic and prosperous future yet refuse to allow half the nation to make it into parliament.

 

Only 8 nations out of the 190+ currently sitting in the UN assembly in New York do not have women in their national parliaments. Solomon Islands, unfortunately, must be counted as one of those 8! Our nation already boasts of women medical doctors, academics with doctorates, top notch administrators, etc. Local women hold down high positions in business, finance, administration and the arts yet we as a nation find it hard to put them in politics' top positions.

 

No matter how many times we march to the polling booths, no matter how many times we vote in our favorite male candidate and no matter how many times these men sit in Parliament, the outcome for the nation has remained the same. It's asking a healthy bird with two good wings to fly but use only one wing. It can never fly but will be condemned to flop around on the ground waiting to be picked off by a hungry cat or two.

 

Take a peek at the male track record in its 30 years of ruling. In 1978, our currency was as strong as America's. Now, three decades later, it takes more than 8 Solomons dollars to buy a single American greenback. At independence day we weren't the richest Pacific island nation but we weren't the poorest either. Now, as rich as we are in natural resources, we now claim a dubious distinction: the poorest Pacific island  nation.  All of this misery happened under the 'watchful' eye of our men, when they were in charge!

 

No other Pacific country has had to call in other nations' soldiers, police and civil servants as we did in 2003. And they are still here today after almost 7 years. Fortunately our men had enough sense to bring in this bunch of foreigners to prop up our tottering government, to fix up our police force and to keep the economy from tanking. In other words, outsiders fixed up the very things our men had set in motion over three decades. Our nation wasn't attacked from the outside! We did it to ourselves! Our men failed us big time and we are yet to get over it.

 

Voting in 8 to 10 women to parliament this year won't change our fortunes over night but it will get us out of our self made trap of thinking this nation can fly with one wing. The cry that women should stay in the kitchen, take care of the kids and let the men folk mess up the nation royally as they have been doing for more than 30 years must now stop. Isn't this the time to trust our women and take a long, hard look at our men's proven inability.