Think Big! Start Small! and Grow!

J. Roughan

19 July 2010 

Honiara

These three short sentences sum up Solomon Islands earliest years. Up until 1986, or there about, our national leaders closely followed these three ideals. They dreamt an impossible dream—starting a nation from practically nothing—and then moved slowly and carefully to fashion a young nation which then began to grow.

 Our Founding Fathers were courageous enough to take the plunge in forming the Solomon Islands state and they backed up their vision by starting small—creating a parliament from the ground up, forming a workable government, setting things up in order for our small country to take its place among the mighty of the world—and then they began the long and difficult process of growing.

However, along the way, probably 1987, another vision began to root among a new brand of leaders. This new group did Think Big but it was all about themselves. Although all these men, and it was all men, had been village born, housed in leaf houses for most of their lives and raised on basic garden food, they dreamt of leaving the subsistence village life style and jumping straight into an affluent life style. But that could only happen if 'big bucks' were at hand. An education ticket, bought at government expense, of course, prepared them to cope with town life's easy going ways, living in government gifted houses and driving around in expensive cars. It is no wonder that the 500+ candidates are now seeking election, chasing after the 50 parliamentary seats.

 These 500+ candidates who are currently banging on the election doors desire to flee village life and head for the pleasures of imported food and drink. Most candidates, unfortunately, are ill prepared to take on the heavy duties of parliamentary work. First of all the majority lack the necessary education levels, not a few of them are seriously sick people and probably more importantly most have little or no public service track record. But where else in the world could one with so little money—a $2,000 election fee—have the possibility of winning a million dollar lottery! 

We the voters must be dreaming to think that these very same politicians will have much to do with village life once they safely secure their parliamentary seats. Yes, of course, any politician worth his salt and reading the signs of the times, currently talks about rural development, village life, the Bottom Up Approach, etc., etc. but their hearts are not in it.  No, most unfortunately, have their sights fixed on affluence and the more of it as possible.   

 Also our new set of leaders refused to Start Small but after the 1986 period constantly dreamt of the BTO: the Big Time Operation. Big projects like oil palms, Taiyo cannery, Gold Ridge, Honiara itself were always upper most in their minds. The small, vital and potentially helpful project for thousands and thousands of our people were never seriously considered. We have always been a country with a modest resource base. The country does not have mineral and petroleum wealth. But it has been abundantly enriched by rich soils, ample rain fall, knowledgeable and hard working gardeners who actually feed hundreds of thousands of people on a daily basis.

 This more than modest accomplishment of feeding a whole nation for long periods of time have been entirely lost on the new brand of leadership. If the nation doesn't have mineral wealth, they thought, the country did have another valuable commodity for sale, the nation's natural forests. These forests now have been harvested ruthlessly since the mid-1980s and the rape of the land goes on until today.  

 Since well before independence day and certainly during our Social Unrest Dark Days our women folk have literally fed thousands of the nation's citizens with scarcely a nod of recognition from central authority. This sector should have been the normal, natural and almost automatic area for investment. Just imagine what could now be happening to the nation each year if the glut of pineapple, mango, melon, etc. , could be processed into nutritious fruit drinks. Rather than feeding our smallest ones with coloured water and sugar ice blocks, they would be nutritiously fed and at the same time a new industry—fruit juice ice blocks—would be launched. How many jobs and new businesses could have been created across the nation rather than transporting these fruits long distances to central market areas.

Instead the new type of leadership changed our Founding Fathers motto: Think Big! Start Small! And Grow! They followed their own motto: Think Big (for themselves). Start Big and Take! As someone has said: If you want affluence, prepare for war! Why? Because only the select few will live in affluence while the rest of the nation is reduced to poverty. Isn't this a picture of our recent history? The new political leadership brought affluence to a few but the nation suffered Social Unrest for five long years, 1998-2003.