Towards a fairer world!

J. Roughan

2 December 2010

Honiara

From the Solomons earliest days, from 1978 onwards, most political leaders actually worked hard to make Solomon Islands a better, more productive and peaceful place. In a word they wanted the nation to be a fairer place for all: villagers, urban people, elite and the leaders themselves. Unfortunately, over the years, many of them lost their way and led the people and the nation down the wrong path.

 

Solomons first 6 years as a nation, for instance, were solid and growth-full. We had started off our historic journey in 1978 a poor nation but one that had no great war wounds to heal, our colonial masters gifted us with a $30 million golden handshake and our people although scattered among hundreds of islands were no less united.

 

The first few years of independence 1978-1984 were ones filled with hope. Unfortunately the base price of copra, cocoa and oil palm, worldwide, took a nose dive and this development thing, we were fast learning, was becoming harder and more expensive by the day. In was in 1985 that our leaders with the help of many landowners made their fateful decision. There had to be a better, quicker and easier way to become more independent, rich and developed than the road they had been following for the first 6 years of independence.

 

For the next 10 years or so our leaders claimed they knew a better and easier road to gain riches and strengthen independence. Sell off the nation's round tree log wealth to Asian buyers became the wisdom of the day. Not only would vast amounts of money roll in but peoples' lives would become easier by the day. Yes, by 1995 millions of dollars had flown into the Solomons (but land owners also lost millions more into the pockets of the round tree loggers and some of our own corrupt leaders).

 

Rather than continuing along our initial path of slow but constant development for all and government work to strengthen schools, better health facilities, more involvement in people's cash crops and the creation of more employment our leaders convinced the resource owners that there was a quicker and better way. Harvest the round tree logs and sell them at bargain basement prices. The result of this decision proved disastrous for the country and produced a profound weakening of village life.  

 

But the real cost of that poorly thought-out decision came in the 1998-2003 period.  Hundreds of our people died, thousands more lost homes and livelihoods and a nation was forced to call in strangers from other parts of the Pacific to help us get back on our feet. We, fortunately, did make it back to normalcy, back on our feet as it were and once again we had a functioning government, a trust worthy police force and a people once more at peace with themselves and each other. But that process is now into its seventh year and still we're not sure of ourselves.

 

Once again our nation faces a crossroad. More than 180 nations worldwide, Solomons included, in September 2000 made a solemn pledge to achieve the 8 Millennium Development Goals by the year 2015. In 2005 these same countries reviewed how well or how poorly the nations of the world were on course. This year, 2010, again there was another review of the progress or lack there of on how far we have come to achieving these 8 goals. The jury is still out for most nations and Solomon Islands is very far from its target.

 

These 8 goals--eradicate extreme poverty, achieve primary ed for all, empower women, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, fight AIDS and malaria, ensure environmental health and develop a global partnership for development--are at the heart of producing a fairer world. No where in the listing of these goals, however, is there any mention about the need to work on projects.

 

Once again our leaders have looked on a universally accepted way of bringing about a fairer way of life for most people by working on the MDGs. We as a nation in 2000 publicly signed up to work on these goals. But over the years things changed and we decided that there is a better way of bringing about a fairer world. Fund individual villagers and town folk to work on projects. This is the wave of the future we are told.

 

Let central government work on the MDGs our leaders say. Each constituency will concentrate attention and resources on achieving a fairer world by pumping money into project work and hope for the best. As in the 1986-1995 period we made a commitment to go one way--help our people--and then did something completely different--sell off our tree wealth. In 1998-2003 period we suffered the consequences of this decision with severe Social Unrest. What will the nation and its people pay for once more promising something--fairer society through the MDGs--but do something quite different--project work.