A Solomons Stock Take!

J. Roughan

16 December 2010

Honiara. 

Successful business people, to keep their enterprises healthy, normally conduct an-end-of-the-year Stock Take. The business owner--counts  what hasn't been sold over the year as well as the business' money already in the bank--to see whether his business has been a profitable one, or still struggling to survive or worse, failing. We as a nation would be well advised to do much the same exercise and conduct our own Stock Take to see how well we as a people have been doing over the last ten years. 

 

Compared to the nation's first decade of the 21st century, the Solomons has started its second decade off strongly, well and most importantly we are a nation at peace with ourselves. Recall that the nation's first ten years in the 21st century was filled with major unrest and dislocation to our normal island life. For all intents and purposes, during the first few years of the present century, Solomon Islanders found themselves in the middle of conducting a war with itself, a Civil War.

 

The roots of that conflict were not hard to find. Leadership, especially our senior political leaders, were caught up with searching for easy, fast money. Governing the nation was put on auto-pilot, something best done on its own. One needs only remember the folly of the Tulagi Gold Dig, the Musingku's (Bouganiville's own conman) billion dollar scam, plans to bottle bush oxygen, senior ministers jetting off to the Far East for 'free money', etc. etc. It was no wonder that although these easy money schemes didn't on their own create the Social Unrest years, they certainly added fuel to an already raging fire of national discontent.  

 

Our 2000 Coup, years of Social Unrest--1998-2003--, RAMSI's on going presence since 2003, the 2006 national election with the Chinatown Burndown, the most recent 2010 national election and the Lusibaea court sentencing have left a series of deep scars in our people's minds and hearts. Not that the rest of the world outside these islands we call home, has been all that rosy and tranquil. Far from it! The world's events have had.too often, direct negative impact on our own island home--the Iraq invasion in March 2003, for instance, made it that much easier for other Pacific Island nations especially Australia, to jump into our lives with the hope of coming here to help us sort things out.

 

What international events, already afoot in the Big Outside World, will have serious impact on our own lives here in the Solomons over the next ten years or so?  There are many examples of world-wide breakdowns: the many financial crises in Ireland, Greece, Italy and France; the strained relations between China and Japan; the threat of war between North and South Korea; Vladimir Putin's warning of a Russian nuclear escalation; the nuclear build-up in Iran; the deteriorating peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians; the pervasive corruption in Iraq, Afghanistan; Wikileaks embarrassing world leaders, disrupting international relations, endangering lives, and threatening candid diplomacy.

 

These world events coupled with our own home grown pains and difficulties have a strong tendency to make our next ten years or so more, not less, difficult. That is why it is important for the nation to conduct its own Stock Take, figure out where our next set of major problems are coming from and prepare ourselves to cope with them. 

 

Not many nations like the Solomons get a second chance to re-invent themselves and end up in a positive position. Africa's Somalia remains a failed nation even after 20 years, Iraq and Afghanistan are in the middle of a nine year war with more years of unrest to follow, etc. Our economy, although not the strongest in the Pacific, still functions well for the Solomons half million people with months and months of overseas reserves to pay for the importation of food, energy and goods.

 

No, our difficulties will come from an other direction.Climate change, for instance, will test the nation to care for those village communities which will experience the strength of the ocean which surrounds us, Our poor of food security is another areas of concern and one which will test our strength to assist those people who may not be wantoks but certainly are citizens of the country and must be helped when the time comes. 

 

But the most pressing difficult we face is our unemployed, bored youth who have been at the forefront of each and every riot since 1989. Last month's unrest at the delayed Lusibaea's court case is an example. Whether the unrest is unleashed by swear words posted on a market stall (1989), a failed football game (1993) or a tainted national election (2006), the major actors in each and every riots have been our youth. They are expecting that the new government will create a youth cadre willing and able to help the nation in its infrastructure building or other works that pay modest amounts of money so they can do something useful for the nation.