Academia Nomad

Sharon Inone, center, represented Young Pacific Leaders on the world stage in Glasgow for the Conference of Parties for the 26th United Nations Climate Change Summit (COP26). Below is an extract from her speech at COP26.

“Look at the image and imagine your only house or your loved ones grave submerging under the rising sea levels.

How would you feel?

Well for us, it is not an imagination anymore, it is the reality.

My name is Sharon Inone and I was told that it’s human activities that’s causing the global climate change.

I don’t know how I caused the problem. My life is simple. I don’t have electricity. I don’t have access to running water. I walk long distances to the closest river to fetch water for drinking, cooking, washing and laundry.

I climb hills and mountains to get to my garden and bring back food supplies that can only last me for a day or two.

I look for the caves to shelter during cyclones and tsunami while surviving on traditionally preserved breadfruit.

I never took too much from the environment as that’s how far my manual strength can handle.

Yet I was told “Your activities are causing global warming”

I don’t know how, cos my life is simple.

I grew up in a rural remote Island. I observed as the waters slowly swallow my grandfather’s graveyard due to sea level rise.

I saw my mum break down cos she didn’t have sufficient funds to pay for my school fees. Her crops didn’t yield much due to the changing weather patterns and new pests and diseases attacking her food crops.

This resulted in no surplus produce to sell for cash. Food insecurity then led to obstacles in accessing quality education as economic regression continues and eventually a negative domino effect on all 17 SDGs.

New cyclones and disasters come by and go, new governments form and dissolve, MDGs changed to SDGs, Kyoto Protocol to Paris agreement, new year, New COP, COP25 to COP26 but my rural cycle and way of living and struggles continue as climate change impacts exacerbate existing issues.

My life was simple but now it is more difficult than that of my ancestors as the population increases, land and resources become more scarce.

We are dealing with the triple challenge of covid, climate change and food insecurity. I am carrying my poeples’ voice with me to Glasgow to tell our global leaders to stop playing with our lives as our present and our future are at risk.

I am from a remote rural island. My life is simple. Your inactions, your ability to take the wrong actions intentionally, will soon sink one more of our Islands.

It’s time to walk the talk.

We have been talking for centuries, but when will the vulnerable communities benefit from such high level talks? AFTER COP 100?

I don’t know!

We are tired!

We are hungry!

We are dying!

We are sinking!

We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors. Instead we borrow it from our children.

It is our responsibility to leave the earth better than we found it. And if there’s one section of the world that is crying out for better services, its the rural areas.

Let’s start there then come back and talk big here. Otherwise we have nothing to show for”

The End!

Shanon is an environmental scientist and project leader of the EmPower Resource Centre. She has a MSc in Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security from the National University of Ireland.

The extract of Sharon’s speech was first published on her LinkedIn, and republished here with her permission.

Do pastors, and clergy men, and religious authorities enjoy too much respect in PNG? 

Disclaimer: I’m a Christian. Baptized by a Four Square pastor. I read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation once. And I read the New Testament completely twice. That’s to say I’m not an atheist even though I’m about to rant like an atheist.

I left three WhatsApp groups. Everyone in those WhatsApp groups were Christians. In fact I was added to those  groups because I was a Christian. I left because I couldn’t stand the pastors in these groups. 

I’m not talking about differences in opinion. I do not have a problem with that. I’m talking about pastors trying to become scientists. And pastors sharing fake news news.

But what is fake news? 

Fake news is basically content – videos, documentaries, articles etc., that are not true, misleading, misinterpreted, or even outdated. A more academic definition includes deliberate sharing of fake content with the intention to mislead the public, for a specific purpose. For instance, a candidate’s campaign team intentionally running untrue claims to discredit the opponent. But for our shake, let’s stick to a simple definition stated earlier. Anything that’s not true.

For the most part during my time in these groups,  I tried to make sense with the members. For instance, when it came to debates on COVID-19, I told them not to trust YouTube videos. YouTube videos are not vetted. You can put whatever the hell you want on YouTube. It’s the same with Facebook posts, or online articles. Even news outlets like CNN or FOX news are not reliable sources.

If you want a “relatively” reliable content, go to top peer reviewed journals. For scientific content, for instance, go to top five scientific journals of the world. And read what is been written about the topic you’re interested in. 

Why these journals? 

Because unlike Facebook posts, these articles are put through rigorous scrutiny by experts in the field or topic that the article addresses. It’s not the best, but it’s better than a YouTube video. Just because someone is a “doctor” or a “scientist” doesn’t mean he’s telling the truth on YouTube. He must publish his ideas in a scientific journal, where his peers scrutinize his claims, test his evidence, and verify his sources.

This goes both ways: for pro-vaccines and anti-vaccines. Or any other topic.

So why did I take offense with the pastors?

In PNG, and the Christian community, pastors are held in high regard. There’s that respect for pastors. An educated man can sit in a church for two hours and listen to a pastor without a degree share his interpretation of the scriptures and not challenge him. That respect is accorded to the office the pastor occupies, not accorded to the pastor’s level of education or expertise.

In the groups I was part of, there were many materials that were shared: some were true whilst others were fake.

But I took the most offense when the articles were shared by pastors. 

For instance, a pastor shared a coin getting stuck on the arm of someone who was vaccinated. And this was shared by one of the so called “fathers of the nation.” Senior pastor whose name if I mentioned it here, most, if not all, Papua New Guineans would know him. 

Why is this fake? 

A 20t coin will get stuck on your arm after you do a bit of work, even if you’re not vaccinated. 

More recently, the same pastor shared a Facebook post that was going viral at the time. That Australian soldiers were locking up PNGDF ammunition’s nationwide, and questioned why that was happening. I didn’t see the Facebook post until he shared it in the WhatsApp group, but as soon as I saw it, I knew it was fake. 

Again, what bothered me was the fact that he was a very senior pastor, respected in PNG. He was misleading the people.

If God truth, and if His word is the Truth, why do pastors find it easy to share fake news? If they are misled by fake news to the extent they believe it, what does that say about their interpretation of the Bible? Do they casually interpret the scriptures like they do with the fake news?

Similar instances happened in the other two groups I was part of and I left all.

And then today, I came across a street preacher who was conducting an awareness about 5G, vaccination, and mark of the beast or 666. I joined the conversation and told the guy that what he was saying wasn’t true. One of the women came to his defense, and said I shouldn’t say that because the street preacher was “wok man blo god” or servant of god.

It reminded me of the pastors in the WhatsApp groups: I hardly saw anyone challenging the fake contents the pastors were sharing.

So it made me wonder: are pastors and clergy men in PNG enjoying too much respect?

I think they are. People look upon them with respect as servants of god (I’m intentionally using small g for god because I don’t think they represent the God with the capital G when they start talking science).

I think Papua New Guineans should begin to challenge their pastors, and even tell them to shut the hell up when they talk about science. Unless they are medical science graduates turned pastors, or have a degree in the relevant area they are talking about. There’s too much reverence for pastors, and some are abusing it. 

I understand opinions will be divided over issues like vaccines, but those in religious authority, who are respected, cannot use their biased opinions to mislead people. 

Pastors are respected because they are supposed to preach the Gospel. They should not be respected for their opinions on science. They aren’t scientists. 

Either preach the Gospel, or go back to FODE, matriculate, and go to UPNG and take up science. 

So the next time your pastors begin talking about subject matter that you know are untrue, or subject matter that you know the pastor has no knowledge of, you can tell them to shut up. You won’t loose your salvation if you do. 

I know of pastors who are well informed because they read a lot, but talk less. And I know of pastors who know the Bible well, and they stick to it. Then there are those who talk about everything: prophecies to sharing fake contents. I have respect for the first two. I have lost respect for the pastors in the third category.

And I offer no apologies.

• 

Epitome of Beauty and Intelligence – a poem by Mary Terriette Aseari read at the UPNG Pageant Night on 13 August 2021

“As each word I utter tonight 

Leaves this red inked lips​

Signifying a white man’s mark

I pray you won’t be disheartened 

For every word that transcends out of this mouthpiece

Is an echo of what I’ve written 

Using the red blood ink of my heart

Where the bloodlines of my ancestors still strives.

My ancestors were storytellers

I pray I do them justice tonight as I orate to you this piece 

Now, they say Pacific Island Women are the most beautiful

If that is so then a Papua New Guinean Woman must be handpicked by God to be a reflection of  diverse beauty.

Beauty foretold by her crowning glory that’s been worn for generations

A testament that the creator had been biased when weaving this masterpiece 

Bestowing her with a crowning glory fit for a queen

Hair so dark, it resembles the black charcoals where her palms were used to bake sweet  potatoes

So thick, it defies gravity even the laws of science can’t explain it

Locks so soft and wavy like her foundation the Pacific Ocean, crashing onto the shore of her face   each time the Trade Winds blow

So blonde, I had imagined the maker had dipped her in the same liquid he did the sun, as there’s     

no earthly explanation for this natural phenomenon.

And no, she’s not just a beauty statement

She is an incubator of rich history 

Every genealogy memorized and written on her skin through tattoos marking her roots

She is a goldmine of diverse languages

Her tongue cutting through the air through chants still echoed to this day

She is a master artesian

Painting a story with every stroke she makes on her tapa cloth

You see, she is both beautiful and intelligent 

She is a symbol of her forefather’s actions 

She is a Papua New Guinean Woman“

The End!

How friendly are students from the University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG) to strangers who greet them?

Would they greet you back if you said “hello”?

If they do, is it in a clear voice, or mumbling?

And would they look at you whilst greeting you?

We spoke greeted 103 strangers (defined as: students we’ve never spoken to before). Only 7 students looked at us, and greeted us back in audible voice. A long way to go. Read on.

On Monday, 9 August 2021, I was heading over to work at UPNG. I greeted the first person. He didn’t reply. I greeted the second person. He mumbled something without looking up at me. I just assumed he was replying to me, could be in his language. I tried the third person, she seemed surprised that a stranger would greet her. Looked at me suspiciously for a few seconds, and managed an inaudible “good morning.”

I continued greeting 30 people before I reached my office. I posted my experience on Facebook, and asked people to try the same experiment. Five UPNG students decided to try it on the same day. The rules were:

1. Greet the person when he/she is at least one metre before you so they have the chance to greet you back.

2. Only count responses of those who you never spoken to before (strangers)

3. Smile while you’re at

The five students spoke to 73 other students who they’ve never spoken to before. Together with the 30 I’ve spoken to, we’ve disaggregated the data into:

“Replied GM” and “No Reply”. See table 1.

Table 1: Replies of people greeted. *GM = Good Morning

Out of the total 103 ‘strangers’ we’ve greeted, 81 replied, whilst 22 didn’t. That’s encouraging, but doesn’t tell the whole story. The 81 who replied didn’t always speak in audible voices. It ranged from audible greetings, to mumbling, heads down or not even making an attempt to look at the person. So we’ve further divided the responses into: “Audible”, “Non-audible”, and “Made-eye-contact”.

Table 2: Varying degree of responses

As table 2 shows, 35 of the 81 responded with audible voices – good morning, hi, hello etc. But only 7 managed to look at the person greeting him or her. The other 39 mumbled, without looking at the person.

Data like this doesn’t tell much. It could be that Monday is not a good day, and that there would be better responses on a Friday. Or perhaps it would be the same on a Friday. It’s week 6 of semester 2, so the students may have a lot to do, and don’t have time to talk to strangers. Or it could be that, students at UPNG are not used to greeting people they don’t know – strangers.

But there is hope, that, out of 100 people you greet at UPNG, at least 7 people will greet you back, looking you in the eye with a smile.

These 7 were either having a great day, outgoing, or are just used to talking to strangers. Congratulations to the 7, and hope all of UPNG would be like the 7 students.

Try this experiment at your school, workplace, street, shopping mall etc. Keep a tally, and comment below so we know how your experience was.

To subscribers of Academia Nomad: be like the 7 people. Politely greet the person who says ‘hello.’ And do it with a smile. Either doesn’t takes much effort. 😊🤞🙏

Job hunting expense is the monetary cost looking for job. In PNG, where internet cost is one of the highest in the region, this can be very troublesome for young graduates and students in their final year of studies. Below is a story of how one young graduate, sJuritus Huriamboho, spent K1, 236. 00 job hunting.

“ How job hunting is financially stressful? If you do math on how much you spend looking for job it will surprise you.

On one of my single job Interview it cost me alot. Here’s my experience on how much I spent for the course. The financial expense includes:

I). K6 Rait Card – Job search via internet

II). K20 – Printing & Photocopying (thankfully it was Lae and cheap)

III). K20 – Scanning

IV). (Refer to I above) – sending applications

V). K20 Rait Card – Making follow-ups (by emailing & phone calls) VI). K20 Busfare expenses

VII). K1000 – ticket purchased for two way (Lae to Pom, Pom to Lae)

VIII). K150 – Living expenses in Pom.

So, for single job interview it cost me approx. K1236. Can you imagine if I calculate for hundreds of job applications I’ve applied for…it would be much more higher than this. Job hunting is financially stressful.

The more we apply for job, the more money spend. Receiving NO feedback on our applications it contribute ‘stress’ to our lives. Given the fact of corruptions, I think discipline and good attitude must be the center in recruitment. Too much focus is given on experience and good GPA.”