Smells Like Team Spirit

18 October 2009 Dan McGarry

The 2008 Pacific Economic Survey provided timely and useful assessments of telecoms and transport sector liberalisation. It was an enlightening document that validated some of Vanuatu’s key policies as well as providing analysis concerning future trends. I found it useful enough that I wrote about it or referenced it 7 times over the course of the year.

This year, I expect to write about the survey just this once. The 2009 report seems to be animated primarily by the Australian government’s desire to see a regional free trade agreement. The Survey sacrifices common sense and ignores its own data in its quest to glorify liberal trade policies that simply do not fit with the economic realities in Vanuatu today.

[Originally published in the Vanuatu Daily Post’s Weekender Edition.]

When I learned of the release of this year’s Pacific Economic Survey, I was excited. I shouldn’t have been. The contrast between the 2008 report and this year’s could not be stronger. How could something so promising have fallen so far so fast?

When a player fails, you blame the player. When a team fails, you blame the coach.

Produced by the Australian government, the Survey looks at economic trends across the region and maps them to major development issues. Or, at least, that’s the game plan.

The 2008 report provided timely and useful assessments of telecoms and transport sector liberalisation. It was an enlightening document that validated some of Vanuatu’s key policies as well as providing analysis concerning future trends. I found it useful enough that I wrote about it or referenced it 7 times over the course of the year.

From Small Things…

18 October 2009 Dan McGarry

George Tasso and his colleagues are now actively supporting IT volunteers at four Port Vila schools, with another in the works. While there are no lack of young volunteers ready to assist the schools – one colleague has organised no less than twenty of them in the Freswota neighbourhood alone – Tasso is beginning to worry that he might be reaching the limit of his own ability to provide a supportive mentoring role to them all.

The question now is how to continue. What has to date been an entirely organic venture, expanding and changing to fit the needs of individual schools and their staff, is soon going to have to transform itself into something more organised.

[Originally published in the Vanuatu Independent newspaper.]

A number of Port Vila schools have recently begun to take the Internet seriously. Assisted by veteran and novice IT volunteers, they’ve invested their meagre computing resources in an undertaking designed to help teachers create a richer and more open learning environment.

As with all things, it started small. Circumstance threw a few IT professionals together and led them to collaborate to improve their own children’s education. One thing led to another, and now we’re beginning to see the first fruits of integration of technology with teaching in Vanuatu.

The story begins five months ago when four parents, all of them seasoned IT professionals, began to chat about how to improve conditions at Central School, where their children were enrolled. Before very long they were at the core of a group of over 30 parents and teachers, all devoted to taking advantage of computers and the Internet in order to improve the quality of education.

This may sound familiar. It’s not the first time in Vanuatu that parents have moved mountains one pebble at a time to supplement their school’s limited resources. Nor is it the first time that teachers have been able to indulge their personal and professional enthusiasm for their vocation by working with the community at large.

But there are a few unique aspects to this story.

The World, Alas

18 October 2009 Dan McGarry

The world, alas, is far too rushed to ever tell the truth.

Two doves flee like untold secrets from the lane
Where fallen frangipani moulder. Sweet decay.

Behind and up, the hillside’s clad in mauve petals,
A decade’s worth of candy wrappers cast
Aside in moments by adolescent hands.

These hands. These hands are holding hands
In fervent, sweating, anxious rhapsody.
Aching out hilarity, too close to see the comedy.

A ten year old with awkward teeth, all knees
And elbows, nestles in the crook between the boughs
And spies upon the lovers, mystified.

The world, alas, is far too hurried for the truth.

Noteworthy, Not Newsworthy

11 October 2009 Dan McGarry

Recent events, especially last Thursday’s tsunami warning, serve as a reminder just how fortunate we are. Within an hour of the alert being issued, news agencies the world over were contacting the Daily Post. Intent on the next human tragedy, they wanted to know: How much damage? How many dead?

The answer, happily, was that only one young girl was hurt when she ran in front of a moving truck.

Had a similar area in virtually anywhere else in the world been struck as we were by 3 earthquakes in quick succession, each in excess of 7.0, thousands, even millions might have suffered.

The simplicity of our existence – our lack of development – has in many ways saved us from the worst. If we didn’t have so little, we might have more to lose.

[Originally published in the Vanuatu Daily Post’s Weekender Edition.]

A friend of mine recently completed a photography project documenting the people of Dhaka, Bangladesh. These 265 mostly candid portraits capture what I like to call the miracle of the mundane. Without editorialising, they create a compelling polemic for the inherent dignity of every human being.

They’re noteworthy precisely because they’re not newsworthy.

If you were to ask me what animates me, what makes me take on the labours of love that fill my time to brimming, I would likely point to something like this. I’ve often been accused of being an idealist, but that’s only partly true. The ideals that I aspire to are simple:

We should have the right to a peaceful, respectful existence, with all the rights and responsibilities that this entails.

We should be able to choose which dramas and adventures we become involved in. Those we can’t choose should never grow so large that we lose all choice whatsoever.

One of the most alluring and endearing aspects of life in Vanuatu is our collective ability to drift along with few cares and few (sometimes too few!) responsibilities. The machinery of government grinds and chugs on by like a smoking bus with three cylinders firing, but aside from a bit of smoke and noise, leaves us largely unscathed.

The answer, happily, was that only one young girl was hurt when she ran in front of a moving truck.

Had a similar area in virtually anywhere else in the world been struck as we were by 3 earthquakes in quick succession, each in excess of 7.0, thousands, even millions might have suffered.

The simplicity of our existence – our lack of development – has in many ways saved us from the worst. If we didn’t have so little, we might have more to lose.

Life goes on today as it did the day before. We worry about where the next bag of rice is going to come from. We ruin our sandals in the mud. We bicker and fuss our way through petty jealousies. And we laugh at every opportunity.

In a place where the worst example of anarchy we can find is a dozen children playing on the beach, where the sum of our fears extend no more than a few miles from home, where even a hurricane is more frightening than deadly, we should really consider ourselves blessed.

But that should never make us complacent. For all its manifold blessings, Vanuatu society is still fraught with imperfection. Violence may not be institutionalised, but it is systemic. Too many women and children, safe from the predations of the state, are nonetheless victims in their own homes. Family, stronger here than in most other societies, is increasingly strained by distance and economic forces.

The difference between Vanuatu and its more turbulent Melanesian neighbours is as much one of luck as anything else. We all have corruption, venality, social and economic tensions and occasional violence. But for some reason, Vanuatu always pulls back from the brink.

How is this? What exactly is it that has allowed us to avoid the worst excesses of violence, economic and social dispossession? I honestly don’t know. If I were forced to answer, I’d likely wave my hands vaguely and mutter something about how people just don’t like things getting out of hand.

During the incipient insurrection some years ago between Police and Mobile forces, a besieged Police commander delivered an impassioned speech to the throng assembled behind the VMF picket. What began as an angry peroration culminated in a series of (ultimately tearful) apologies to everyone concerned for having caused such a ruckus. By observing the rhetorical standards of public oratory, the rebel leader defused his own obduracy.

We are a decent society, therefore, because we are used to acting like decent people.

Conclusions like this are dangerous. Too often, they lead only to self-satisfied complacency. As one chief explained it to me, it’s as if we are given the gift of a lovely garden with bountiful fruit trees. With such abundance, it becomes difficult to see the sweat and the toil that went into clearing the ground, the care and attention that allowed the tiny seed to become an adult tree.

It’s far too easy as well to assume that the tree will continue to bear fruit forever.

Thursday’s tsunami warning was a false alarm. But there is another tsunami approaching whose effects will be more widespread and, if we don’t prepare for them, more devastating than anything the ocean could do.

As development continues its inexorable spread through Vanuatu society, we must ensure that our politicians and policy makers never lose sight of individual faces of the people on whose behalf they were chosen to work.

They aren’t newsworthy, but they are noteworthy. They are us.

Communications as Survival

11 October 2009 Dan McGarry

The September 29 tsunami took between 5-8 minutes to reach the coast of Samoa, and only a few minutes more to strike Tonga and American Samoa. Thursday’s false alarm provides an object lesson on the importance of timely, accurate and systematic information sharing, both in acquisition and dissemination of geohazard data.

Communications is, after all what makes us human. And what keeps us safe and alive.

‘Storian hemi laef blong yumi’ – Telecom Vanuatu’s new slogan could not be more true.

In times of crisis, communication and coordination enable us to survive and to recover quickly.

When an earthquake occured between Samoa and Tonga early in the morning of September 29th, it created a tsunami that struck the inhabitants on the eastern and southeastern parts of the island within minutes. Sirens sounded and church bells rang all over side of the island, sending people fleeing to higher ground.

The latest reports from Samoa indicate that in addition to at least 149 dead, 640 families comprising roughly 3200 people have lost their homes and possessions. Most have yet to to return to their villages, and are without proper access to power, water and other basic amenities.

Food, water, clothing and shelter are all critical elements of the relief effort.

Equally important is the ability to communicate.

Read more “Communications as Survival”

The Coming Change

11 October 2009 Dan McGarry

The expansion of Internet use is not likely to follow the rocket-like trajectory of mobile services, but it will hit quickly and run deep. Too deep for some, I fear. Having lived on the bleeding and the trailing edge of technology (sometimes both at once), I find the contrast between the two is enough to cause a kind of cognitive whiplash.

Heaven alone knows what will happen when it reaches the village.

[Originally published in the Vanuatu Independent newspaper.]

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” – Leo Tolstoy

On Wednesday this week at a quiet ceremony in Chantilly’s Resort, Minister Rialuth Serge Vohor presented six organisations with telecommunications operator licenses. His action marked the beginning of a new chapter in Vanuatu’s integration into the wider technological world.

The Minister’s speech touched on many aspects of the technical and social challenge ahead of us, but its illuminating principle was his lifelong conviction that Vanuatu should control its own destiny. Acknowledging and applauding the invaluable assistance provided by numerous donor and commercial partners from overseas, he nonetheless displayed great satisfaction at seeing local operations moving into the spotlight.

There was an air of quiet excitement in the room as, after patient months of waiting, representatives from the six groups, along with Digicel Vanuatu CEO Tanya Menzies, strode to the front of the room to accept the newly signed documents.

At the risk of sounding like a giddy shoolchild, I wonder if everyone realises just how fundamentally this moment is going to affect our generation and the next.

Two Solitudes?

6 October 2009 Dan McGarry

Notwithstanding its strengths, French’s permanent minority status here in Vanuatu has certainly allowed the perpetuation of some of the same kinds of injustice seen in Quebec in past generations. French has often received less attention than it should. The demonstrably superior education system has not received the recognition it deserves. The use of French in law, in government services and publications is often an afterthought.

Given my personal experience living on the cusp between two cultures, I am naturally sympathetic to Education Minister Charlot Salwai’s efforts to increase the French component in the core curriculum. Having benefited from a completely bilingual education, and having experienced the consequent benefits of a more nuanced, more cosmopolitan view of the world, I can only consider his plan to be a good thing.

That said, I am vividly conscious as well of the potential for division that language issues can create. In Canada in 1970, Quebec separatists conducted a series of murders, kidnappings and bombings that resulted in the imposition of martial law and the arbitrary arrest of thousands of activists, most of whom were guilty of nothing more than caring about their culture.

[Originally published in the Vanuatu Daily Post’s Weekender Edition.]

I grew up in a border town, in a border generation. One side of the river was majority French, the other English. My elders held tight to decidedly parochial views about their respective cultures. The English felt the ascendancy of their language (and subsequent control over business, government and education) was an inevitable and unavoidable result of their conquest of French Canada in 1760. The French, on the other hand, used their language as a cultural badge of courage, an undying assertion that they had never been conquered in spirit.

During the 1960s and 1970s an intense and occasionally violent cultural revival swept the French-speaking province of Quebec. Language became a weapon, leveraging access to public and private services.

Many of these reforms were necessary, long past due. Pierre Trudeau, the bi-cultural, bilingual Prime Minister at the time, had agitated for social justice in his youth. He was, nonetheless, a strong federalist, and opposed growing cries for Quebec’s secession from the Canadian confederation of provinces.

Vanuatu and Canada’s respective histories reveal more than a few parallels. Though different in detail, many common themes emerge. In Vanuatu, French and English camps were pitted against one another in the run-up to Independence, with the largely English Lini camp charging full-blown toward freedom and numerous, largely French-speaking, elements advocating a go-slowly (or not at all) approach.

The Black Widow

28 September 2009 Dan McGarry

The man gets off scot free in virtually every domestic crisis. If he runs off on his wife and kids, people will ask, ‘What did she do to drive him away?’ If he fools around with someone else, it’s usually the wife who’s forced to find the other woman and beat her into submission. It’s the only way she can publicly demonstrate that she’s not at fault. If a man beats his wife inside his own home, nobody will do anything. Ever. Here in Vanuatu, a man’s home really is his castle. Even if it’s his wife’s money that pays for it, her labour that maintains it, and her life that suffers just so that he can feel in control.

Why should we be surprised then, if one or two desperate women feel driven to poison hubby’s evening meal? When he pauses for grace before supper, more than one husband in Vanuatu would do well to

[Originally published in the Vanuatu Daily Post’s Weekender Edition.]

I heard a fascinating tale the other day. A woman of my acquaintance, happily married with children, had apparently been married twice already. Each time, the husband had become abusive and, each time, had died suddenly, without explanation. Word was that she was adept at ‘posen’ – subtle potions that kill suddenly, hours or even days after their ingestion.

Whatever his motivation, her current husband was the model of good behaviour; he never ‘passed behind’ (the Bislama term for adultery) and looked after the children as if they were his own.

Doubtless polished and embellished in the telling, the story remains, at its core, perfectly credible. Spousal abuse is rampant in Vanuatu society, and the police, courts and kastom do almost nothing to protect women. It’s not at all beyond imagining that a woman might take matters into her own hands and act to stop her own suffering using whatever means necessary.

Open Season

27 September 2009 Dan McGarry

With the recent passage of a new telecommunications Act (awkwardly titled the TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND RADIOCOMMUNICATION REGULATION ACT), Vanuatu has taken another important step in ensuring continued success in building openness and fairness into the business of communications.

Parts of the Act, currently awaiting the President’s signature, validate and give force of law to terms and conditions already included in the licenses issued to our two incumbent telcos. It also provides an overall framework for continued growth, expansion and innovation. Most importantly, it makes permanent the office of the Telecommunications Regulator.

[This week’s Communications column for the Vanuatu Independent.]

(Before I go on, I should make it clear that the text of the Bill was under discussion until shortly before it was voted on. The version I was able to view was not the official text. That will only become available once the Clerk of Parliament receives the signed Act from the President. That said, I’m pretty confident that those parts of the Act discussed here are unchanged.)

Perhaps the most notable aspect of this new legislation is the delegation of the right to issue telecoms licenses to the Regulator. Until the Act takes effect, this power is retained by the Minister.

John Crook, the Interim Telecommunications Regulator, has made it clear that he wants to see the process of obtaining what’s termed a Telecommunications Operator License to be as simple and direct as possible. All that should be required to start a new Internet Service Provider is to demonstrate that you have the right to operate such a business in Vanuatu, that you have the means to do so and that you’re willing to play by the rules.

Gift Economy – Ctd.

20 September 2009 Dan McGarry

Last week’s column on the relationship between chiefs, politicians and public servants provoked a good deal of discussion at the nakamal over the course of the week. Nobody contested the idea that we need to stop treating core government services as gifts to be doled out to political supporters. But there was some divergence of opinion regarding what changes, if any, were required.

Perhaps most interesting of all, nobody questioned the involvement of cabinet ministers in ensuring service delivery. The question was not whether the Minister should get involved in service delivery, but how he should do so.

Students of government from overseas might find themselves squirming at the very thought of such a question. The strong separation of politics and administration is one of the basic principles of the Westminster tradition. Many – if not most – of the major scandals in Vanuatu politics since Independence have been the result of the politicisation of roles and responsibilities in public service delivery.

[Originally published in the Vanuatu Daily Post’s Weekender Edition.]

Perhaps most interesting of all, nobody questioned the involvement of cabinet ministers in ensuring service delivery. The question was not whether the Minister should get involved in service delivery, but how he should do so.