Re: Media and a national identity

Emmanuel I am really grateful that the organizers of the Kumul Forum brought up the topic of National Identity and Nationalism.

I believe there are a lot of misconceptions of these terms and its usage. I am in the process of writing an article and proposing various institutions and processes that will cultivate and nurture a genuine sense of nationalism. My propositions, however, will not make any impact as I am just nobody (an ordinary concerned citizen) and my ideas might be easily disregarded. Hopefully, the propositions that you come up with in the seminar are taken into account with political resolve and committment by right thinking political leaders.

I am just an ordinary citizen putting out my ideas for all to judge and comment!

As affirmed by Prof. Fukuyama, experiences around the world e.g. in the Latin Americas and Asia proved that institutions are indispensable avenues of cultivating national consciousness and rightly so media is the appropriate channel of indoctrination which must be utilized to instill a sense of nationalism. I don't really believe in religion (I will explain in a latter commentary).

Anyways, it would be encouraging to see more debates on this issue and what other PNGans think how we should cultivate that sense of nationalism devoid in PNG since independence.