The size of a lie

Congratulations are in order for the investigative work of Post Courier journalists and to Peter Poke who showed every boldness for his letter (Post Courier 20/02/2008) that records the story of our Prime Minister, Sir Michael Somare, who has now entangled himself in yet another position of compromise. The challenge is now up to constitutional establishments such as the Ombudsman Commission to demonstrate to us what they are worth. There are two issues which I like to bring to the public in this letter.

First is the utterly detestable place which Bertha Somare has assumed in PNGs politics since her father reinstalled himself as prime minister in the last 6 years. In every issue of utmost national interest, Bertha Somare, has relentlessly elevated herself with a self-given mandate of a duly elected MP in order to comment and assert the political and legal views of an elected government. I feel strongly that this must stop because this attitude sucks out every air of legitimacy there is in the little bag of democracy that we have left in the present regime of guided democracy! Can the Ombudsman Commission explain the legal arrangements under which Sir Michael was allowed to employ his own daughter as the media advisor to the prime minister? How can a media advisor dispense such an authority with a shameless and characteristic arrogance? Why must we allow a tyrannical oligarchic family to use the instruments of law and political coercion to install itself in the guise of democracy?

Secondly, Sir Michael resorts persistently to evasion and diversion in order to misguide or conceal his tracts of wheeling and dealing. His cabinet of political rhetoric contains many similar narratives which we can retrieve and assemble at convenience but the current story about his ‘deep sea fishing’ is a case in point which actually concretises the possibility that one could pick up a pen and calculate the size of a lie. Such a calculation does not require any form of sophisticated mathematical computation except perhaps an appreciation of the humour of scale and magnitude. Far from being convenient half-truths, evasions and diversions are calculated miscalculations programmed with an algorithm designed to conceal the truth of things. We all do this all too often and often as we do so, we assign a particular size and moral valency to legitimise our lies.

Lie flourishes in an elastic conceptual economy so that its magnitude expands and contracts depending upon the conditions and status of those who dispense it. Thus it follows that if a bigman, such as Sir Michael Somare lies, it is logically admissible that his lie must be proportionate to his status. Further more, if lie is as incestuous as a contagion that spreads its influence as an epidemic, then if such a big lie should fall down and conceal itself as a weightless truth, imagine what destruction this would have on the moral fibre of constitutional democracy? If a bigman such as the prime minister should mislead the citizens of this great country in a place whose size is no less than our national parliament, imagine what kind of future do we have if we cannot comprehend the size of a lie when it is told by a bigman as a convenient truth?

Brat,

I have read what you wrote daily and find it to be absolutely on the spot. It is without the shadow of doubt a powerful assessment of the situation.

kolwan

Well summarised, it seems life an arrogant family business