It depends on every one of us: Do we want to follow the ideally conceptualized system, or the real and living system of life and living?
If you asked me this question, then my answer is,
“If the system does not exploit and destroy the nature and my custom values, norms and systems, then I will embrace it, in order to help life continue to emerge and then evolve. But if democracy is based upon materialistic mindset and anthropocentric concept, then I have a strong reason to quickly run away from it. The way to run away is to arrest democracy into Wantok System”
by Wewo Kotokay
Why is life a system?
Life is simply a series of systems. People assume that life is random, spontaneous, and unpredictable but in reality patterns exist everywhere. Even when effort is made to avoid systems, they still control everything we do, everything we achieve and everything around us.
Source: <https://www.scottmiker.com/>
There is a system of inter-relationship and inter-dependence that work automatically in life that runs as the laws of nature, or laws of being here, laws of existence that operate in life.
When anything or anyone steps out from the life system, then it falls into a different life system. For example, a tree that grows become dry, means not alive but died, then further step is it follows the process of dead/ or dry system, until it comes back to become soil, and then support or nurture life again.
In human democracy, Wantok System makes us Melanesian live as Melanesian peoples. When any Melanesian person steps out from that “relationship” and inter-dependence system of community or collective life, than the person becomes “dead” as a Melanesian, but at the same time, starts living as a different member of a community, in this case we say, “a modern person”.
“Life has living system” that runs the life, naturally, non-stop.
Life as Melanesian individuals and groups, life as Americans, life as Europeans, life as business peoples, life as military personnel, life as students and teachers, all operate within or according to systems. When there is nothing that runs without system.
Living system
Living system means a system that is alife, not dead, not finish, but active and operating. Living system means the system that runs life, as individuals or group (families, clans, moieties, tribe, nation, race). Be it economic system, social system, political system, Wantok System, any system that runs in life is “living system”.
Living system means that system is not dead, still alive, still real, still operational, we can still see it and experience it.
Living system means the system that we need to appreciate and promote. In this case, Wantok System is a living system for Melanesian peoples in particular, but also tribal peoples around the world.
Living systems are life forms (or, more colloquially known as living things) treated as a system. They are said to be open self-organizing and said to interact with their environment. These systems are maintained by flows of information, energy and matter. Multiple theories of living systems have been proposed. Such theories attempt to map general principles for how all living systems work.
Some scientists have proposed in the last few decades that a general theory of living systems is required to explain the nature of life. Such a general theory would arise out of the ecological and biological sciences and attempt to map general principles for how all living systems work. Instead of examining phenomena by attempting to break things down into components, a general living systems theory explores phenomena in terms of dynamic patterns of the relationships of organisms with their environment.
Source: <from Wikipedia, the Free encyclopedia>
Remarks
Living system is the phenomena in life, and life system is the noumena that runs within living system. In other words, “life” is the whole system that make everything alive and live; and “living” is the current existence.
Life means the state that follows birth, and precedes death; the state of being alive and living when used as a noun.
Live means to be alive; to have life when used as a verb.
Live is also used as an adjective. It means having life; that is alive.
A good way to remember the difference is Live is the simple present form of living.
in Live vs Life: What’s the Difference? <https://prowritingaid.com/live-vs-life>
Even though this quoted statement says “life means the state that follows birth, and precedes death”, we Melanesian peoples say that
life means the current state of being in this physical body, and then continues living after this life ends or decays, as life never dies. Therefore, “life” in Melanesian perspective is to exist as body or spirit. That is why when a Melanesian person wants to end this body, they will always say, “I will be always here with you, I will not go away from you.”
Thus, “Wantok System” is both for this physical life and life afterwards, who complete of systems that operate among Melanesian peoples that is based on “inter-relatedness”, “inter-relationships” and “inter-dependence”; that at some degree is operational in modern system, but in many ways, cannot be operated within modern government and governing systems.
Thus, “Wantok System” can only be experienced, understood and appreciated by those who “life” within the socio-cultural and geographical environment that gave birth to and nurtured the the system. Just like a fish, when we take her out from the water, she will die. Likewise, when we take Wantok system out of context, then we will blame it as backwards, corruptive, poisoning our modern government system or modern democracy, and so on.
Therefore, in one side, “Wantok System” should be only practiced within the “families”, “clans” and “Moieties’ level, to strengthen our living system, to enable us life as Melanesian peoples, to enable us transit into modernity without destroying our own identity.
Therefore, on the other side, a Melanesian person thinking and/ or living outside the “Wantok System” will not be called a Melanesian. A skin colour and curly hair only do not define a person as a Melanesian. Likewise, a modern person or non-Melanesian who live in a village or island across Melanesia, who appreciates and practices families and kinships relationships, who respects that life organism consists of spirit, nature and custom, that operate in life that should be understood and appreciated, then that is a Melanesian person.
Do you have any opinion: Write to me yumi@wantok.us
