All Thinkers

Bernard Narokobi

Bernard Mullu Narokobi was a Papua New Guinean philosopher, jurist, parliamentarian, and poet, best known for developing the concept of 'the Melanesian Way' as a guiding philosophy for newly independent Papua New Guinea. He is one of the most important political thinkers the Pacific has produced. He was born around 1943 in Wautogik village in the Prince Alexander Mountains of what is now East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea. The exact date is not known; he was born during the Second World War. His people were the Arapesh. His father Anton (also known as Kukum) Narokobi had been taught by Catholic missionaries and worked as a catechist serving Boiken and Dagua villages. His mother was Maria Mokoi. Narokobi was the second eldest of five siblings. His younger brother Camillus is also a lawyer. Narokobi left home in 1960 to attend Kerevat School in New Britain, one of the first government-run schools educating Papua New Guineans at high levels. He went on to study law in Australia and became one of PNG's first generation of indigenous lawyers. He served on the Constitutional Planning Committee that drafted Papua New Guinea's constitution before independence in 1975. With John Momis and others, he drafted the National Goals and Directive Principles and Basic Social Obligations that form the preamble to the constitution. He published Foundations for Nationhood in 1975 and his most famous work, The Melanesian Way, in 1980. He served as a Member of Parliament for Wewak Open from 1987 to 1997, three terms, and held senior positions including Minister for Justice. He was a strong supporter of West Papuan independence. His wife Regina died of breast cancer in 2007. He was serving as Papua New Guinea's High Commissioner to New Zealand at the time of his own death in March 2010. He was about 67.

Origin
Papua New Guinea
Lifespan
c. 1943-2010
Era
Late 20th to early 21st century
Subjects
Melanesian Philosophy Decolonisation Constitutional Law Indigenous Political Thought Pacific Studies
Skills
Ethical Thinking Cultural Heritage And Identity Critical Thinking Problem Solving Creative Expression
Why They Matter

Bernard Narokobi matters for three reasons. First, he developed the most influential indigenous Melanesian political philosophy of the twentieth century. The Melanesian Way is not just a slogan; it is a worked-out philosophical framework arguing that Papua New Guinea's path forward should be rooted in its own cultural inheritance rather than imported wholesale from Europe, America, or Asia. The idea has shaped how Papua New Guineans, and other Melanesians, have argued about their own development, governance, and identity for nearly fifty years.

Second, he embedded his philosophy in his country's actual constitution. Most political philosophers write books that are read and debated. Narokobi did that, but he also drafted parts of Papua New Guinea's founding legal document. The National Goals and Directive Principles in the preamble to the PNG Constitution include 'integral human development', 'equality and participation', 'national sovereignty and self-reliance', 'natural resources and environment', and 'Papua New Guinean ways'. These are recognisably Narokobi's framework, written into the country's foundational law. Few twentieth-century political thinkers had this combination of philosophical and legal influence.

Third, he showed that a major political and intellectual project could be rooted in a single small village, Wautogik in the Arapesh mountains, without becoming parochial. He returned to Wautogik throughout his life. He treated village life seriously as the model for what a Melanesian nation could be. 'We are a nation of villages', he wrote. The position was philosophically substantive: real political community, in his view, comes from face-to-face human relations, not from abstract ideologies or imported state forms. The argument has been criticised by some as romantic and by others as essential to any honest indigenous political thought. Both views agree that he made it more powerfully than anyone else.

Key Ideas
1
The Melanesian Way
2
A Nation of Villages
3
Drafting the Constitution
Key Quotations
"We are a nation of villages."
— Bernard Narokobi, Foundations for Nationhood, 1975
This phrase from Foundations for Nationhood (1975) captures the heart of Narokobi's political philosophy. Papua New Guinea is more than 800 languages, hundreds of distinct cultural groups, and thousands of villages spread across rugged terrain. The colonial Australian administration had imposed a single state structure on this diversity. Narokobi argued that the state should be built up from the villages, not down to them. The village was not the problem to be overcome through modernisation. It was the foundation on which a coherent Melanesian nation could be built. The phrase has become one of the most cited statements about PNG's political identity. It also names a real challenge: how do you build national institutions that respect village diversity while still functioning as a state? PNG has been working on the question for fifty years and is still working on it. For students, the line is a useful introduction to Narokobi's basic position: take the actual cultural reality of your country seriously, do not pretend it is something else, and build accordingly.
"The Melanesian Way is not the way of the white man, nor the yellow man, nor the brown man, nor the black man elsewhere. It is the way of the Melanesians."
— Bernard Narokobi, paraphrased from The Melanesian Way, 1980
Variations of this thought run through The Melanesian Way (1980). The wording above is a paraphrase. Narokobi was clear that his philosophy was not anti-Western, anti-Asian, or anti-anything. It was pro-Melanesian. Other peoples had developed their own ways of being and thinking shaped by their own histories. Melanesians had theirs. Each could learn from the others without having to imitate or reject them. The position rejected both the colonial assumption that Western ways were universal and the reactive nationalist assumption that anything Western was suspect. It claimed for Melanesians the same right that European, Asian, African, and Latin American peoples claimed for themselves: to develop political and social forms appropriate to their own cultural inheritance. For students, the line is a useful introduction to the basic structure of his argument. It is not relativist. It is not separatist. It is a careful claim that genuine cultural diversity is real and that political wisdom is not exhausted by any one tradition.
Using This Thinker in the Classroom
Cultural Heritage and Identity When introducing students to Pacific political thought
How to introduce
Tell students that Bernard Narokobi developed the most influential indigenous political philosophy in the Pacific in the twentieth century. He called it 'the Melanesian Way'. He argued that Papua New Guinea, and Melanesia more broadly, should not adopt European, American, or Asian political models wholesale, but should build its own forms grounded in its own cultural inheritance. Discuss with students: many regions have developed their own political philosophies in response to colonialism. African thinkers like Senghor, Nkrumah, and Nyerere developed African socialism and Negritude. Latin American thinkers developed liberation theology and dependency theory. Pacific thinkers like Narokobi developed Melanesian philosophy. Reading him is part of understanding that political thought is wider than the Western tradition usually admits. The Pacific produced serious philosophers; Narokobi was one of the most important.
Cultural Heritage and Identity When teaching students about cultural diversity and national identity
How to introduce
Tell students that Papua New Guinea has more than 800 distinct languages, possibly the highest linguistic diversity of any country on earth. The colonial Australian administration tried to impose a single state structure on this diversity. Narokobi argued instead that the state should be built up from the villages: 'We are a nation of villages.' Discuss with students: how should countries with deep cultural diversity organise themselves? Some have tried strong central states that override local differences. Some have tried federal systems that recognise regional differences. Some, like PNG under Narokobi's influence, have tried building from the village level up. None of the models is perfect. Each has strengths and weaknesses. The exercise of thinking carefully about how diverse societies can hold together politically is good practice for understanding many countries beyond just PNG.
Cultural Heritage and Identity When teaching students about pride in cultural inheritance
How to introduce
Tell students about Narokobi's insistence that Papua New Guineans had nothing to be ashamed of in their cultural inheritance. Colonial education and missionary work had often taught that traditional dress was primitive, traditional religion was pagan, and village life was backward. Narokobi rejected all this directly. PNG cultures had produced sophisticated forms of governance, art, ecology, and spiritual life over thousands of years. Discuss with students: many cultures around the world have had to do similar work of cultural recovery after colonialism: African Negritude, Native American renaissance, Aboriginal Australian cultural recovery, the Hawaiian Renaissance, and many others. The work of cultural pride is not separate from political work; it is part of it. The exercise of taking cultural recovery seriously is good practice for understanding many post-colonial situations.
Further Reading

For a first introduction, Bernard Narokobi's own The Melanesian Way (1980, expanded 1983) is the standard primary source. Foundations for Nationhood (1975, reissued 2010 by University of Papua New Guinea Press) is the key constitutional-era text. The Wikipedia entry gives a solid biographical overview. The 2020 Journal of Pacific History special issue on his legacy, edited by Lise Dobrin and Alex Golub, is freely accessible online and is the best recent introduction to his life and thought.

Key Ideas
1
Communal Embeddedness Versus Individual Liberalism
2
Christianity and Melanesian Spirituality
3
Land and Property
Key Quotations
"Independence is not just the lowering of the Australian flag and the raising of the bird of paradise. It is the slow work of becoming who we are."
— Bernard Narokobi, paraphrased from speeches and writings around independence, 1975-1980
Variations of this thought run through Narokobi's writings and speeches around the time of PNG's independence in 1975 and the years following. The wording above is a paraphrase. Political independence is the easy part: a flag goes up, a flag comes down, a constitution is signed, a parliament meets. The harder part is what Narokobi called becoming who we are: building institutions, education, economic life, and cultural practice that actually express the country's own identity rather than continuing colonial patterns under new management. PNG's first decades of independence have shown why this is hard. Political institutions inherited from Australia did not always fit local realities. Economic dependence continued under new forms. Educated PNG elites sometimes found themselves more alienated from village life than they wanted. Narokobi saw all this clearly. His argument was that independence required deep cultural work, not just political ceremony. For intermediate students, the line is useful for thinking about decolonisation generally. The flag-raising is a beginning, not the end.
"Land is not a commodity. Land is the body of the ancestors, the cradle of the children, and the keeper of memory."
— Bernard Narokobi, paraphrased from Foundations for Nationhood and later writings on land law, 1970s-1990s
Variations of this thought run through Narokobi's many writings on land. The wording above is a paraphrase. The position is direct: in Melanesian thought, land is not property in the Western legal sense. It is a relationship between living people, ancestors, and descendants, all of whom have claims on it. It carries memory, history, and identity in ways that legal title cannot capture. Treating it as a commodity to be bought, sold, and registered as private property, as international development advisors have repeatedly urged, would dissolve the basis of Melanesian society. Narokobi's argument helped keep PNG's land law largely customary against considerable outside pressure. Around 97% of PNG land remains under customary title, not individual freehold. The economic consequences are debated. The cultural consequences, in Narokobi's view, justify the choice. For intermediate students, the line captures a real philosophical difference between Western and Melanesian conceptions of property. Engaging with that difference is part of taking non-Western political thought seriously.
Using This Thinker in the Classroom
Ethical Thinking When teaching students about communal versus individual frameworks
How to introduce
Discuss with students the difference between Western liberal political philosophy and Melanesian political philosophy as Narokobi developed it. Western liberalism since Locke and Mill starts from the individual: the autonomous person with rights and freedoms. Melanesian philosophy starts from the embedded person: the human being constituted by relations to kin, clan, land, ancestors. The starting point shifts everything: how property works, how decisions are made, how identity is understood. Discuss with students: which starting point is right? Different cultures have answered differently. Most non-Western societies historically have started closer to the embedded model. Most Western societies in modern centuries have started closer to the individual model. The choice is not just academic. It shapes what counts as freedom, justice, and the good life. The exercise of thinking carefully about both starting points, rather than assuming one is obviously correct, is good practice in serious political philosophy.
Problem Solving When teaching students about land and customary property
How to introduce
Discuss with students the question of land in PNG. Around 97% of PNG land is held under customary title by clans and villages, not under individual or state ownership. International development advisors have repeatedly pushed for land registration and conversion to individual title, on the argument that this would unlock economic development. Narokobi consistently opposed this. In his philosophy, customary land is not an obstacle to be overcome but a foundational relationship to be protected. Discuss with students: how should countries balance economic development with cultural and ecological protection of land? Different countries have made different choices. The trade-offs are real. PNG has chosen, largely under Narokobi's intellectual influence, to keep land mostly customary. The economic consequences are debated. The cultural consequences, in his view, justify the choice. The exercise of thinking through this trade-off carefully is good practice for understanding development debates worldwide.
Further Reading

For deeper reading, Greg Bablis's 'A Melanesian Icon: Professor Bernard Mullu Narokobi (ca 1940-2010)' in Catalyst: Social and Pastoral Journal for Melanesia 40, no. 2 (2010) is essential. Ton Otto's 'After the Tidal Wave: Bernard Narokobi and the Creation of a Melanesian Way' in Narratives of Nation in the South Pacific (1997) is a standard scholarly study. Lise Dobrin and Alex Golub's collected work, especially 'A Nation of Villages and a Village Nation State: The Arapesh Model for Bernard Narokobi's Melanesian Way', traces the Arapesh roots of his philosophy. The Twenty Years of the Papua New Guinea Constitution volume (2001) contains his own reflection on the constitutional drafting process.

Key Ideas
1
The Critique of Universal Models
2
Wautogik as Method
3
Why He Is Not Better Known Internationally
Key Quotations
"We have nothing to be ashamed of. We have everything to be proud of. We are who we are because of where we come from."
— Bernard Narokobi, paraphrased from speeches and writings on Melanesian identity, 1980s-2000s
Variations of this thought run through Narokobi's speeches and writings on Melanesian identity. The wording above is a paraphrase. Colonial education and missionary work had often left Papua New Guineans feeling that their cultural inheritance was something to escape. Traditional dress was primitive. Traditional religion was paganism. Village life was backward. Narokobi rejected all this directly. PNG cultures had produced sophisticated forms of governance, art, ecology, and spiritual life over many thousands of years. They did not need apology. They needed recognition and continued development. The position is part of a wider pattern of indigenous philosophical work, including African Negritude, Native American renaissance, Aboriginal Australian cultural recovery. Each insists that colonised peoples have nothing to be ashamed of in their inheritance and that political and cultural pride are conditions for any real progress. For advanced students, the line is a useful study in how indigenous political thinkers have addressed the psychological legacy of colonialism. The work of unlearning shame is not separate from political work; it is part of it.
"Our task is not to copy the West, nor to refuse it. Our task is to make a new thing, recognisably our own, that draws on what serves us from many places."
— Bernard Narokobi, paraphrased from his essays and speeches on Melanesian development, 1980s-2000s
Variations of this thought run through Narokobi's later essays and speeches on Melanesian identity and development. The wording above is a paraphrase. The argument is more nuanced than either pure imitation or pure rejection of Western ideas. Pure imitation produces a country that fails because the borrowed institutions do not fit local conditions. Pure rejection produces a country that cuts itself off from useful resources the world has developed. Narokobi argued for selective synthesis: take what works for Melanesian goals, leave what does not, and combine borrowings with deep cultural inheritance to make something new and recognisably Melanesian. The model is harder than either alternative. It requires careful judgement about what to take and what to leave. It requires confidence in one's own cultural foundation, since otherwise the borrowings overwhelm. For advanced students, the position is one of the more thoughtful twentieth-century anti-colonial intellectual stances. It refuses the false choice between Westernisation and tradition, replacing it with the harder work of synthesis.
Using This Thinker in the Classroom
Critical Thinking When teaching students about the limits of universal political theories
How to introduce
Discuss with students Narokobi's critique of universalist political theories. Liberal individualism claims universal validity. Marxism claimed universal scientific truth. Both have travelled the world as if their categories applied everywhere. Narokobi argued that real political thought has to begin from the actual cultural inheritance of the people it serves. Frameworks developed in particular societies cannot be lifted whole and applied to others without distortion. Discuss with students: how universal are political theories? Is there a single correct answer to questions of justice, property, freedom, and community? Or do different cultural traditions produce genuinely different but equally serious answers? Narokobi's position is not relativism. He thinks some answers are better than others. He just refuses the assumption that the better answers come pre-packaged from any one tradition. The exercise of taking the question seriously, rather than assuming Western political theory has the universal answers, is essential for serious comparative political thought.
Creative Expression When teaching students about how a single place can ground philosophical work
How to introduce
Discuss with students Narokobi's relationship to his home village of Wautogik in the Arapesh mountains. He returned throughout his life. He wrote about it. He drew his philosophical concepts from Arapesh practices and language. The 'nation of villages' phrase was not an abstraction; it was an extrapolation from Wautogik. Some scholars have criticised this as over-generalising from one village to a region of enormous diversity. Others have argued that grounding thought in a specific place is more honest than ungrounded abstraction. Discuss with students: should political philosophy aim for universal principles divorced from particular places, or is it always shaped by where it is written? Many great philosophical works have been deeply rooted in specific places: Plato's Athens, Aquinas's medieval Europe, Confucius's Lu state. Narokobi's Wautogik is in this tradition. The exercise of taking place seriously in philosophical work, not as limitation but as resource, is good practice for thinking about many traditions.
Common Misconceptions
Common misconception

The Melanesian Way is anti-Western or rejects modernity.

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What to teach instead

It is not. Narokobi was a Catholic, a trained lawyer in the Western legal tradition, a parliamentarian in a Westminster-derived system, and a careful reader of European philosophy. He argued for selective engagement with Western ideas, taking what served Melanesian goals and combining it with deep cultural inheritance to make something new. He did not reject Western modernity. He refused the assumption that modernity required wholesale Westernisation. The two are different. Reading the Melanesian Way as anti-Western reactionary traditionalism gets the position entirely wrong. It is a sophisticated synthesis position that demands careful judgement about what to take and what to leave.

Common misconception

His philosophy applies only to Papua New Guinea.

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What to teach instead

It does not. Narokobi consistently spoke of Melanesia as a whole, including Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji (in some respects), and West Papua. He was a strong advocate for West Papuan independence from Indonesia, arguing for solidarity across Melanesia. His writings have influenced political and cultural thought across the region. Beyond Melanesia, his framework has parallels in indigenous political thought across the wider Pacific (Hau'ofa's 'Sea of Islands', Tongan and Samoan political thought) and in African and Latin American post-colonial thought. The applications are not identical, but the philosophical move, beginning from indigenous cultural inheritance rather than imported categories, is widely shared. Reading him as parochial misses how his work fits into a broader pattern of indigenous political thought.

Common misconception

He was a marginal academic philosopher.

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What to teach instead

He was central to the actual political life of his country. He served on the Constitutional Planning Committee that drafted PNG's independence constitution. He drafted parts of the National Goals and Directive Principles in the constitution's preamble. He served as a Member of Parliament for Wewak Open for ten years (1987-1997). He held senior cabinet positions including Minister for Justice. He was Papua New Guinea's High Commissioner to New Zealand at the time of his death. He was a practising lawyer who founded a major law firm (Narokobi Lawyers, still operated by his brother Camillus). He was philosophically serious and politically central, simultaneously, in ways that few twentieth-century thinkers anywhere have managed. The image of him as an isolated academic is wrong.

Common misconception

His ideas have been fully implemented in modern PNG.

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What to teach instead

They have not. PNG since independence has faced major challenges that Narokobi's philosophy did not fully address: rapid urbanisation, large-scale resource extraction projects, severe gender-based violence, the Bougainville civil war (1988-1998), corruption in national politics, and ongoing economic dependency. Narokobi's vision of a nation of villages developing along Melanesian lines has been only partly realised. The National Goals and Directive Principles in the constitution remain aspirational; many have not been put into effect. The Melanesian Way has been celebrated rhetorically and used selectively by politicians, including some Narokobi opposed. The disparity between his vision and PNG's actual development is real. He was honest about this; his later writings became more critical of PNG's drift away from his framework. Reading the Melanesian Way as having been successfully implemented misrepresents the actual history. It remains a substantial intellectual resource that PNG could draw on more deeply than it currently does.

Intellectual Connections
Complements
Albert Maori Kiki
Kiki and Narokobi were Papua New Guinean contemporaries (Kiki 1931-1993, Narokobi c.1943-2010) who built independent PNG together. Kiki's autobiography Ten Thousand Years in a Lifetime (1968) gave one of the first major literary expressions of indigenous Papua New Guinean experience and was foundational for the cultural pride that Narokobi later worked into a worked-out political philosophy. Kiki was politically senior, becoming PNG's first Deputy Prime Minister in 1975; Narokobi entered parliament later, in 1987. Both worked closely with Michael Somare, the country's founding Prime Minister. Reading them together gives students two of the founding intellectual and political figures of independent PNG, working in different but complementary modes.
Complements
Nora Vagi Brash
Brash and Narokobi were PNG contemporaries working in different modes on related concerns. Narokobi developed the Melanesian Way as political philosophy and constitutional framework. Brash, through her plays, gave dramatic voice to the contradictions of post-independence PNG society: the corruption, the gender inequalities, the consumerism, the loss of village values. Where Narokobi articulated the ideal, Brash dramatised the reality of how independent PNG was sometimes failing to live up to it. Both were honest about the gap. Reading them together gives students a stereoscopic view of post-independence PNG, with philosophical aspiration and dramatic critique held in productive tension.
Complements
Frantz Fanon
Fanon and Narokobi were both serious twentieth-century anti-colonial political thinkers who insisted that real decolonisation went beyond political independence to require deep cultural and psychological work. Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks (1952) and The Wretched of the Earth (1961) developed this analysis in African and Caribbean contexts. Narokobi developed parallel analysis in the Melanesian context. Both rejected both colonial mimicry and reactive nationalism, arguing instead for new syntheses rooted in indigenous cultural inheritance. The differences are real: Fanon was a psychiatrist and revolutionary, Narokobi a lawyer and philosopher; Fanon's context was violent decolonisation, Narokobi's was relatively peaceful Pacific independence. But the underlying intellectual project is closely related. Reading them together gives students two of the major non-Western anti-colonial thinkers of the twentieth century.
Complements
Julius Nyerere
Nyerere, the founding President of independent Tanzania, developed Ujamaa (familyhood), an African socialist philosophy grounded in traditional Tanzanian village life. The parallel with Narokobi's Melanesian Way is direct and substantial. Both argued that newly independent African and Pacific nations should not adopt either capitalist liberalism or Soviet communism wholesale, but should develop their own frameworks rooted in indigenous communal traditions. Both saw the village as the foundation of authentic post-colonial political community. Both saw their philosophies embodied in actual policy and constitutional framework. Both have been criticised for romanticising village life and for partial implementation. Reading them together gives students two of the most thoughtful twentieth-century post-colonial political thinkers from different parts of the world working on closely related projects.
In Dialogue With
Epeli Hau'ofa
Hau'ofa, the Tongan-Fijian anthropologist and writer, was Narokobi's Pacific contemporary and intellectual partner. His seminal essay 'Our Sea of Islands' (1993) reframed the Pacific not as scattered tiny islands but as a vast connected ocean world with its own coherent civilisation. The framing complements Narokobi's Melanesian Way: both insisted that Pacific peoples should refuse the colonial framing of themselves as marginal and should instead claim their own cultural and intellectual centre. Reading them together gives students two of the foundational figures of contemporary Pacific intellectual life, both arguing for indigenous Pacific frameworks against imposed external categories. Hau'ofa is a strong future addition to this library.
Complements
Mahatma Gandhi
Gandhi developed an indigenous Indian political and ethical framework drawing on traditional village life, religious tradition, and selective engagement with Western thought. Narokobi's project bears family resemblance: an indigenous Melanesian framework drawing on village life, Christian and traditional spirituality, and selective engagement with Western legal and philosophical tradition. Both insisted on the village as a serious political-economic unit rather than a backward residue to be overcome. Both combined deep religious commitment with political engagement. Both were trained in Western law (Gandhi as a barrister in London, Narokobi as a lawyer in Australia) and used that training in service of indigenous frameworks. The differences in scale and context are large; the underlying intellectual moves are closely related. Reading them together gives students two of the more thoughtful twentieth-century combinations of Western legal training with indigenous political philosophy.
Further Reading

For research-level engagement, Narokobi's complete writings have been collected by University of Papua New Guinea Press and other academic publishers. His unpublished manuscripts, including writings on Wautogik village, have begun to be studied by Pacific scholars. The journal Journal of Pacific History remains the central venue for ongoing research. For comparative work, Robert Foster's writings on PNG political culture, Jonathan Ritchie's work on political life writing in PNG, and the wider Pacific studies literature on indigenous political thought (Hau'ofa, Albert Wendt, Konai Helu Thaman) provide essential context. The Melanesian Institute and the National Research Institute in Papua New Guinea hold significant primary archives.