Little Joy for the Papuans

Farish A. Noor

Posted Apr 13, 2006      •Permalink      • Printer-Friendly Version
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Little Joy for the Papuans

By Farish A. Noor

The 20th century has witnessed the tossing and turning, to-ing and fro-ing,
of stateless peoples the world over. From the calamity of the Palestinians
to the historical misadventures meted out to the unfortunate Kurds, entire
nations have been displaced, their cultures and languages forbidden if not
erased altogether, and their identities perpetually deffered. Much of this
boils down to the compartmentalising logic of the modern nation-state; an
imperialist construct if there ever was one, that seeks to draw neat and
fixed boundaries between ‘us’ and ‘them’; those who belong and those deemed
alien. The centralising propensity of the modern nation-state, with its
maximalist outreach and its intolerance for ambiguity, has done more damage
to local cultures, languages, world-views and life-worlds that the two World
Wars combined. And today, as we celebrate the twisted victory of a
globalisation process driven mainly by capital, the global landscape upon
which we live has become flatter, more homogeneous and decidedly duller as
well.

Southeast Asia is replete with such sad stories, of peoples who have been
shoved from one corner to another to fit the compartmentalising logic of the
post-colonial state. Today it is the uncertain fate of the residents of West
Papua (Irian Jaya) that hangs in the balance.

This week Australia’s government announced that it will introduce new laws
and regulations related to the question of refugees and asylum seekers from
Papua. Over the years West Papua has been a thorny issue in
Indonesian-Australian relations thanks to the low-level violent insurgency
that has been going on there. West Papua (or Irian Jaya as Indonesian
officials would refer to it) was annexed by the Indonesians in late the
1960s, on the basis that as an ex-Dutch colony it should have come under the
rule of Indonesia’s central government as well. Indonesian soldiers were
parachuted into the territory even before 1968, and the story of West
Papua’s annexation reads as a catalogue of silly military blunders (all of
which could have been avoided) that makes one laugh and cry at the same
time.

As was the case of the annexation of East Timor in 1974, West Papua was seen
then as a potential hotbed of leftist political activism. This was precisely
the same line of argument that was later employed by the Indonesians when
they annexed East Timor years later, on the grounds that had it fallen into
the hands of the leftists it would have become the next ‘Cuba of the East’
and a launching pad for the nefarious Soviets and Chinese. With the Cold War
raging at its frostiest then, the world’s attention was diverted elsewhere
as the Indonesian forces marched in and eliminated their local opponents
with ease (and with the help of arms generously donated by Western
governments.)

Now with the Cold War over the same stale logic no longer holds and both
East Timor and West Papua have become an embarrassment for all; an all too
evident case of Western complicity in Asian war-mongering and conquest that
is best left out of dinner discussions. Following the independence of East
Timor, sparks have been struck in West Papua where memories of insurgency
and resistance remain fresh for some. On top of that there is the very real
problem of Indonesia’s own jaundiced perception of their Papuan fellow
citizens, who are often (still) cast as half-naked spear-chucking savages in
popular Indonesian media - from newspaper caricatures to comedy shows on TV.
Needless to say, the Papuans who were forcibly made Indonesian citizens at
the point of a gun do not take kindly to the way they are seen and
represented by their fellow citizens.

Thanks to the callous treatment of the Papuans at the hands of Indonesian
security services, thousands have fled the country and sought refuge
elsewhere. Australia would be the natural choice for most as it is
practically on the doorstep of the country. This has in turn angered the
Indonesian government who would prefer to think that life was a bed of roses
in this province which is little more than a colony. Following the granting
of asylum status to some Papuan refugees earlier this year, Indonesia
recalled its ambassador to Canberra and diplomatic relations have been
strained ever since. Rabid right-wing Indonesian nationalists accused
Australia of playing the role of white imperialist in Asia, while
conveniently overlooking the fact the the brutality of the Indonesian army
in Papua was the main reason why the Papuans chose to abandon ship and sail
elsewhere.

The new reform of the Australian refugee and asylum rules are designed in a
rather obvious way to placate the demands of the Indonesians who as usual
feel that the need to save face is greater than a commitment to human rights
and democracy. In the midst of all this, it is the Papuans who have
sufferred the most, and who continue to suffer still. In the future all
Papuan asylum seekers will be treated as if they were in a UN refugee camp,
which means that they will have no access to the review process (that would
otherwise be granted by the Australian constitution) and they may be
relocated to a third willing country. The Indonesians would benefit as it
would entail a means to avoid discussing the Papuan issue and Papuan demands
for autonomy or even independence. The Australian government benefits by
being able to shove the Papuans to another country, thereby washing their
hands of the matter altogether.

Yet in the middle of all this backroom dealing and double-dealing, it is the
Papuans themselves who have no say in the matter. Forced to become reluctant
members of a state where their own citizenship is probationary, they remain
a people whose nation has been split in two (between Irian Jaya and the rest
of Papua New Guinea). Documentaries, dramas and movies will no doubt be made
of them and on them, but they remain the props in an international tussle
with no agency of their own. For many a Papuan, the burden of the modern
nation-state must be heavy indeed.

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