Papuan Lives Matter

There is a demonstration this morning outside the Starbucks in Renon regarding racism in Papua. Papua and West Papua are Indonesia's easternmost provinces, annexed by the postcolonial Indonesian republic in 1963. In one sense, there is nothing new about these demonstrations, or protests, call them what you will. They occur regularly throughout the archipelago and have done for a long while, and they have popped up on a regular basis as long as I have lived here in Bali. They are regularly supervised by nearly as many police as protestors and have generally been, in my experience anyway, peaceful protests. In fact, quite a number of the attending police today are chilling with a coffee on the Starbucks veranda while the demonstration proceeds on the street below.

There is, however, a brand new facet of late, and direct from America. As in many other countries facing systematic racism, the black lives matter motto has been embraced and has provided a fresh fuel--for indeed racism is the same all over the world, and the call for this simple recognition, that black lives matter, is equally wanted all over the world. 

In Papua, black Indonesians make up the majority of the population of 4.3 million. Even so, the province is tightly patrolled by Indonesia's military, freedom of the press is severely controlled and limited, and Papuans, even those travelling in other areas of Indonesia, are heavily surveilled. Papuans regularly face human rights abuses--police beatings, intimidation, suppression of local leaders, forced conversions, detention.

There is a separatist desire among many Papuans and Papua is also home to the world's largest goldmine. Thus the less than surprising heavy handedness and military presence. 

And then there is the color of the people.  

"Colorism", as described in Foreignpolicy.com, "is pervasive in Indonesia and affects dark skinned people not just from Papua but also from such eastern provinces as Flores and Maluku. The reasons for this include both the colonial hangover common to many Asian countries ... and domestic majoritarianism coming from light-skinned ethnicities like the Javanese and Sundanese. Fairness creams and beauty products are ubiquitous, the vast majority of television and film actors are light-skinned, and black skin is heavily stigmatized." 

The greater awareness that has spread around the world following the murder of George Floyd and the nationwide protests in America has caught on and ignited a sympathetic spark in Papua, such that they are now using the hashtag #PapuanLivesMatter, carrying signs reading the same, or that simply read Black Lives Matter, as the phrase has not only travelled around the world but surpassed the barriers of language. In short, it is universally understood. Well, by those who are willing to understand it, anyway.