Why papua wants freedom: The third person in contemporary nationalism

Public Culture

Volumn 20, Issue 2, 2008, Pages 345-373

  Rutherford, Danilyn ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 47249142958     PISSN: 08992363     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1215/08992363-2007-029     Document Type: Article

References (98)

1. See Partha Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse? (London: Zed Books, 1986);
2. John D. Kelly and Martha Kaplan, Represented Communities: Fiji and World Decolonization (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001);
3. Prasenjit Duara, Sovereignty and Authenticity: Manchukuo and the East Asian Modern (Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003).
4. Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, trans. Paul Patton (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 12, cited in Samuel Weber, "Religion, Repetition, Media," in Religion and Media, ed. Hent de Vries and Samuel Weber (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2001), 44.
5. This region's name has changed frequently throughout its checkered political history, from Netherlands New Guinea to West Irian, then Irian Jaya, and, finally, simply Papua. It consisted of a single Indonesian province until 2003, when, amid much controversy, the central government divided it in two: Papua and West Irian Jaya, itself recently renamed, quite confusingly, West Papua. In this essay, which concerns events before the division, I refer to Papua as a single province.
6. Other speakers included Yusan Yeblo, from Papuan Women's Solidarity Group, and Jerry Imbiri, the student representative on the Papuan Presidium Council.
7. On Yorrys Raweyai, see Loren Ryter, "Pemuda Pancasila: The Last Loyalist Free Men of Suharto's Order?" Indonesia 66 (1998): 45-74; see also Octovianus Mote and Danilyn Rutherford, "From Irian Jaya to Papua: The Limits of Primordialism in Indonesia's Troubled East," Indonesia 72(2001): 115-40.
8. See Rodd McGibbon, Plural Society in Peril: Migration, Economic Change, and the Papua Conflict, Policy Studies no. 13 (Washington, D.C.: East-West Center Washington, 2004), 20, 25.
9. See Denise Leith, The Politics of Power: Freeport in Suharto's Indonesia (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2003);
10. Leslie Butt, " 'Lipstick Girls' and 'Fallen Women': AIDS and Conspiratorial Thinking in Papua, Indonesia," Cultural Anthropology 20 (3): 412-41.
11. See Robin Osborne, Indonesia's Secret War: The Guerilla Struggle in Irian Jaya (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1985);
12. Richard Chauvel and Ikrar Nusa Bhakti, The Papua Conflict: Jakarta's Perceptions and Policies, Policy Studies no. 5 (Washington, D.C.: East-West Center Washington, 2004);
13. Richard Chauvel, Constructing Papuan Nationalism: History, Ethnicity, and Adaptation, Policy Studies no. 14 (Washington, D.C.: East-West Center Washington, 2005).
14. See, e.g., Agus Alua, MUBES Papua 2000, 23-26 Februari: "Jalan Sejarah, Jalan Kebenaran" (The Papuan Grand Consultation February 23, 2000: "The Way of History, the Way of Truth"), Seri Pendidikan Politik Papua no. 3 (Jayapura: Sekretariat Presidium Dewan Papua/Biro Penelitian STFT Fajar Timur, 2002), 47.
15. See James T. Siegel, Fetish, Recognition, Revolution (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1997), 214;
16. see also George M. Kahin, Southeast Asia: A Testament (London: Routledge Curzon, 2003).
17. Anonymous interview, Chicago, February 2-3, 2003. See also Matthew N. Davies, Indonesian Security Responses to Resurgent Papuan Separatism, Strategic Defence Studies Centre Working Paper no. 361 (Melbourne: Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University, 2001).
18. To test my suspicions, I tabulated the various types of we that appeared in the Indonesian-language e-mail postings that I received from the Papua Internal Forum between May 13 and July 28, 2003. These postings included not only articles but also comments by the Papuan activists who made up the bulk of the participants. Only 89 out of 1,100 uses of the Indonesian first-person plural pronoun referred to a West Papuan as opposed to a more generalized collective subject.
19. See Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into the Categories of Bourgeois Society, trans. Thomas Burger (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1991), xviii;
20. see also Michael Warner, The Letters of the Republic: Publication and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century America (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990).
21. This paucity may stem in part from the fact that speakers and writers of Indonesian and related languages tend to avoid self-reference. See Alton Becker, Beyond Translation: Essays toward a Modern Philology (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995);
22. see also C. W. Watson, Of Self and Nation: Autobiography and the Representation of Modern Indonesia (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2000), 106-29. Nevertheless, a national we features prominently in the Indonesian Republic's founding texts and in the speeches of Indonesian presidents.
23. See Colin Wild and Peter Carey, eds., Born in Fire: The Indonesian Struggle for Independence (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1988);
24. Sukarno, Toward Freedom and the Dignity of Man: A Collection of Five Speeches by President Sukarno of the Republic of Indonesia (Jakarta: Department of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Indonesia, 1961);
25. Roger K. Paget, ed., Indonesia Accuses! Soekarno's Defense Oration in the Political Trial of 1930 (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1975);
26. and Soeharto, Presidential Message at the Year's End (Jakarta: Department of Information, Republic of Indonesia, 1969).
27. See Benny Giay, Menuju Papua Baru: Beberapa pokok pikiran sekitar Emansipasi Orang Papua (Toward a New Papua: Some Thoughts about Papuan Emancipation) (Jayapura: Deiyai/ Elsham Papua, 2000);
28. Yorrys T. Raweyai, Mengapa Papua Ingin Merdeka (Why Papua Wants Freedom) (Jayapura: Presidium Dewan Papua, 2002);
29. Agus A. Alua, Papua Barat dari Pankuan ke Pankuan: Suatu Ikhtisar Kronologis (West Papua from Administration to Administration: A Brief Chronology), Seri Pendidikan Politik Papua no. 1 (Jayapura: Sekretariat Presidium Dewan Papua/ Biro Penelitian STFT Fajar Timur, 2000);
30. Alua, Dialog Nasional Papua dan Indonesia, 26 Februari 1999: "Kembalikan Kedaulatan Rakyat Papua Barat, Pulang dan Renungkan Dulu" (The Papuan and Indonesian National Dialogue of February 26, 1999: "Return the Sovereignty of the Papuan People, Go Home and Reflect First"), Seri Pendidikan Politik Papua no. 2 (Jayapura: Sekretariat Presidium Dewan Papua/Biro Penelitian STFT Fajar Timur, 2001);
31. Alua, MUBES Papua; Alua, Kongres Papua 2000, 29 Mei-04 Juni: "Mari Kita Meluruskan Sejarah Papua Barat" (The Papuan Congress May 29 to June 4, 2000: "Let's Rectify West Papua's History"), Seri Pendidikan Politik Papua no. 4 (Jayapura: Sekretariat Presidium Dewan Papua/Biro Penelitian STFT Fajar Timur, 2002); E. J. Bonay, "Sejarah Kebangkitan Nasionalisme Papua" ("A History of the Rise of Papuan Nationalism"), unpublished manuscript (Leiden: KITLV Historical Documents, n.d.).
32. See "Out of Sight: Endemic Abuse and Impunity in Papua's Central Highlands," Human Rights Watch 19, no. 10(C), July 2007.
33. See Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought;
34. see also Jacques Derrida, Limited Inc. (Evanston, 111.: Northwestern University Press, 1988).
35. Some key examples include rituals whose efficacy depends on their participants' ability to present their words and gestures as relatively "textlike" strips of "tradition" and modern novels inflected by a cacophony of class-based voices, whose "accents" resound not simply in direct quotations but throughout the author's prose. See Richard Bauman and Charles L. Briggs, "Poetics and Performance as Critical Perspectives on Language and Social Life," Annual Review of Anthropology 19 (1990): 59-88;
36. Mikhail M. Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, ed. Michael Holquist, trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981).
37. "To repeat is to behave in a certain manner, but in relation to something unique and singular which has no equal or equivalent. And perhaps this repetition at the level of external conduct echoes, for its own part, a more secret vibration which animates it, a more profound, internal repetition within the singular. . . . [I]t is not Federation Day which commemorates or represents the fall of the Bastille, but the fall of the Bastille which celebrates and repeats in advance all the Federation Days; or Monet's first water lily which repeats all the others." Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, 1 ;
38. see also Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling/Repetition, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983); Weber, "Religion, Repetition, Media."
39. Roman Jakobson, "Shifters, Verbal Categories, and the Russian Verb," Selected Writings (The Hague: Mouton, 1971), 130-47. The function of pronouns is similar to that of other deictic categories, including demonstratives (e.g., this and that), locatives (e.g., here and there), and verb tenses.
40. See Michael Silverstein, "Metapragmatic Discourse and Metapragmatic Function," in Reflexive Language: Reported Speech and Metapragmatics, ed. John Lucy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
41. Emile Benveniste, Problems in General Linguistics (Coral Gables, Fla.: University of Miami Press, 1971), 218.
42. See also John Austin, How to Do Things with Words (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962).
43. Benveniste, Problems, 201.
44. This intervention would be particularly troubling to those who subscribe to "Standard Average European" language ideologies. See Richard Bauman and Charles L. Briggs, "Language Philosophy and Language Ideology: John Locke and Johan Gottfried Herder," in Regimes of Language: Ideology, Polities, Identities, ed. Paul V. Kroskrity (Santa Fe, N.M.: School of American Research Press, 2000), 139-205;
45. see also Michael Silverstein, "Whorfianism and the Linguistic Imagination of Nationality," in Kroskrity, Regimes of Language, 85 -138, esp. 113, for a critique of Benedict Anderson's account of the emergence of a national we in Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism (New York: Verso, 1991).
46. Benveniste, Problems, 203.
47. See Greg Urban, Metaculture: How Culture Moves through the World (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001), 94;
48. see also Derrida, Limited.
49. Urban, Metaculture, 97.
50. Warner, Letters, 104, 106.
51. Of course, the performative/constative distinction proves problematic even for Austin. At the end of How to Do Things with Words, Austin offers a typology of forces, each of which are present in every utterance. Even "constative" forms are "doing" something, i.e., proposing something about the world.
52. Warner, Letters, 106. Legality is a problem beyond the scope of this essay, but the relevance of Warner's argument should be clear. It is not simply the creation of an identity that Derrida is accounting for, but the validation of a form of action formerly justified by appeals to the divine right of kings.
53. According to Derrida, these utterances provide a " countersignatory" to the act, "another subjectivity" - often God-needed by the delegates to "sign, in order to guarantee it, the production of signature." See Derrida, "Declarations of Independence," trans. T. Keenan and T. Pepper, New Political Science 15 (1986): 11.
54. See Jay Fliegelman, Declaring Independence: Jefferson, Natural Language, and the Culture of Performance (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1993), 204.
55. See Thomas Nagel, The View from Nowhere (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986).
56. See Kelly and Kaplan, Represented Communities;
57. Ronald Niezen, The Origins of Indigenism: Human Rights and the Politics of Identity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003).
58. A similar predicament confronts the "minority mass subject": the " 'we' that can describe our particular affiliations of class, gender, sexual orientation, race or subculture only as 'they.' " Michael Warner, "The Mass Public and the Mass Subject," in Habermas and the Public Sphere, ed. Craig Calhoun (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1991), 387.
59. See Danilyn Rutherford, "Trekking to New Guinea: Dutch Visions of a Virgin Land, 1900-1940," in Domesticating the Empire, ed. Julia Clancy-Smith and Frances Gouda (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1998);
60. see also Arend Lijphart, The Trauma of Decolonization: The Dutch and West New Guinea (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1966).
61. See Richard Chauvel, "West New Guinea: Perceptions and Policies, Ethnicity and the Nation State," in Australia in Asia: Episodes, ed. Anthony Milner and Mary Quilty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 10-36.
62. See Duara, Sovereignty and Authenticity, 18, on the principle of uti possidetis.
63. During the Act of Free Choice, held in 1969 after the territory's transfer to Indonesia, carefully selected delegates read aloud statements declaring that West Irian was already independent. See John Saltford, The United Nations and the Indonesian Takeover of West Papua, 1962-1969 (London: Routledge Curzon, 2002), 107. Arguably, the inclusion of West Irian within Indonesia was essential to the new republic's self-conception as an entity that transcended religion, race, ethnicity, and class.
64. See "Laporan Hasil Kongres II Papua Barat: Mari Kita Meluruskan Sejarah Papua Barat" ("Report on the Outcome of the Second West Papuan Congress: Let's Rectify West Papua's History") (Port Numbay [Jayapura]: Sekretariat Presidium Dewan Papua, June 1, 2000), 49. See also Peter King, "Morning Star Rising? Indonesia Raya and the New Papuan Nationalism," Indonesia 73 (2002): 108-9.
65. The New Guinea Council, to all appearances, was modeled on the Indies' People's Council formed in the early twentieth century.
66. The government kept secret dossiers on "prominent Papuans," detailing their political allegiances and activities. See Ministerie van Kolonien, Kabinet Gouverneur van Nederlands Nieuw-Guinea, Serie C, 1959-1962, ARA 2.10.36.13, inv. 17 (Nationaal Archief, The Hague). Officials carefully channeled "anti-amberie" tendencies, interpreting this Biak-language word for "foreigner" as referring exclusively to Indonesians. They had to be careful that these tendencies did not erupt into animosity toward the Dutch colonial regime, which employed many Eastern Indonesian officers.
67. See also Danilyn Rutherford, Raiding the Land of the Foreigners: The Limits of the Nation on an Indonesian Frontier (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2003), chap. 6.
68. Even in the company of such Papuan leaders as Nicolaas Jouwe, Markus Kaisiepo, and Herman Womsiwor - all quadralingual in Dutch, English, Melayu, and their local languages, with Womsiwor also fluent in Japanese - the governor doubted that there were any Papuans capable of keeping up with the correspondence involved in running the government. See Gouverneur Platteel to Bot, April 11, 1962, 2.10.2/361/2, Ministerie van Kolonien, inv. 5, folder 50.
69. See Si. Rumasew, Hollandia, to Tuan2 Ketua Partei Poloik DVP, PPM, March 8, 1962, Ministerie van Kolonien, inv. 19.
70. See Osborne, Indonesia's Secret War;
71. John R. G. Djopari, Pemberontakan Organisasi Papua Merdeka (The Free Papua Organization Rebellion) (Jakarta: Gramedia Widiasarana Indonesia, 1993).
72. Even when Papuan leaders speak in the national first-person plural, something of the third person makes itself felt. Tom Beanal led a delegation of provincial leaders known as the Team of 100 to Jakarta in February 1999. Beanal claims that his first glance at the statement he read demanding West Papuan independence from President B. J. Habibie came after the Team of 100's meeting with the president had already begun. A subcommittee had drafted the statement, which the delegates hastily signed and then smuggled into the palace. Consisting of a blunt assertion of the desires of "We the people of West Papua," the wording came as a surprise to many of the delegates. By distancing their own agency from that of their "people," Papuan leaders do not necessarily undercut these dramatic moments when a Papuan we announces its presence. Arguably, they enhance these moments' force. The fact that Papuan exiles also use the third person in their writings suggests that it is not simply self-censorship that has given rise to this tendency. See Bonay, "Sejarah Kebangkitan Nasionalisme Papua."
73. Michael Silverstein, personal communication, October 28, 2004.
74. Willy Mandowen, interview with the author, New York, December 10,2002.
75. Shortly afterward, segments of the production aired on television. Since then, the book and VCD have circulated overseas through events such as the forum that I attended. Copies have also reached foreign hands directly from Raweyai, who reportedly has distributed them to interested guests. Eben Kirksey, personal communication, November 23, 2002.
76. The same minister told me how his copy was still making the rounds, not only among his Papuan friends and neighbors, but also in the local army barracks, where his nephew and other soldiers were eager to see it. Anonymous, interview by the author, Chicago, February 4, 2003.
77. See Kaja Silverman, The Acoustic Mirror: The Female Voice in Psychoanalysis and Cinema (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988), 49.
78. See Bill Nichols, "The Voice of Documentary," Film Quarterly 36, no. 3 (1983): 17-30.
79. Written by Alua, the series is a joint publication of the Presidium and the Catholic seminary in Jayapura that Alua directs. Alua's series begins with a volume on West Papua's history, Papua dari Pangkuan ke Pangkuan (Papua from Administration to Administration), and continues with three volumes covering successive phases in the movement, named for key events in its history: Dialog Nasional Papua dan Indonesia 26 Februari 1999, MUBES Papua 2000, 23-26 Februari, and Kongres Papua 2000, 26 Mei - 04 Juni. As noted in footnote 14, each volume is subtitled with a slogan coined for the relevant gathering. The overall aim of the series is also captured in a slogan: "Struggle peacefully and democratically, without violence."
80. The one exception comes from a preface where Alua explains the purpose of the series: "We Papuans have to learn from history, because history represents a very valuable source of learning and a model for a nation struggling for its future." Alua, Dialog Nasional, ii. But the series is also meant to educate Indonesian readers more generally. See Alua, MUBES Papua, iii.
81. See Alua, Dialog Nasional, 38-39.
82. Although the narrator quotes from the statement produced at the June 1999 gathering, selective editing removes this statement's own quotation of the February 26 declaration. The video version has the delegates suggesting that the national legislature consider holding a referendum in Papua, calling for the protection of the Team of 100's personal safety, and asking for a response to the "statement of political aspiration" without the narrator describing what this aspiration might be.
83. One gets a sense of the source of these images from the closing credits, which thank the television production studios MetroTV, Indosiar, and TVRI, as well as the individuals Claudio van Planta and W. Barmes.
84. Rihan Yeh helped me work through this point.
85. Inadvertently or not, the ordering of footage sometimes serves to discredit Papuan perspectives, as when immediately following a fragment of an interview with an OPM leader, the narrator announces that "the roots of the problems in West Papua" are something that "many misperceive or don't understand."
86. Raweyai makes his appearance when "Papuan intellectuals" first are mentioned.
87. See Elizabeth A. Povinelli, The Cunning of Recognition: Indigenous Alterities and the Making of Australian Multiculturalism (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2002). Although reconciliation comes at something of a price, no threat to the particular interests that have benefited from western New Guinea's integration into Indonesia is offered here.
88. These productions included a recording of Papuan language hymns sung by a German pastor and a film by Garin Nugroho, an internationally renowned Indonesian director. Aku Ingin Menciummu Sekali Saja (I Only Want to Kiss You Once) is set in Jayapura against the backdrop of the Papuan National Congress and Eluay's death.
89. Anonymous, interview with the author, February 4, 2003. In fact, it is this context of reception that accounts for the video's very existence, he thought. Elite Papuans such as Raweyai, who lack a mass following, need to offer evidence of their accomplishments to retain any authority in the province. From the start, Papuan leaders have prevented popular unrest by reassuring their followers that they are working for freedom in distant lands.
90. So far, she had demonstrated this talent by speaking Mandarin to a Chinese visitor.
91. See La Biblioteca de las Culturas Hispánicas, "Acta del 19 de Abril de 1810," www.cervantesvirtual.com/servlet/SirveObras/ 04700741222647284199079/p0000001.htm#l_l (accessed July 3, 2007). Declaring administrative independence from the French-controlled government in Spain, the we in this document takes the implicit form of "this illustrious council." By contrast, the Venezuelan Declaration of Independence of 1881 is pervaded with several instances of the explicit we, from "we the representatives" to "we the people of Venezuela" to the we of "humanity." Reflecting the crisscrossing alliances in which the Spanish American "creole elite" took part, these we's set themselves off from the Spanish, the inhabitants of other Spanish colonies, and, most strikingly, "the Almighty," whom the document addresses as "you." See "Firma de Acta de la Declaración de la Independencia de Venezuela," es.wikisource.org/wiki/ Firma_del_Acta_de_la_Declaraci%C3%B3n_de_Independencia_de_Venezuela (accessed July 3, 2006). Much could be said about the relationship between these traits and the distinct historical conditions under which the Latin American nations gained independence. As Claudio Lomnitz points out, the particular internal and external relations of dependency that structured these colonial societies shaped their nationalism to an extent that Benedict Anderson's depiction of the "modularity" of "creole nationalism" fails to capture.
92. See Lomnitz, "Nationalism as a Practical System: Benedict Anderson's Theory of Nationalism from the Vantage Point of Spanish America," in The Other Mirror: Grand Theory through the Lens of Latin America, ed. Miguel Angel Centeno and Fernando López-Alves (Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, 2000), 329-59. As Lomnitz puts it, "Nationalism combines the use of transnationally generated formulas, ranging from legal formulations to state pageantry, with a politics that is inextricably local" (351). I would only add that this complex interplay between transnational formulas and local politics left its mark in the deployment of pronouns in these foundational texts. I owe these insights to Stephen Scott, who assisted me by conducting a careful analysis of thirty-seven founding documents from Latin America.
93. His real enmity was reserved for PaVo, for the seemingly petty reason that the organization has succeeded in winning Dutch government funding. My friend and his colleagues in the recently resurrected organization Kobeoser have gone so far as to distribute leaflets condemning PaVo at public events.
94. On the fourth person, see Gilles Deleuze, The Logic of Sense, ed. Constantin V. Boundas, trans. Mark Lester (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), 141.
95. As a representative of the Catholic Church, Alua has recently been elected chair of a customary advisory council of traditional, religious, and women leaders convened, after much delay, as part of the central government's special autonomy package. See Alex Madji, "MRP, Monster yang Menakutkan?" Suara Pembaruan Daily, January 16, 2006. With the support of Golkar, the former government party, Raweyai ran for governor of West Irian Jaya, a new province split off from Papua, many argue in an effort to divide and conquer the nationalist movement.
96. See Nethy Dharma Somba, "Boycott Threat Looms for West Irian Jaya Elections," Jakarta Post.com, March 8, 2006.
97. "Boooooooo ... Tete ko ini macam menikmati sekali. Kopi deng lagu sambil isap rokok, makan pinang lagi, " kata Pace Mon lia Tete deng santal di para-para sambil goyang dengar lagu. "Ini yang dong bilang hidup di dunia yang merdeka. Mau bekeng apa juga, jadi..." sambut Tete Bintul.
98. See "Warung Papeda: Tutup Lobang deng Bae" ("Sago Shop: Cover the Hole Well"), Cendrawasih Pos, April 7, 2000, 9.