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View all search resultsNot always black or white: Downside of polarizing Papua discourse
Jakarta’s canned response to these events in Papua has been to send in more troops to secure public order or more money for economic development.
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P
apua is brewing, its people taking to the streets last year in large numbers to show their discontent at being a part of Indonesia. It has been 51 years since the last Dutch colonial bastion in this region joined the Republic, but instead of rejoicing, the demonstrations and protests have continued.
A series of racist slurs against Papuan students in the East Java capital of Surabaya triggered massive protests in August and September 2019.
But the Papuan problem is much deeper than racism. The people’s discontent reflects the wider range of problems they have been experiencing, from violent conflicts to ill-suited development projects, to human right violations and other forms of injustice.
Should we still be questioning why a growing number of Papuans are demanding a referendum for self-determination?
The two provinces of Papua and West Papua rank among the most underdeveloped of all 34 provinces in Indonesia by almost any measure provided by Statistics Indonesia. At over 20 percent, the two provinces have the highest poverty rates compared to the 9.2 percent national average.
They rank low in terms of their literacy rates, and their children drop out of school earlier than children in any other province.
More than half of the 3.3 million provincial population of Papua have no access to good sanitation services. The people of Papua and West Papua tend to die younger, with a life expectancy of 65 years compared to the national average of 71 years.
