Racism against Papua: Revisiting the context of the August 2019 incident
Rudi Kurniawan Dahlan — July 2020
Issues about Papua seem always to seize the public’s attention. One that has been highlighted is related to racism, like, as many have known, the alleged racial hatred utterance in Surabaya, mid-August 2019. The incident led to a series of massive demonstrations, followed by mass riots resulting in the death of 25 people and damage to private properties and public facilities.
In 2020, the issue of racism in Papua re-emerged following the similar issue that occurred in the United States related to the killing of a black man by white police. The similarity rested upon the encounter between some civilians and the security apparatus. Of the Surabaya incident, though, which involved a member of the Indonesian armed forces, there was no physical violence like in the United States that suddenly led to massive protests, extending to several cities in many states.
Back to Indonesia, as experts have argued, we must understand that the contexts of similar racism incidents are different. Of the ‘racism’ against the Papuans, it could be very different racism understood by the public in general. The Indonesian racism issue arose from the ‘monkey’ utterance of the security forces member, which all Indonesians would agree that is rude and excessively unnecessary.
Looking at it within the context
If we look at it more carefully, the word ‘monkey’ in the utterance is a quite familiar expression in the local community, especially in Surabaya and, generally, Java. For the Indonesian context, especially in Java, it is important to note though that that expression being quite familiar does not mean it is acceptable. Still, people know it should be a big problem.
Expressing anger or dissatisfaction by using the name of certain animals is indeed often heard when someone is in high tension of emotions to appear demeaning his opponent. Not only monkeys, but other subject pronouns are commonly used, e.g., dog and pig.
The three words are of the animal names often found as expressions of someone’s irritation or anger. This expression is indeed inappropriate and indeed considered degrading. But to be fair, in this context, though, as an expression, these words have nothing to do with racism. These Negative expressions are more related to the meaning in the subconscious minds of the Indonesian people regarding animal personification as an expression of emotion.
Because the expression appears as an expression of emotion, then, of course, in practice, it can target anyone without looking at the color of one’s complexion or ethnicity as the target of emotional outbursts. In that sense, the Surabaya incident is still indeed regrettable, but it mainly involved emotional outbursts expressed. It indeed involved condescending expressions, as dialogs could not be initiated, but it was not something synonymous with racism.
Introspection urges for the apparatus
Nevertheless, Indonesia’s security forces must be fully aware that even a small amount of conflict can trigger more significant issues in Papua. From the recent experience, they can also emerge as an international issue, which can usually be an essential material for various international groups and movements such as the ULMWP, led by Mr. Benny Wenda.
Like many similar groups, this organization indeed aims to continue to spread the issues related to Papua in the international world in competition with other matters. It can be seen that their line of struggle in international diplomacy is to convince many international organizations or other countries that they need their support. So, they must keep figuring out problems from Papua so they can be raised as global issues.
This connection between Papua issues and the international world makes any problems in the region often become a very sensitive issue, both for the government of Indonesia and the people of Papua themselves. Papua has indeed, many societal, political, and economic issues. Considering that the region has all the necessary supra-structure, including developed authorities and legal systems, working with the local leaders, who are mostly Native West Papuan, is the wise and right move.
To this end, pertinent authorities should ponder how they can improve their roles. Both the military and police must immediately allow them to self-introspect and carry out internal capacity building, especially for the personnel in the field. The aim is that officials in the field can identify and manage the sensitivity of the issue in the community, especially regarding the culturally rich people of Papua.
The leaders of the security forces should be able to clearly explain the context of the events in Surabaya and put the incident within the Indonesian context. They should be able to provide the understanding that the condescending expression used by their member was related to ‘human frustration’ due to the uncontrolled situation and mass action.
Improve communication
Of course, what happened a year ago became a valuable lesson for joint security forces (TNI and POLRI) officials. It is indeed the right time for the apparatus to improve themself when it comes to dealing with the people of Papua. The security forces should soon develop a competent and professional, and independent if necessary, public communication team.
This public communication team must consist of professional people who have backgrounds mastering various social and cultural issues. It must also be ensured that this team can properly communicate on almost every topic about Papua to reduce wrong public interpretation and mistaken and sided news. The team must be able to craft creative yet compassionate approaches to communicate and explain directly to any related parties to whom the Papuan issues can reach out.
As described above, any Papuan problem is a sensitive issue. So, anyone who handles the issues, which seem to keep arising, must have keen social sensitivity and cultural sensitivity. When such sensitivity is present, the actions of the security forces will be measurable. This is one of the homework that must be handled by our security apparatus in managing issues in Papua better. (*)
This paper fully represents the author’s idea. This paper does not represent an idea or the establishment of a particular institution or organization where the author works or is affiliated.
