Roots – Earlier Influences on Papuan Nationalism
The reformasi generation of Papuan nationalists has framed its nationalism around the history of integration with Indonesia and the subsequent expe-rience of Indonesian rule. The nationalists of the 1960s generation reflect-ed and foreshadowreflect-ed many of the same themes. However, they also drew on the experiences of their own earlier development as political activists and as the “first Papuans.” One of those experiences was the Koreri mes-sianic movement active from 1938 to 1943, which expressed aspirations of leading a Papua-wide liberation. The Koreri movement also reflected strong anti-Indonesian sentiments. Another was the experience of World War II and the exposure it gave to a broader range of outsiders and possi-bilities. A third influence was the immediate post-war reforms of Dutch Resident J. P. K. van Eechoud, whose efforts to advance Papuan educa-tional and administrative opportunities caused his memory to be cher-ished years later. These experiences of the earlier generation have largely disappeared from the nationalist histories of reformasi generation.
The Koreri Movement
The Koreri movement was significant for Papuan nationalism, as many of the early nationalists were from Biak and Serui, and these people were influenced by, and some participated in, the Koreri movement. Biak and Serui are also significant contributors to early Papuan nationalism because they were among the first centers of Dutch and missionary education in Papua (a matter whose significance will be discussed in more detail below).
However, many of the early nationalists from these areas have explicitly constructed the Koreri movement as one of the inspirations for their own activities in the 1950s and 1960s. It is how they have used Koreri in their constructions of Papuan nationalism that is the focus of this discussion.
One of these nationalists was Markus Kaisiepo, who, as is evident from earlier discussion, was one of the senior nationalists in the 1950s and 1960s. Kaisiepo has portrayed himself as a “Koreri” man, saying, “I was born a Koreri man from Biak.” Kaisiepo was one of the first Biaks to be trained as a religious teacher, graduating in 1935. As a young teacher before the war, he came into conflict with others in the Church for intro-ducing Koreri songs to his pupils (Sharp and Kaisiepo 1994: 68, 77, 90).
He therefore personified the link between this relatively local and pre-Christian, if not anti-pre-Christian, messianic movement, and the later devel-opment of Papuan nationalism as a modern political movement. In his
political career, he made an apparently seamless transition from Christian teacher to “Koreri” man, colonial official, Papuan nationalist politician, and finally leader in exile.
Another early nationalist leader who was impressed by the Koreri movement was E. J. Bonay, who in 1941 was serving as a government offi-cial in the office in Serui where Angganita Manufandu, the Koreri leader, was brought for interrogation. Bonay described the significance of the Koreri movement and the clash with the Japanese in 1943 in the follow-ing terms:66
This heroic and patriotic affair marked the beginning of the national awakening and the independence movement in Papua. The present struggle is a continuation of this affair. The leadership of this move-ment (Koreri) is no longer, but the people have their spirit (semangat).
(Bonay c1980s: 42)
The Koreri movement had its strongest following in the communities of the Geelvink Bay (Teluk Cendrawashih), especially on Biak and in Serui. Its memory was cited in the later Papuan nationalist movement by many of the activists from Biak and Serui. The Koreri movement itself developed a broader geographic vision that encompassed all of West Papua. In June 1942, it announced a “revolutionary program” seeking the independence of all West Papua. From Gebe to Hollandia, and from Gebe to Merauke, Papuans had to be united under the Koreri movement (Bonay 1984: 35, 37). It was as if, for the Biaks involved, the Koreri marked one of the transitions from thinking of themselves as Biaks to a broader iden-tity as Papuans. Kamma notes the “strong regionalism and chauvinism of an exclusive character” in this movement. Yet the “line of action” deter-mined at the Koreri army’s (A.B. or America-Blanda) meeting of August 3, 1943, declared a broader vision, stating in part: “The Biak people must show that all the peoples of New Guinea are one. In future years, the Biak people must be regarded, not as plunderers, but as liberators of New Guinea” (Kamma 1972: 198, 281).
As noted at the beginning of this section, the Koreri movement also had a strong anti-amberi (Indonesian) tenor. One of the decisions of the Koreri leaders’ meeting of August 1943 was that the amberi who were not prepared to join the Koreri army had to be expelled from Papua (Bonay c1980s: 41). Kamma relates an incident where a Biak village leader insist-ed on an exchange of roles with the amberi Assistant District officer and
his policeman, with the Papuans treating the amberi as the amberi had pre-viously treated Papuans: “The amberi had to work for the Papuans, who sat in easy chairs watching the amberi perform odious chores in their places” (Kamma 1972: 188–89). Markus Kaisiepo recalled that during the Koreri period it was only in Wardo, his village on Biak, that the amberi were safe, protected by his family, while elsewhere on Biak many amberi teachers and missionaries were being killed (Sharp and Kaisiepo 1994: 79).
Kamma records that the residents of Wardo were opposed to Koreri and for their security the Japanese authorities agreed to move them, including Kaisiepo and his family, to Manokwari in September 1943.67
The Pacific War and Its Aftermath
The Pacific War transformed Papua’s strategic position in the world while also transforming Papuans’ experience of the outside world. Prior to the Japanese occupation in 1942, Papua had been an isolated and neglected backwater of the Netherlands Indies. In the war, that suddenly changed. According to Arnold Mampioper, Papuans were awakened by the fire of Japan and
by the modern science of the “Dollar Country” (Negeri Dolar. America).
Bonay uses a similar analogy of Papuans being woken up from the dark ages by the war:
From the stone age, they [the Papuans] were thrown into the atomic age. The thousand-mile distance between the stone age and the atomic age they took in just one jump, propelled by the first explosions above Hiroshima and Nagasaki and caught up in world revolution from which it was impossible to escape, because the revolution of Papuan independence could not be separated from the world revolution.
(Bonay 1984: 80)
Mampioper and Bonay both argue that the coming of the Allied forces toward the end of the war was particularly influential. According to Mampioper, the Hollandia that had lived in darkness for centuries briefly became an American industrial town, then was left again to its own devices. Hollandia was left with the infrastructure of a modern city, but there were no Papuans capable of assuming the senior administrative and professional positions. Among the educated Papuans there were only a few schoolteachers who had the training needed to become local officials,