Christian Warta
04 March 2010
04 March 2010
A recent OTJR symposium held in Oxford on justice and self-determination in West Papua, at which Pieter Drooglever’s book “An Act of Free Choice” was launched, dealt with issues around the incorporation of West Papua into Indonesia, current efforts towards independence and mechanisms to address human rights violations committed under Indonesian rule. The role of religion in West Papuan politics was, however, almost entirely absent from these discussions. Religion, though, represents an important identity marker in West Papua today and plays a key role in the spiritual and social lives of its inhabitants, as well in West Papua’slong history of colonisation and conflict.This role has to be understood in the context of a long history of state violence and the central government’s failure to protect its citizens. Furthermore, as the International Crisis Group reports there is high potential for violent clashes along religious lines. This becomes particularly apparent in discourses that reduce society to “Christian Papuan” and “Muslim Indonesian” sides. The religious landscape in West Papua is highly diverse and cannot be simplified in such a way. A closer look at the history of Christianity and Islam in West Papua will underline this.
Christianity was introduced to West Papua in 1855 by the two German Protestant missionaries, Carl Ottow and Johan Gottlieb Geissler, when they landed at Mansinam isle, near the city of Manokwari, which is the present capital of Papua Barat province. Later, after the establishment of the first Dutch government posts in Manokwari, Fakfak and Merauke at turn of the century, the expansion of colonial authority was accompanied by the Christianization of Papuans. In order to prevent interference in each other’s work but also to cover all of the area, missionaries agreed on a division of West Papua into Protestant and Catholic areas of influence.
Due to their longer presence in West Papua, Protestant missionaries turned out to be the most successful in terms of conversion rates. For Papuans, who were considered “godless savages”, the impact was dramatic. Most local, religious values and worldviews were regarded as inconsistent with the Christian doctrine and therefore not tolerated. Over the years missionaries attempted to wipe out what they perceived as unacceptable cultural and religious customs. Where local people ‘voluntarily’ converted, local religious concepts did not vanish but rather merged with Christian beliefs and practices.
Similarly, Islam in West Papua shows local characteristics, resulting in the emergence of a highly pluralistic religious landscape. Under Dutch rule, however, this was not recognized and West Papua was given a monolithic Christian, i.e. non-Muslim identity. Christianity also became an essential component in the development of an upcoming Papuan nationalism, which has to be seen as a reaction to the annexation of West Papua by Indonesia which followed.
Consequently, religion played a role in the political argument between the Netherlands and Indonesia over West Papua. Anthropologist Danilyn Rutherford writes in “Nationalism andMillennialism in West Papua”4 about a threatening Islamization scenario spread by Dutch propagandists in order to stem pro-Indonesian sentiment. Papuans were warned that the Indonesian government would force them to convert to Islam. Although almost 90 per cent of Indonesians are Muslims, this was clearly not on the agenda of the left-leaning Sukarno regime of that time.
Thus, there was no forced conversion to Islam after West Papua became part of Indonesia in 1963, but as political discourses today clearly show, Islam continues to be a central issue. Muslims in West Papua point to the fact that Islam arrived long before Christianity. Islamic influences do indeed date back to earlier centuries, when there were contacts between the sultanates of Ternate and Tidore and particularly the Raja Ampat Islands, Fakfak and Kaimana (located in what is now Papua Barat province). Today, this long history of Islam in West Papua is most apparent in Fakfak, also referred to as Serambi Mekkah (the balcony of
Mecca), where the majority of the indigenous population are Muslims. The growing interest in the history of Islam not only reflects the significance of religion in today’s political discourses but also fuels discussions about Christianization efforts in an “originally” Islamic region.
Contrary to Dutch expectations, the Christianization process was fostered in the earlier period of Suharto’s “New Order” regime (1966-1998). Suharto introduced the policy that all Indonesian citizens had to register in one of the five state recognized world religions, i.e. Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism and Buddhism, in order not to be labelled a communist. The prescription of religion by the government marked an influential passage in the construction of religiosity in Indonesia. Christianization served Suharto’s attempt to
modernize the nation and became especially applicable to the indigenous population of West Papua, who were considered to be most “backward” and “primitive” throughout the entire Indonesian archipelago. The establishment of infrastructure by Christian organizations was therefore very much welcomed by Suharto.
In addition to his modernization policy, Suharto also pursued an extensive transmigration program, in order to resettle people from western Indonesian islands in West Papua. The increasing number of state-sponsored as well as voluntary newcomers caused many Papuans to feel overrun. The vast number of Muslim settlers and Suharto’s growing orientation towards Islam in the later period of his presidency, caused Christian Papuans to start to express concerns about what they perceived as the Islamization of West Papua. Jaap Timmer’s account of the Imyan, a group from the Bird’s Head Peninsular, contains examples of broadly shared Islamization anxieties, which are commonly articulated in conspiracy theories suspecting systematic state sponsored Islamization.
In West Papua today, religious authorities act as opinion makers and enjoy public confidence. Social organization, especially in the coastal cities, is increasingly dominated by religious networks and maintained through religious institutions, which provide their members with not only spiritual and moral guidance but also education, healthcare and other services. Religious institutions assumed a wider array of civic responsibilities over time and thereby became key players in West Papua’s civil society. Islam today follows the same expansion principles and grows through religious networks. Today, Islam can no longer be seen as a minority religion,even though some governmental statistics may suggest this. In the urban centres, both Christianity and Islam play key roles in the organization of society in West Papua.
Furthermore, it is religion that connects the local community to the wider world. Many Christian Papuans experience their local existence as being threatened by “Indonesia” (army, police, transmigrants), while religious affiliation provides an opportunity to link the “powerless” local community to a “powerful” global one. This certainly has further political implications.
How religion informs politics might best be illustrated by referring to the human rights discourse. Christian institutions became deeply involved in voicing human rights violations committed by Indonesian security forces. In 1998 the Catholic Church opened the Office for Justice and Peace in the city of Jayapura not only to respond to human rights violations but also to build a “culture of peace”. Meanwhile this initiative developed into an inter-religious dialogue. According to sociologist Theo van der Broek, “The leaders of the three main churches6 in Papua, and even over the last three years all the religious leaders sign all our human rights reports.”
Although West Papua officially has not been a military operation zone since 1998, human rights violations are nevertheless committed by the military, which is a main player in the profitable business of illegal resource extraction. Religious institutions, in turn, are viewed with suspicion by the Indonesian government as potential supporters of West Papuan independence. The recent censorship of books by the Indonesian Attorney General’s office illustrates this. Among the banned books was “The Voice of Churches for Suppressed People, Blood and God’s Tears in West Papua”, written by the chairman of the Baptist Church in West Papua, Rev. Socratez Sofyan Yoman. Such political censorship, not surprisingly, causes further religious polarization, fuelling Papuans’ fears of Islamization.
Evangelical churches are growing, particularly Pentecostal congregations. Some churches, like Bethel and Betani, are well-known for their radical views and religious intolerance, notably towards Islam. Again, this fuels the anxieties of some Muslim transmigrants, who are concerned that Papuans, if granted more rights for self-determination, may push them towards Christianity.
Muslims point to Manokwari, the city which is also known as Kota Injil (the Gospel city), to substantiate their suspicions. The specific situation in Manokwari has to be seen in the context of Indonesia’s decentralization process which has entitled local districts to issue their own legislation, including laws on religious matters. Church leaders outlined their vision of Manokwari in a March 2007 regional draft which became known nationwide as Perda Injil (the Gospel Regulation). This legislation was designed to inculcate Christian values in local society and was therefore seen as discriminatory towards the Muslim community. The Perda
Injil was, however, never implemented as such by the government of Manokwari, due to heavy criticism from Muslim and also some Christian authorities.
This essay has pointed to the significant role of religion in both the personal lives and broader public spheres of today’s West Papua. During the last decade, religious tensions between Christians and Muslims have become more visible and certain areas show a higher risk of religiously motivated clashes. The conjunction of multiple developments, such as the increase of Muslim settlers; the simplification of highly pluralistic religious fields to distinct ChristianPapuan and Muslim Indonesian sides; the emergence of radical evangelists, and the role of Christianity for Papuan nationalism, emphasizes why the religious landscape of West Papua
should not be neglected.
Christian Warta is a researcher at the Institute for Social Anthropology, Austrian Academy of Sciences, and a PhD student at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Vienna: christian.warta@oeaw.ac.at
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