Giving West Papua Its Own Voice

http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/lifeandtimes/giving-west-papua-its-own-voice/470491

October 09, 2011

John Waromi, who says he is deeply concerned about the current situation in Papua, often addresses the tension between West Papua and the Indonesian state in his poems.

John Waromi hands me his collection of unpublished poems, its title “Sulur-Sulur Sali” handwritten on the cover. I flick through the pages, read some lines at random and feel that emotional charge you get from reading good poetry.

A fresh and authentic voice in contemporary Indonesian verse, John is a 51-year-old Serui man from the islands south of Biak, West Papua. He writes in Indonesian, using words from indigenous Papuan languages as he sees fit. “Sulur-Sulur Sali,” John said, referred to the lengths of grass used to make Papuan highlander women’s frocks.

“The sali [grass skirt] has special significance in Papuan cultures I use the word [in the book’s title] as an expression of love and respect for women,” he said one morning in Depok from underneath the wood-stilt house of his friend, the musician Sawung Jabo.

“These poems are my contemplations after living in Jayapura for the past decade. I arrived back in Jayapura not long after the murder of [Papuan separatist leader] Theys Eluay. A few days later I was beaten up by a joint military-police ‘social control’ operation. I was hurt quite badly, had broken bones and internal injuries.

“An American news service ran my story, which helped my case and probably helped stop those ‘social control’ operations. From then on, I began to rethink my relationship with the Indonesian state. I never thought I would be beaten up by the Indonesian military. There is something wrong going on in Papua.”

John left Papua to join a theater troupe founded by the renowned Indonesian poet W. S. Rendra. “I joined Bengkel Teater in 1987, when we were performing a masked show of Sophocles’ ‘Oedipus the King,’ ” he said. “We performed all over Indonesia and even toured New York, Tokyo and Korea.”

Sawung Jabo, a member of the troupe, described John as a “dedicated student. He has studied the traditions of Javanese poetry and now applies that knowledge in his work from Papua. This makes his poems particularly interesting.”

In his life as a poet, John has been invited to the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival in Bali and the WordStorm Northern Territory Writers’ Festival in Darwin, Australia. Now, poetry has once again led him away from home, this time “stranding” him in Jakarta. Airfares from Papua to Java are not cheap, and John’s financial reality as a poet doesn’t allow him to travel at will.

“I might be rather masochistic,” he said, explaining why he doesn’t find a “proper job.” “But I need the time and freedom to absorb life in Papua, for my poetry. My poetry keeps me in touch with reality.”

Last July, John left Jayapura for Bali to attend a literary event. There, a Jakarta publisher expressed his intent to publish “Sulur-Sulur Sali,” so John went with the man back to the capital and then to his publishing house in Yogyakarta.

At the last moment, however, the businessman confessed he could not afford to fund the project. Undeterred, John approached the poetry editor of a national broadsheet, but he was told “his older poems were better.”

John makes tea from water boiled on a makeshift wood stove, stirs in his sugar and says, “Perhaps my poems were not good enough. I take his rejection as positive criticism.” To cheer him up, I ask him to quote a few lines from his unpublished book: “Because we were innocent/ You labeled us/ A naked and primitive people/ But those were your words/ For in truth, we still had our customs/ Laws and self-respect,” he recites.

These lines are part of a longer poem written last year titled “Pernyataan Peradaban,” or “Statement of a Civilization.” The poem is an eloquent critique of the relationship between West Papua and the Indonesian state.

While acknowledging that Papuans and other Indonesians share some aspirations, John’s poem questions Indonesia’s capability to develop a just and prosperous society. The poem ends with an oath: “In the name of the Sky and the Earth/ In the name of the souls of the ancestors/ In the name of the souls of the fighters/ In the name of the souls of my mother and father/ I want to bring prosperity to my people/ Standing on my own land and waters.”

The “land and waters” mentioned here are referred to in the original by the term “tanah-air,” which is a uniquely Indonesian term for “motherland.” John’s use of Indonesian is influenced by the training he received from Rendra, including more than a decade of practicing the traditional spiritual exercises taught him by the Javanese poet. The purpose of all of that, John said, was to make the poet capable of voicing the spirit of his time, to safeguard the spirit of the people. John also practices “white crane” pencak silat, an Indonesian martial art to which Rendra introduced him.

In his poetry, it is clear that John’s years of training have borne fruit in developing the voice of a Papuan-Indonesian poet. But while the tensions between West Papua and the Indonesian state are strong themes for him, John said he is not anti-Indonesia.

“I like Sukarno,” he said, referring to Indonesia’s first president, “because he sent clever volunteers to Papua. But Suharto sent us peasants and petty traders who found it hard to survive in Papua, let alone help us develop it into a just and prosperous society. With transmigration and militarism, all was destroyed.”

John expressed deep concern about the current situation in Papua. “We are moving toward uncertainty,” he said. “Granting the region special autonomy was a tokenistic response, made without thorough contemplation. Papua’s independence must be discussed in a context that is suitable!” He used the Indonesian word wajar, meaning fair, normal or natural.

“This means that we must look objectively at its history. Look at Freeport [gold mine] — it signed its working contracts in 1967, when the legal status of Papua was still unclear. The Act of Free Choice in 1969 was also legally flawed,” he said, referring to the much-criticized referendum in which only about 1,000 Papuan representatives, handpicked by the Indonesian military, lifted their hands in the presence of UN observers in agreement to relinquish their sovereignty and join the Indonesian state.

Though John touches on political issues, not all of his poetry is expressly political. The social issue of alcohol poisoning in Papua is addressed passionately in his poem “Doa di Taman” (“Prayer in the Park”), dedicated to his friend Frengky Ireuw, who died drinking locally made liquor: “The midnight man/ Caresses one by one/ Downs one by one/ The contents of plastic bottles/ A substitute for wine and saguer.”

The character described in the poem — with his dusty dreadlocks, blue jeans and black singlet with an image of Che Guevara printed across the chest — ends up dead after “walking drunkenly, finally kneeling like Christ in the garden.” References to John’s Christian faith, which he sees as a continuation of indigenous beliefs and values, is another common element throughout his work. “I thirst and weep,” he writes. “Then I laugh/ For Christ has/ Escaped from prison.”

Much of John’s writings are still far from being published, despite increasing recognition of his talent in literary circles and through his appearances at writers’ events. A children’s book he wrote based on Papuan myths and legends will soon be published by the Saritaksu Foundation in Bali. But for those who want to read John’s poetry, aside from selected works soon to be put out online, there is only the homemade anthology he holds in his hand

ENDS

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