I am sitting in a tiny Suzuki minibus front passenger seat,
with its window open to allow air to come in.
It is humid in the old cranky car with no air-con; and without the air
from outside, I would have been sweat-baked in no time. So the dusty breeze blowing on my face was
the better option.
Despite this simple, time-worn public transport, the ride is
quite enjoyable. It is my second time to
be in Sorong, Papua, but this is the first time for me to stay for more than
just a day. So I have the chance to get
to know the city a bit better.
Sorong is a small town full of life. I can imagine massive coastal cities like Mumbai
or Singapore were once like Sorong before they became a city everyone wants to
go to and eventually the metropolitans that they are. A strip of road thread the coast, linking the
tiny airport in the east and the small sea port in the west, all within a 10
minutes ride. Along the way I see little
businesses from hawkers selling fresh sea food to mom and pop retail shops to
small distributors of building materials.
I see a large, nicely designed blue-white
mosque prominently standing not far from the port. I see a couple of signs of “buddhist vihara”
as I pass by a bit further to the west.
I see a few newly built hotels, all of them hanging red colored lantern
with some chinese characters at their front porch (it’s coming close to Chinese
new year). I finally stop in front of a
row of coconut vendors, all of them women of the local tribe. The coconuts, large and freshly picked, were
laid out invitingly. I and my three
colleagues that came with me from Jakarta spent a good half an hour enjoying
the delicious fruit.
I am enjoying this little town, where many things coexist
promisingly in one strip of road. It’s a
land that has been transformed into a small town no longer than 25 years ago. From the perspective of the indigenous people,
many has changed, many migrants from all over Indonesia have made the town
their home. Yet if we look at the women
selling the coconuts by the sea, we will be reminded that it’s the land of the Mooi
tribe of Papua.
“Mooi people are open minded people” my business partner mentions as we sit
together in the tiny poblic transport. He
himself is not a local. He came from the
city of Surabaya as a business migrant, one of the seemingly many who came more
than 15 years ago, when the town began to grow. “Unlike some of the other tribes that live in
this town, the Mooi people are welcoming and are willing to learn something new”,
he continued.
I had the chance to meet a few Mooi people a few days
earlier as I spent three full days at the cargo port, taking care of my
business. I did not have the chance to talk to them very much, as they were busy
working, unloading my cargo from a few containers at the port. Frankly, I can’t tell the Mooi people from
the other tribes that have settled in Sorong too; but I know some of them are.
I am in Sorong because I am expanding my business here. To do so I have to find a local partner, and
we managed to find one before we came.
In the last 3 days my colleagues and I had to train and supervise him
and his crew at the port. Everything
went well thanks to him and my colleaugues who did a good preparatory
work. Our partner was well prepared, well
supported by the local workers, fully dedicated and quick to learn. We finished the work well within the
timeframe we planned for and left the port feeling excited for the possibility
to do more business in Sorong again in the future. My skin is noticably darker
than it was when I arrived. That’s what
you got if you stand under the sun at the port for 3 full days.
Back in Jakarta, it is very easy to have negative
perceptions or be intimidated by the land of the Papua, the farthest province
from the capital. People tend to talk
about the bad things that happened here, and the media only makes it worse as
they report only the sensational bad things.
So it is very heartwarming to hear my business partner say
that the town of Sorong has become what it is thanks to the openness of the Mooi
people. The many migrants that are
working and living in Sorong came from all backgrounds, from the island of Sumatra,
Java to the island of Sulawesi. From the presence of the large mosque, I can
imagine a fairly strong population of muslim people who may have come from Java
and Sulawesi. From a couple of budhist vihara that I saw, I learned that there are also a fairly
established buddhist community in town. There
is also the christian influence that came from the Dutch occupation earlier in
the 20th century. Sorong is a small cosmopolitan, a town that is not
only rich with natural resources, but also with an exciting mix of cultures and
background.
However this town is not spared from the many troubles that
are happening as the modern life entered.
There most common talk in town is the wars that are often happening
between the tribes. There are different
tribes who have settled around the town of Sorong, co-existing with the local
Mooi tribe. Time and again, tension
flared among them, and hostility lead to another level of hostility. The fights are often violent and
destructive. A local supermarket was
recently vandalized badly during one of the wars. I asked the public transport driver how often
does this happen, and he told me “often”.
Related to this is problem is the serious pandemic of intoxication
and poor state of being of the native people.
Some of the immigrants I talked to perceive this as a problem of the
native Papua people, who are often branded as lazy and addicted to alcohol and
drugs. But I refuse to believe this; I
refuse to believe that a certain race is more “prone to alcoholism” or more
lazy than others. The Papua people got
into this problem because of something has happened to them in the past;
something unjust, something that violently took them out from the lives they
know and comfortable with. The fact that
the problem worsens is only a testament that the cause of the problem is
getting stronger, not weaker.
I don’t have to search very deep to find similar problems
everywhere else. Just look at the
displaced aborigines community in Australia, who also struggle with
alcoholism, violence, drug abuse, lack of education and poor living
condition. Or look at the native
american communities who struggle with the same things in the american
continent.
We have to face it: modernization and migration that
violently displace the indigenous people, make them worse off from their
earlier lives and ignorantly dismiss their problems are not good progress. It is no different than looting at the
grandest scale. It is colonization at the highest and most shameful degree. It is happening right now, and worsening every day. Just because the indigenous people do not go to the media to scream and shout about it does not mean the problem does not exist.
To be continued…
