Public meeting: Resistance from West Papua to Chiapas
Oct 13 2005 18:32
Public Meeting: Kicking Back: Indigenous resistance from West Papua to South-East Mexico
Speakers include:
Exiled tribal leader Benny Wenda and, the author of 'One No, Many Yeses - A Journey to the Heart of the Global Resistance Movement', Paul Kingsnorth, from the 'Free West Papua' campaign and activists from the Zapatista solidarity group 'Kiptik', who do direct solidarity work in Chiapas, Southeast Mexico.
Date: Wednesday 19th October
Time: 7.30pm
Venue: Reading International Solidarity Centre, 35-39 London Street, Reading, Berks (directions are available at http://www.risc.org.uk).
This meeting is part of the Reading International Festival, taking place from 14th October - 1st November, which is being organised by Reading International Forum. For more information please see http://www.risc.org.uk
Notes:
1) West Papua is the western half of the island of New Guinea. Covered in one of the last great tropical rainforests it is home to many unique species of wildlife including tree kangaroos and beautiful birds of paradise. It is also one of the world’s most resource rich areas containing huge reserves of oil, gas, copper, gold and of course timber. The indigenous population number about 1 million Melanesian Papuans, many of whom still live subsistence or hunter gatherer tribal lifestyles. The diverse tribes of New Guinea speak some 15% of the world’s known languages! After gaining independence from Dutch control in 1961, West Papuans held their first congress and raised their flag - The Morning Star. However, by 1969, the Free Papua Movement (OPM) was born, following the brutal invasion and occupation of West Papua by Indonesia. Backed by Britain and the USA, this occupation has killed upwards of 100,000 people in West Papua and facilitated ecological destruction on a mass-scale. Throughout this time West Papuans have been fighting for their freedom - freedom from Indonesian occupation, US/UK led corporate plunder, enforced western 'development' and religious missionaries. West Papuans are fighting for their way of life, their cultures and for self-determination. "We are not terrorists! We do not want modern life! We refuse any kinds of development: religious groups, aid agencies, and governmental organisations. Just Leave Us Alone, Please!" come the demands of the OPM.
On January 1st, 1994, as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) came into effect, several thousand masked indigenous people, took over seven towns in the state of Chiapas, in the mountains of the Mexican Southeast. Calling themselves 'Zapatistas', after Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, and calling NAFTA "a death sentence" they declared themselves at war with 'Neo-liberalism' and the 'dictatorship of the market'. Their masked, pipe-smoking spokesman Subcommandante Insurgente Marcos captured the worlds attention with his poetic communiques and civil society mobilised in cities around the world in support of the Zapatistas, demanding a ceasefire. This popular pressure ended the war after 12 days, leading to peace talks - and agreements known as the San Andres Accords, as yet unfulfilled by the Mexican government. Since this time the Zapatistas have braved a US backed 'low-intensity war' in order to run their 32 autonomous rebel zones. In recent months they have been in the headlines again, beginning a process of linking up with many other diverse grassroots struggles in a move known as 'The Other Campaign'. Their radical demands for "Freedom, Democracy, Dignity and Justice", "Autonomy and a politics from below" and "a world where many worlds fit" found echoes around the world - catalysing much of what became known as the 'anti-globalisation movement'.
At this public meeting in Reading on Wednesday 19th October, speakers from the 'Free West Papua' campaign and the Bristol based Zapatista solidarity group 'Kiptik' will discuss the history to these conflicts, the major part being played by western capitalism, and what we can do in solidarity with indigenous peoples struggling for their dignity.
2) Paul Kingsnorth authored the excellent "One No, Many Yeses - A Journey to the Heart of the Global Resistance Movement", published by Free Press and available from http://www.simonsays.org.uk. He is also a former deputy editor of The Ecologist magazine. He is now involved with the Oxford based Free West Papua campaign.
3) Benny Wenda is a West Papuan tribal leader who was arrested by the Indonesian authorities and imprisoned in dire conditions due to his involvement with the OPM. He later escaped from prison and is now living in exile in Oxford, active, along with Paul Kingsnorth, with the 'Free West Papua' campaign.
4) Kiptik are a UK based solidarity group who have been working on a series of projects in the autonomous Zapatista communities of Chiapas in Southeast Mexico, since May 2000. The projects include potable water systems, provision of doctors and support for rural clinics, mural painting, media, production, music, construction and sport. They work directly at a local level with the communities, rather than with large, remote institutions, try to promote self-sufficiency by leaving skills and materials in the hands of the people in the communities and make every effort to use 'appropriate technology' solutions i.e. simple and low cost.
5) For more information please see:
RISC: http://www.risc.org.uk
Free West Papua campaign: http://www.freewestpapua.org
Kiptik: http://www.kiptik.buz.org/
Oct 14 2005 09:31
#2
The natives of Papua are an amazing people. One of the last places on earth with such incredibly primitive tribes. There' a new language spoken every few miles you travel, I once read. I still don't know how it is that the natives of New Guinea are Black but that another question. I think it is virtually inevitable that these peoples' way of life will change drastically. Among the most primitive tribes we can still see an example of the communist societies our ancestorss once lived in. We can surely learn from these folks about the global communist society we hope to establish.
Oct 14 2005 09:42
#3
alibadani wrote:
The natives of Papua are an amazing people. One of the last places on earth with such incredibly primitive tribes.
Cock.
Quote:
There' a new language spoken every few miles you travel, I once read.
Cock.
Quote:
Among the most primitive tribes we can still see an example of the communist societies our ancestorss once lived in.
Cock.
Quote:
We can surely learn from these folks about the global communist society we hope to establish.
Cock.
Oct 14 2005 09:49
#4
alibadani wrote:
I still don't know how it is that the natives of New Guinea are Black but that another question.
I think Jared Diamond has written quite a lot on this and other issues. He's done research in PNG before started writing the big books. Among other things, he says that physical differences in human populations are largely caused by social differences in what people find attractive, rather than environment, IIRC.
Oct 14 2005 09:54
#5
IT deosn't hurt to have dark skin where U.V rays are high and vice versa, But it's not just the skin, but those cool nappy afros that just seem so African.
Oct 14 2005 12:12
#6
Lazlo_Woodbine wrote:
Among other things, he says that physical differences in human populations are largely caused by social differences in what people find attractive, rather than environment, IIRC.
Yep. Sexual selection. The differences aren't just social though - while they might start out being purely social, they'll tend to magnify any genetic differences that have even the slightest effect on sexual preference, so you can end up with quite strongly genetically determined preferences.
Oct 19 2005 10:53
#7
Quote:
alibadani wrote:The natives of Papua are an amazing people. One of the last places on earth with such incredibly primitive tribes.
Cock.
Quote:
There' a new language spoken every few miles you travel, I once read.
Cock.
Quote:
Among the most primitive tribes we can still see an example of the communist societies our ancestorss once lived in.
Cock.
Quote:
We can surely learn from these folks about the global communist society we hope to establish.
Cock.
My thoughts exactly. SOmetimes there really doesn't seem any point in answering with anything of any length. I would just merely append the word 'racist' in front of each of those 'cock' exclamations.
Oct 19 2005 11:24
#8
another vote in support of the racist cock hypothesis
unless it's ern in disguise... 
(mr t is a papuan btw)
Oct 19 2005 11:40
#9
Well I'm going to this meeting - i think it sounds very interesting. So bollocks to you if you think that makes me a racist cock.
Oct 19 2005 14:37
#10
Why is alibadani being called a racist for saying that the communism of the future has much to learn from the communism of the past?
Oct 19 2005 14:41
#11
primitive communism has fuck all to teach us, it is by and large a nostalgic look back that is as credible as the club carryng wife beating neanderthal.
Oct 19 2005 14:58
#12
Whether you're interested in 'Indigenous resistance', 'primitive communism' or not it's ridiculous to call alibadani a racist and out of order to call them a cock but sadly this is normal behaviour on the libcom forums.
Oct 19 2005 15:27
#13
Maybe not racist per se, but romanticising "primitive tribes" is somewhat naive and ethnocentric, to say the very least. It's the kind of thing anthropologists of the 1940s are discredited for now.
It's not really relevant to look at non-industrial societies as a model for future communism, as it's completely unworkable in the UK. We can't live like that. Also looking at hunter-gatherers or whoever as "how we used to be" or some form of getting back to our "roots" is also balls, cos these people aren't fossils, and there is no way one could think that tribal societies in west papua or southern sudan or anywhere else has anything to do with our history or how we used to be, unless you think that every society develops in the same way across the world and non-industrial societies just haven't caught up yet. Which, I would venture, is also balls. Patronising balls.
What we can learn from "primitive communism" is different concepts of co-operation, property rights etc - but only as far as it challenges our own pre-conceptions, cos it's not realistic to apply west-papuan lifestyle to say inner city london.
Oct 19 2005 15:35
#14
That is the best post on this thread... 
This picture is also a bit worrying...
Oct 19 2005 15:35
#15
alibadani wrote:
Among the most primitive tribes we can still see an example of the communist societies our ancestorss once lived in. We can surely learn from these folks about the global communist society we hope to establish.
Um, who's ancestors? Do you think it's likely that people in the UK once lived in the same way as people live now in West Papua? Do you not think that labelling people as "primitive" is slightly problematic? Do you see these people as some kind of undeveloped living fossil?
And more to the point, what do you think we can learn from them? Do you think it plausible that west papuan ways of life can be "imported" to highly industrialised, urbanised and densely populated capitalist countries?
Not an attack, these are genuine questions.
Oct 19 2005 15:37
#16
Cheers jimmer. The anthropology department would be proud 
Oct 19 2005 16:22
#17
Ned, when did u become sucha whiney lil biatch?
The post was patronising wank you'd expect from George Monbiot not something you'd expect from a left communist.
Oct 19 2005 16:26
#18
Hey guys. I'm BLACK. Born in Nigeria (where in some parts there's a new language spoken every 10 miles btw), grew up in Senegal, been called the "N" word by white folks plenty of times. The natives of Papua look pretty black to me. Racist? How stupid is that?
Marxists have always studied primitive communism. Engels divided homo-sapien history into three phases: savagery, barbarism, and civilization. So stop bugging out over the word 'primitive'. Like I said, we (the marxists) have always studied primitive (stone-age) society, whether it's Papua, the Amazon, Eskimos, or ancient Roman accounts of the hunter-gatherers they observed in Ireland. If anything it helps explain that society isn't "naturally" class based. It helps explain the rise of class society. One can't fully understand historical materialism without this knowledge. If you actually read my statement and believe that I'm romanticising primitive communism, that I look at it as a model for the future, or that I'm racist, then your are hopeless.
I'm guessing that some anarchists studied primitive communism. It must have given them some inspiration, as it did the marxists who studied it. If this isn't the case -- and I would find that shocking-- then I understand FULLY why Marx fought so hard against your ilk back in his day.
Oct 19 2005 16:32
#19
my user name alibadani is from the Arab tradition of last names based on the city one is from. al-Ibadani. I was born in Ibadan, the largest city in West Africa. I thought of using De Ibadan or Von Ibadan as well
Oct 19 2005 16:36
#20
Quote:
Hey guys. I'm BLACK.
And? Being black does not make it impossible for you to be racist.
Oct 19 2005 16:37
#21
the fact you think that cos your black you can't hold patronising views is just absurd.
And i don't have to engage in very shakey anthropoligical studies to see the possibility of communism, i see it in a million little moments every day.
Oct 19 2005 16:58
#22
alibadani wrote:
Hey guys. I'm BLACK. Born in Nigeria (where in some parts there's a new language spoken every 10 miles btw), grew up in Senegal, been called the "N" word by white folks plenty of times. The natives of Papua look pretty black to me. Racist? How stupid is that?
Good for you. I don't think anyone was saying you were racist because you said people from papua were black. That was kinda beside the point - I would imagine the racism bit came into it due to your more-than-a-little romaniticsed views about papuans. But I didn't call you racist so I'm not going to now.
Quote:
Marxists have always studied primitive communism. Engels divided homo-sapien history into three phases: savagery, barbarism, and civilization. So stop bugging out over the word 'primitive'.
Engel's work on the three stages of human history was based almost entirely on the work of Louis Henry Morgan, who was an armchair theorist at best. And when Engels talked about savagery and barbarism, he was refering to Morgan's mostly imagined ideas about societies that may or may not have existed many, many, many moons ago. He was not talking about contemporary West Papuans. To call a modern, contemporary culture "primitive" and liken them to Engels/Morgan's fabricated cavemen is as innacurate as it is patronising.
Quote:
Like I said, we (the marxists) have always studied primitive (stone-age) society, whether it's Papua, the Amazon, Eskimos, or ancient Roman accounts of the hunter-gatherers they observed in Ireland. If anything it helps explain that society isn't "naturally" class based. It helps explain the rise of class society. One can't fully understand historical materialism without this knowledge. If you actually read my statement and believe that I'm romanticising primitive communism, that I look at it as a model for the future, or that I'm racist, then your are hopeless.
Except West Papuans are not stone aged, are they? In fact I'd venture that West Papuan society, culture etc have changed a great deal since the stone ages. They are not backward people. They develop and adapt like any other culture. It's one thing to look back nostalgically about ancient societies and use those ideas to stimulate thought about our current predicament, but it's quite another to look at modern societies as if they were some backwards, undeveloped, unsophisticated history exhibition. They're not.
What's more, the history of contemporary Britain is based on a pretty different trajectory to that of West Papua - they are not examples of how we once were.
Oct 19 2005 17:24
#23
You go girl!
Oct 19 2005 17:39
#24
Oct 19 2005 17:44
#25
Nick Durie wrote:
My thoughts exactly. SOmetimes there really doesn't seem any point in answering with anything of any length. I would just merely append the word 'racist' in front of each of those 'cock' exclamations.
How the hell is he being racist?
A racist is someone who thinks one race is superior to another. Man I hate hysterical lefties over-using that term so much that it's lost all meaning, and a fair few people are just saying, right if I'm gonna get branded a racist I'll be racist. And especially coming from you, who said you can't apply the same political standards to the struggles of brown people in the 3rd world as you do here. Kalabine I'm surprised at you joining in on this too...
Oct 19 2005 17:52
#26
Agreed, it's not racism. Ethnocentrism and romanticism perhaps but not racist in itself.
Oct 19 2005 17:53
#27
Last reply,
Quote:
Except West Papuans are not stone aged, are they?
Many tribes indeed are, or were until very recently.
Quote:
To call a modern, contemporary culture "primitive" and liken them to Engels/Morgan's fabricated cavemen is as innacurate as it is patronising.
Engels' book spoke of the Iroquios and the Aborigines in Australia. Many of the tribes in Australia were primitive at the time his book was written. It wasn't an imagined society at all. Plus Engles isn't the only Marxist to have studied primitive communism.
Your're hung up over the primitive word. You would really be upset at just about anything written by many Marxists. YOu are probably offended by Trotsky when he talks of the cultural backwardness of Russia. Those damn racist Marxists.
Quote:
but it's quite another to look at modern societies as if they were some backwards, undeveloped, unsophisticated history exhibition. They're not.
There are still isolated stone-age cultures out there. You might be unaware of this, but your lack of knowledge is not a point of argument.
Quote:
What's more, the history of contemporary Britain is based on a pretty different trajectory to that of West Papua - they are not examples of how we once were.
That's probably the most incredibly anarchist thing I've ever heard. Engels could link the primitive Iroquois society to the Europe of his time. He could understand that they give us a plethora of insights into what we were. He can see the commonality between the Aztecs and the Greeks of the Heroic age; between the Pueblo Indians and the Goths. Then again he was a Marxist. Nuff said.
Oct 19 2005 17:57
#28
man your such an idiot, do you really think tha there is no internal dynamic to those societies? That they have remained the same since the Stone age?
Oct 19 2005 17:57
#29
Nigerian anarchist group Awareness League comrades wrote African Anarchism book:
http://www.zabalaza.net/texts/african_anarchism/contents.htm
In that they also spent a lot of time looking into communist elements in tribal societies.
I take that revol & some others are against doing this kind of research? Or are you against it only when it is done in papua new guinea?
Oct 19 2005 18:00
#30
im aganst people trying to make justifications for communism by appealing to imagined golden ages and im agaisnt people trying to read off "primitive" societies to make points about human nature, benevolent or otherwise.
if there fighting against any form of development then they are fucked, simple as that. It's not something you can fight. Infact even trying to fight an outside influence is in one level assimilating to it. I'm afraid you can't turn back time.