The dark skin and the position of the edge can remind the African American BLM movement in my mind, and naturally I can connect to the hip hop music culture. From the political context of geopoliticality and identity, we can also understand why dancers from Wamena, a mountain village in Papua, Indonesia, and then move to the coastal town of Fakfak, the capital Chayapra wear Melanesia T-shirts, and why they say "Hip-hop originated from Papua".
Indonesian choreographer Jecko Siompo creates Animal Pop dance that combines traditional dance, hip-hop, ballet , modern dance and simulates animal body movements. On the show "Leed Road 2", Jecko shared his life experience of growing up from a village in Papua Province, eastern Indonesia and then learning dance at the Jakarta Academy of Arts, but the most impressive one was the words "MELANESIAN" on his black T-shirt.
In geography textbooks, we knew very early that the Pacific Ocean "bounded by the equator and the 180-degree longitude" can be divided into three major island groups: Melanesia (Black Island), Micronesia (Small Island), and Polynesia (Double Island).
However, why does a dancer from Indonesia have the words "Melanesia" area in the Pacific?
In fact, Jecko has played this kind of game that manipulates geographical location meaning long ago. At the 2011 Melbourne International Arts Festival, he published the dance code "We Came from the East" for the first time, and boldly declared in an interview that "hip-hop actually originated from Papua", transcending the recognized birthplace of New York, the United States.
combined with the clues of "Melanesia", "Papua" and "hip hop", today we are going to explore how contemporary hip-hop music culture crosses the boundaries, connects Melanesian identity, and produces new geographical ideals.
But before such a discussion, we must first understand the complexity of Papua geopolitical , that is, the still-hot independence movement of Jecko's hometown "West Papua", and Indonesia's attempt to enter the Pacific island country with the connection between Melanesia.
1
Return to a OceaniaRegister the regional geography course
The concept of the three major partitions of the Pacific was mainly laid out in the paper published by the French navigator J.-S.-C Dumont d'Urville in 1832. From the beginning, this distinction method was not only based on the significance of natural geographical , but was based on the Western racial theory at that time and the subjective evaluation and arbitrary distinction of the external morphology of "indigenous". In this framework, Melanesia, with Australia and Papua New Guinea as its core, not only has dark skin, weak constitution, and relatively simple social organization, but is in an evolutionary lower position compared to Micronesia and Polynesia. It is this racist tradition that has led to the continued voice of the academic community to abandon the three major partition concepts since then.
However, in reality, the three major partitions are gradually embraced by the Pacific island countries, becoming an element of integrating their historical experience, cultural identity and contemporary bureaucratic organizations. For example, the Samoa , Tonga , and the Native Hawaiian Immigration Youth Association in the United States call each other "Poly", and in terms of regional organizations, there are successively the emergence of " Melanesian Spearhead Group", "Polynesian Leaders Group", and "Micronesian Presidents' Summit", emphasizing their own internal particularities.
In fact, there is a fourth area in Dumont d'Urville's partition framework: " Malaysia ", which is now the Southeast Asian island. He observed that the Malays and Polynesians have high similarities in language, skin color, and body shape, and inferred that the two have a kinship relationship, so they are similar in evolutionary order.
Its relationship with its neighboring Melanesia has a clear boundary. It can be traced down from west of Waigeo (Waigeo, located in West Papua Province, Indonesia) to east of the Aru Islands (part of Maluku Province, Indonesia). However, if you look closely, the border between Melanesia and the islands Southeast Asia is actually more vague than Dumont d'Urville's perception.
From the perspective of biogeography, the difference between the two can be roughly divided by the Wallace line between ancient Sunda and Shahu continent. However, since prehistoric, the island group near this line has been influenced by the ecological environment and social and cultural forces of the island blocks of Asia and New Guinea. In particular, the Moluca Islands, Timor-Leste , the Aru Islands and other places contain various elements from different degrees from physique to language on the east and west sides, which also makes Melanesia outlined by Dumont d'Urville the possibility of overflowing into Southeast Asia.
In the contemporary geopolitical situation, this ambiguity has a lot of room for operation. Indonesia can participate in activities in the Pacific Melanesian region with the Melanesian elements of its eastern provinces, such as the Melanesian Pioneer Group Conference and the four-year Melanesian Art and Culture Festival. In 2015, it even hosted a "Melanesian Festival" in East Nusa Tenggara Province. This has also become an important foundation for Indonesia's Pacific Elevation foreign policy in 2019.
But this is also a double-sided blade. For example, East Timor , which officially broke away from Indonesia in 2002, has the construction of nationalist that emphasizes Melanesian identity that is different from Indonesia.
2
Melanesia problem in Indonesia
Indonesia actually has a bigger Melanesia problem that needs to be solved, that is, "West Papua" obtained from Netherlands in 1962, and since 2002 and 2003, it has been classified as Papua and West Papua respectively.
Currently there is about 5.4 million people, as well as abundant natural resources including the world's largest gold mine Grasberg and palm oil , natural gas , spices, and forests, are now firmly controlled by the Indonesian government. But West Papuans believe that this place has never been part of Indonesia, and in terms of language, religion, diet and physical appearance, they are all incompatible with the Indonesian nationality and mainstream social culture formed in the "New Order" period.
West Papua coast tribes, especially the Austronesian Biak ethnic group, have historically closely interacted with the Sultanate of the Moluca Islands. Inland, such as the Papuan-speaking Dani people, they remain in a considerable degree of isolation from the outside world, like the central mountainous areas of Papua New Guinea.
1660 Dutch East India Company recognized Tidore's sovereignty over New Guinea island , and took advantage of the situation to include West Papua in its sphere of influence. After 1828 and 1848, the north and south parts of West Papua were officially annexed by the Netherlands, but they were never effectively controlled.
After the Second World War , Indonesia broke away from the Netherlands in 1949, but West Papua continued to be ruled by the Netherlands. It was not until 1962 that it was agreed to allow Indonesia to take over the management by United Nations through an agreement. In a very controversial referendum led by the Indonesian military in 1969, 1,025 West Papua representatives unanimously agreed to continue to rule Indonesia.
Around the same time, the Free Papua Movement (Organisasi Papua Merdeka) also waved the "morning star flag" and began to break out with the Indonesian military, but it has not ended yet. Brigadier General I Gusti Putu Danny Karya Nugraha, the head of the Indonesian military's intelligence unit in Papua, was ambushed and killed.
In 2014, several different independent movement organizations established the formal organization "United Liberation Movement for West Papua" in Vanuatu , headed by Benny Wenda, who was exiled in the UK.But they did not go smoothly when applying to join the Melanesia Pioneer Group and still have only the status of an observer.
Vanuatu can be said to be a supporter of the West Papua independence movement in Melanesia, while other countries such as Papua New Guinea and Fiji embrace Indonesia due to different international real interests.
Compared with West Papua's failure to join the formal regional organization, Indonesia obtained the status of "observer" of Melanesia Pioneer Group in 2011, and further qualified as an "associate member" in 2015.
But in terms of governance of West Papua, the Indonesian government can be said to have a bad record. The military and police used various repressive measures to deal with local residents, demonstrators and so-called "rebels", and related violent news continues to be reported. According to the Independent Movement Organization's own report, 500,000 locals have died in Indonesia's "genocide" massacre, as well as large-scale displacement caused by imprisonment, arrests, freedom restrictions and forced migration.
In addition, Indonesia continues the internal migration policy of the Dutch colonial government, moving the population from Java, a denser area to a relatively large and sparsely populated place like Papua. In West Papua Province, Javanese has become the majority of local ethnic groups. Joko Vidodo After President came to power, he strengthened the development of infrastructure in West Papua and invested a lot of money and manpower, but accompanied by tougher public security maintenance.
Recently, Indonesia has a new administrative region plan, which will divide the entire West Papua into five provinces (Papua, South Papua, Middle East Papua, Central West Papua, and West Papua Daya), which is also considered a "dividing and conquer" strategy.
In terms of medical development, West Papua has not improved significantly. This is the worst hit in Indonesia during the epidemic, with more than 50,000 cases so far. The fear and distrust of the Indonesian government also hindering the vaccine. These situations are emphasized by the West Papua independence movement, and we also hope that Melanesia's connection can arouse the attention of "allies" in the Pacific and Indonesia.
3
Hip Hop Melanesia
Inspired by the 2020 US Black Lives Matter movement, the West Papuan Independence Movement has also instigated the Papuan Live Matters movement online, which is a very special case in the actions of responding to BLMs everywhere around the world.
Papuan population has become a powerful imaginative link here compared to Indonesians, and has also made the "race" oriented to be placed in a distinct position in the independence movement. Interestingly, the essential "Papua" was liberated because of "Melanesia", which created more opportunities for connection.
This campaign participants are mainly young students from all over Indonesia, including the capital Jakarta . In fact, in 2019 students have participated in a large Papua protest. Most of them are Indonesian teenagers from Eastern provinces and recognized by "Indonesia Timur". They even began to embrace the identity of "Melanesia" and have a critical attitude towards Indonesia's national identity and policies. The West Papua independence movement is naturally also the focus of its attention.
There are dance comments point out that Jecko Siompo's dance code actually contains potential signals that flip the relationship between Indonesia and Papua. For example, "monkey" is a racial discriminatory word that is often used to refer to Papuan . However, in his dance philosophy, Jecko emphasizes Papua's animality more and connects it with hip-hop, breaking the dichotomy between contemporary and traditional, advanced and backward, and humans and animals.
In the field of rap music, we can see that the energy recognized by "Melanesia" is fully exerted.Taking the single "Melanesia" sung by Australian reggae singers Jagarizzar, Yung Yanny and J-Lee in 2011 as an example, scholars Michael Webb and Camellia Webb-Gannon proposed the concept of "Music Melanesianism", believing that contemporary Melanesia is no longer an identity politics dominated by political elites and tribalism, but has a strong modern social outlook and discrete community network, connecting the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, New Caledonia and even West Papua, Torres Strait Islanders, and express it in mixed music language forms such as pop music, reggae, and rap.
In Cairns, Australia (Cairns), a hip-hop party called Rock the Boat in 2013 was an excellent case. This event was mainly called for and invited local rappers, Brisbane and Melbourne . The big ship on the poster was filled with the West Papua Morning Star Flag, as well as the flags of Australian Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders. The image of Melanesia's overseas unity is very conspicuous.
In the rap community in Indonesia, I have also begun to observe similar new developments. Recently, a club called "Melanesian Hip-Hop Of Javanese (Yk)" appeared on Facebook. In the introduction, it claimed to be an organization established in Yogyakarta in 2014, aiming to connect rappers from East Indonesia such as the Moluca Islands, Ambon , East Nusa Tenggara, and Papua.
has 6 MV works in their oil pipe account, the most special of which is "For NTT", which is warmly singing for the local people who were affected by floods in April this year. From this we can see that they attach great importance to actual social actions. In March this year, they also planned to hold a hip-hop performance in Yogyakarta, aiming to raise funds for discrete refugees in Nduga and Intan Jaya in Papua Province, but were cancelled by the Indonesian government based on epidemic prevention considerations.
In addition to this Yogyakarta-based super organization, Me(LA)Nation from Jayapra, the capital of Papua, is also an extremely distinctive example. They have two works circulating in the YouTube channel. Among them, the song "Hello" was filmed in the forest of the mountain waterfall, and female dancers were decorated with Papua mountain communities (such as Dani culture). The language was mixed with English and Papua Malay in the local dialect. They consciously pursued the meaning of Melanesian not only in recognition but in further language and culture.
In addition, these local rappers closely interact with singers who moved to Papua from other Eastern provinces, and if they go to Jakarta or Banglong to study or work, they will also establish new cooperative relationships. Indonesian CNN produced a special report on "Hip Hop Papua" in 2019, but maybe "Hip Hop Melanesia" can capture such a spirit better.
From this, looking back at the three major partitions of Dumont d'Urville, although in the contemporary context, there are certainly geopolitical influences brought by local elites and bureaucratic organizations, these forces cannot completely swallow up the networks extended by grassroots or discrete communities with concrete actions or imagination. Especially in the exhibition of music and art, we can see many links beyond essentialism in the border areas of the three major divisions, such as the revival of music and dance of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) is stirred by Latin American culture, the roots of Hawaiian and Tahitian dance culture in Japan, the intersection of Philippine and Polynesian immigrants in the United States due to the historical status of colonialism.
Perhaps the "imagined community" is a more ideal way to understand the "three major divisions" or "South Island" of the Pacific, but any narrow nationalism and regionalism will definitely be challenged in this.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-