The Papuans Quotes

“For tens of thousands of years, Papuan ancestors survived earthquakes, floods, droughts, tribal wars, disease, famine and death without waiting for a rescue from above, from distant kingdoms or foreign governments. They crossed mountains, rivers, forests and swamps, generation after generation, not because someone came to save them, but because they took responsibility for their own survival. Survival was always a responsibility, never a gift.”
― Yamin Kogoya, The Papuans: Being Papuan and Papuan Being

“The Papuan people were first conceptualised as an object of knowledge, and then transformed into an object of governance.”
― Yamin Kogoya, The Papuans: Being Papuan and Papuan Being

“The history of the Papuans is not just about what was done to them. It is also the story of how the concept of 'Papuan' was created, given meaning, spread through institutions and turned into a framework through which Papuans could be seen, understood, governed and acted upon.”
― Yamin Kogoya, The Papuans: Being Papuan and Papuan Being

“In a colonised world, domination does not begin with the occupation of land. It begins with the occupation of appearance. The coloniser does not merely seize territory; they take control of the stage on which reality is presented. They reshape the world until conquest appears as civilisation, domination as order, extraction as development, violence as security, possession as legitimacy and power as virtue. He dresses himself as morality. He presents himself as civilisation. He presents himself as progress. He builds monuments, institutions, roads, churches, schools, parliaments, armies and cities that all silently proclaim the same message: 'We belong at the centre of the world.”
― Yamin Kogoya, The Papuans: Being Papuan and Papuan Being

“A Papuan child is born into meanings that predate him. Before he can speak, he is classified; before he can define himself, he is forced into a world; before he can give consent, he is governed; and before he can explain himself, he is judged.”
― Yamin Kogoya, The Papuans: Being Papuan and Papuan Being

“Being Papuan is not just about having a different identity, It is to enter the world through a different condition of existence — one in which the body, land, history, future, suffering and death are all understood differently. Being Papuan is therefore a condition imposed on existence by how the world sees and treats Papuans. Papuans do not simply experience the world; Papuans experience a world that has already interpreted defined them, classified them.”
― Yamin Kogoya, The Papuans: Being Papuan and Papuan Being