From Colonial Order to Decolonial Future: Colonial Mimesis and Identity among the Papua Besena Movement

During the 1970s and 1980s, a nationalist movement called Papua Besena emerged in Papua New Guinea. On the one hand, the group believed that the Papuan people were neglected by Australian colonisation and campaigned for Papuan sovereignty, either by creating an independent state or joining Australia as a state. On the other hand, as some scholars and politicians have pointed out, Papua Besena's rhetoric of colonial neglect failed to appreciate that Papuan people received more investment in colonial economic development, training, and infrastructure than most Papua New Guineans due to their proximity to the colonial centre. The Australian colonisation of the territories also changed due to pressure from the United Nations visiting mission. Yet despite the Papuan people's access to development, they still felt neglected and humiliated being so close to the colonial centre. To answer this paradox, the concept of mimesis, particularly the idea of colonial mimicry and mimesis as a source of identity, might shed new light on the political history and consciousness of Papuans. This paper suggests that Papuans' access to space, training, and positions was restricted in and around Port Moresby. Many Papuans took up the colonial moral order and mimicked the colonial perspective visible in the capital, projecting it into their decolonial future and their relationships with New Guineans and Australia. In other words, the Papuans' proximity to the colonial space and process contributed to their experiences of neglect and their identity simultaneously.