Children go to school. The entrance (red-and-white, the colors of the Indonesian flag) leaves no doubt about their identity. The school turns them into Indonesian citizens.
From the essay: On Civilization, by Albertus Vembrianto from Timika
Papuan parents entrust their children to teachers on the assumption that their education offers them perspective for the future. They entrust it to teachers from their own culture, doctors and clergy; never to military personnel or outside officials. That mistrust is related to suffering military repression since 1962.
Schools are considered as cultural institutions of thought. The outside teachers, non-Papuans, impose on the students to live and think in a modern way, without seeking any connection with the cultural context in which these children grow up. Classrooms thus represent a world of their own, alien to them, that is not intertwined whatsoever with their daily reality.
It goes without saying for these teachers that corporal punishment is a legitimate means of keeping a rebellious or mischievous Papua child in line. After all, Papuans are ‘primitive’. This ingrained racist way of thinking has major consequences for the pedagogical and didactic educational practice in the schools in Papua. This is especially true for schools in remote inland regions. Education is seen as an instrument to purify the culture of ‘primitive’ ideas and to hammer in a new way of thinking.
