Fire away

Australians are so used to thinking of our closest neighbour as Papua-New Guinea that we forget that the western part of that island (West Papua) is actually one of the many provinces of Indonesia.
Indeed so bad are we at geography that we also forget that Indonesia is not a single land mass at all, but rather a federation of island states.
All islands have a sense of their autonomy....we could mention Tasmania, Thursday Island, Norfolk Island and our own Kangaroo Island and recognise that, too different degrees, they see their own uniqueness and have, often, a different sense of their destiny than a centralist government might posess.
So when West Papuans land on our doorstep claiming to be refugees (see here) we need to recognise a number of things:

• there are competing understanding about the status of these people
• there is a huge political imperative to not alienate our largest near neighbour, Indonesia
• there is a popular belief that we will do the right thing and that we will always strive for justice
• these things are not necessarily compatible!

So at the very least we need to exercise a little patience and try and not go off half-cocked. This needs time to be worked through, and not impulsiveness.
I feel I want to say more, but some howit would be wrong to do so.

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