Eurocentrist Colonialism in Papua New Guinea
Written by Bianca Curtin
The history of colonization in Papua New Guinea is one ripe with eurocentrism and western-based ethnocentrism, as has typically been true of colonial efforts in foreign nations. This history substantially took root in the nineteenth century, as Dutch colonists conducted trade throughout the Pacific archipelago. Slave trade was particularly prominent during this time, with over 20,000 indigenous peoples forcibly transported to locations such as Fiji and Australia’s Queensland through the year 1884. In 1889, Germany and Great Britain settled to annex the region between them, the former acquiring New Guinea as a colony and the latter declaring Papua a British Protectorate. Britain would go on to transfer rule of the territory to the newly federated nation of Australia in 1906, who would later invade German New Guinea amidst the events of World War I. It was not until 1945 that the nation assumed total control of both regions, and another four years before they united, thus becoming what we now know as Papua New Guinea. Australia’s administrative activity in the territories was, however, impaired by their systemic eurocentrism. Their ignorance in terms of the distinct cultural, natural, and socio-structural fortitude of both New Guinea and Papua produced little to no economic development.
Papuans began to demand independence in the wake of World War II, though the might of this movement was weakened by the PNGs century-long political and economic stagnation under euro-colonial rule. With a population wherein the majority was illiterate and most citizens engaged in low income occupations, nominally subsistence farming, Papuans from all over experienced little to no interaction with public officials, or government in general. Thus, feelings of nationhood and ethnocentrism were scarcely prominent, thereby mitigating the strength of pro-independence advocacy. Nonetheless, such efforts gained significant traction in the early 1970s following a sharp rise in unemployment and subsequent mass riots, self governance finally being accomplished in 1973. Papua New Guinea’s first prime minister, Sir Michael Somare, would establish the nation’s first independent government shortly thereafter in 1975 — this enormous shift fostering the beginnings of ethnocentrism among Papuans for years to come.
