Guest host of The Score, Nana Owusu, is joined in-studio by Cyndi Makabory, a West Papuan-born youth activist and lawyer from the tribes of Waropen & Biak, currently living in Naarm. As a young girl, she grew up flying the Morning Star flag whilst sitting on the shoulders of her mum, a staunch West Papuan activist and independence leader living in exile. Resistance is in her blood.

Cyndi discusses the Indonesian occupation of West Papua and the global movement for a free West Papua. Cyndi shares how colonial violence, media blackouts, land grabbing, political repression and human rights violations are killing and displacing Indigenous West Papuans. Cyndi emphasises West Papua's connection to First Nations struggles in so-called Australia, Palestine, Kanaky, Sudan, Congo and beyond.

In January 2006, 43 West Papuan asylum seekers arrived by boat in so-called Australia. Cyndi breaks down the significance of this moment and Australia's complicity in the oppression of West Papuans. Cyndi also discusses Kal Angam-Kal, a project that brings together West Papuan Elders and young people from Naarm through youth-led intergenerational interviews. Kal Angam-Kal is a proverb in the Indigenous language of the Amungme tribe of Timika, West Papua, meaning “the word has been spoken out.” 

Nana and Cyndi end their conversation by reflecting on global Blackness, the beauty of Melanesian cultures and stories, and building solidarity between oppressed peoples on unceded, Aboriginal land. 

“We’re less than 250km from the top of so-called Australia and ordinary Australians don’t hear about what’s happening to their next-door neighbour.”

Keep up with Free West Papua Australia here.

Image Credit: Cyndi.