The straight line from Wutung in the north, to Daru in the South, 700 kilometres long, separates indigenous Melanesian Papuan numbering 1000 in PNG, and 250, in West Papua.
The roadmap to freedom. In a nutshell:
MSG is in the process of granting full membership for West Papua.
In 2018, during the MSG leaders summit held in Port Moresby Benny Wenda was accorded head of state protocol treatment by the government of PNG.
(2) PNG is a regional player. And, the option to pursue UN General Assembly resolution on demands by Papuans for self - rule is in order as international opinion changes in favor of West Papua.
(3) In 2016, the Black Brothers Band held a concert at Sir John Guise Stadium to encourage PNG to keep going, forging the way forward, because a prosperous PNG matters to West Papua.
NCD Governor Powes Parkop who facilitated the musical band artists to be in the country is calculating the risks of gambling on a number.
The stunt seems to connect the dots in which Black Brothers and its rise happened during the Cold War met the 21st Century halfway – it was home run!
2016. Today, it is 2021. The concert was 5 years ago.
They relished for good, or for worse, the nostalgia of a Papuan rock band that made a whole world of difference to the music industry in PNG since the 1980s.
PNG celebrated its 41st Anniversary of independence. And, the Black Brothers returned as Melanesian awakening and consciousness reached home - soil.
The message was important. It was about the famous rock superstar and celebrity icon David Bowie and his message to Germans divided by the Berlin Wall to the east and west of Germany.
It was further time to confront global geopolitics, and to triumph by faith.
And, intimately, about the hope, optimism and defiance despite the odds stacked against them by the systems of the world. David Bowie and his music left behind a legacy that a man – made problem can be undone given time.
And, space.
From the 1980s onwards, the Black Brothers Band and their music united Papuans on our island to triumph by faith. The ‘New Guinea Savage' begins to see the big picture.
David Bowie, who died in the first week of January 2016, aged 69 once spoke on the issues of life, death, and fame: ‘ ‘What do I do with the time I’ve got left?”
When Bowie performed on the second night, he began by telling the crowd, in German, "We send our wishes to all our friends who are on the other side of the wall." He sang "Heroes," the song he'd recorded in Berlin a decade earlier amid the city's Cold War fear and violence.
His fame as a rock superstar and celebrity was defined by 13 songs he sang. One was the one he sang at the Berlin Wall in 1987, ‘Heroes’, an incredible story of a concert and its role in history.
The Berlin Wall was chiefly brought down by historical forces that flowed in from the east, not from the west. It was Gorbachev's reforms of the Soviet system, the decisions of a few Soviet-bloc states to edge away from Moscow's control, disarray among the East German leadership, and the actions of East Germans on the ground that ultimately shaped history.
East Berliners in the thousands came close to the wall and listened, so it was like a double concert where the wall was the division, and were heard cheering and singing along from the other side.
The violent police crackdown on the third night of the concerts were crucial in changing the mood against the state," the Guardian has written. East German authorities, by overreacting, had turned the gathering of concert listeners — people who just wanted to hear music — into a subversive political act.
A week later, US President Ronald Reagan visited West Berlin and, standing in front of the city's famous Brandenburg Gate, called on Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall."
Bowie's performance, like Reagan's speech a year later, did not determine Berlin's fate. Still, it played some role in at least hardeningthose forces of history, and causing the winds of change to blow in which hope and optimism triumph — like the lovers in Bowie's "Heroes" finally do with finding a way around the wall.
In the first week of January 2016, David Bowie passed on. West Papua and Papuan nationalists thanked him for his signature song, ‘Heroes’ that helped tear down the Berlin Wall.
Did David Bowie's Glass Spider Tour help end the Cold War?
The Pertinent Points:
(1) The fall of the Berlin Wall is one of the most notable and critical events of recent history. It lead to the end of the Soviet Union and, consequently, the end of the Cold War.
(2) And, the whole event quickly became a symbol of freedom and unification of people for the entire world.
(3) In 1987, singer David Bowie played a concert in West Berlin, near the Reichstag. It was a divided city, East and West.
Some Germans, rightly or wrongly, still view the concert as having helped change history.
(3) The performance was so loud, a massive crowd gathered on the East side of the nearby Berlin Wall to better hear his performance. He could hear the East Germans behind the Iron Curtain, singing along.
West Papua – the border is only in the mind. David Bowie and Black Brothers have the same message for humanity in Europe, and in Melanesia to triumph with faith.
Papua Tetap Merdeka!
https://asiapacificreport.nz/2021/09/16/colonial-border-between-png-and-west-papua-will-fall-like-berlin-wall/
