The Courage to Disarm: Why Nonviolence is the Most Radical Resistance in West Papua

In times of extreme violence, the most common human reaction is not compassion — it is silence. 

Most people, when faced with the unbearable, choose the easiest option: they turn away. They numb themselves. They scroll. They forget. They rationalize. 

Witnessing injustice and doing nothing becomes the norm in a society where violence is not only tolerated, but glorified. As Jean-Marie Muller writes in his 'Dictionnaire de la non-violence', “violence is not nourished by itself — it is nourished by its legitimization and its toleration.”

Today, the people of West Papua live under one of the most long-standing and brutal military occupations in the world. Annexed by Indonesia in 1963, West Papua has since been subjected to systematic violence — massacres, disappearances, torture, forced displacement, environmental destruction, and cultural erasure. Over half a million Papuans are estimated to have died since Indonesia's occupation began. Yet the world remains largely silent. Why?

Because violence is no longer shocking. It has been normalized, rationalized, bureaucratized, and aestheticized. It hides behind flags and constitutions. It is marketed as "security policy," "counterterrorism," or "national unity." Modern states — especially those with colonial pasts or neocolonial ambitions — have learned to package violence as virtue. Society, in turn, has learned to bow before power and accept violence as a necessary tool of order.

The first act of nonviolence is to refuse this lie.

Nonviolence is not passivity. It is not resignation. It is not weakness. It is a political, ethical, and strategic refusal to imitate the behavior of the oppressor. It is a discipline of resistance, forged through moral clarity and tactical intelligence.

As Gandhi wrote, “Nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction.” His message was clear: nonviolence is not about doing nothing. It is about doing everything differently — with courage, with conscience, and with the deep belief that our means must reflect our ends.

In West Papua, where the Indonesian regime has spent more than sixty years justifying its colonial violence in the name of national unity, nonviolence is the most subversive weapon imaginable.

To react to state violence with armed rebellion may seem justifiable to many. After all, how can one resist tanks, bullets, and soldiers without force? Yet history teaches us that violent resistance — however understandable — often leads to more repression, more blood, more chaos. Worse, it gives the enemy precisely what it needs: a reason to strike harder. A narrative of “terrorism.” A justification for more war.

This is not a moralistic plea to be pure or pacifist. It is a strategic imperative. As Muller insists, "nonviolence is not the opposite of struggle — it is the most demanding form of struggle."

Indeed, West Papua has known many forms of resistance — diplomatic, cultural, spiritual, educational, and yes, armed. But in a world addicted to militarism and spectacle, what truly terrifies empires is not more war — it is peace with dignity. It is the image of an oppressed people who refuse to stoop to the level of their oppressors. Who dismantle the enemy’s ideology by exposing its brutality and hollowness.

The Jakarta regime is afraid of nonviolence. That is why it criminalizes peaceful protests. That is why Papuan students are imprisoned for waving a flag. That is why journalists are banned from the region. That is why songs, poems, and paintings become subversive acts.

Because in the face of raw military power, the refusal to hate becomes revolutionary.

To be nonviolent in West Papua today is to be radically defiant.

It is to say:

— We will not become what you want us to become.

— We will not let you define our struggle.

— We will not surrender our humanity to win our freedom.

This requires immense courage. As Muller reminds us, “nonviolence is not born of cowardice. It is born of conscience.” In fact, Gandhi once said: “If I had to choose between cowardice and violence, I would choose violence. But if I have the choice between violence and nonviolence, I choose nonviolence without hesitation.”

Violence is easy. It flatters our rage. It gives us the illusion of power. But it also traps us in the logic of domination. Nonviolence, on the other hand, is slow, demanding, and often painful. It forces us to dig deeper — not just to defeat an enemy, but to transform ourselves. And to build a world where dignity does not depend on the barrel of a gun.

So what does nonviolence look like in West Papua?

It looks like Papuan students occupying university halls, refusing to move.

It looks like elders teaching children the banned histories of their land.

It looks like international campaigns exposing arms deals and mining contracts.

It looks like marches, art, diplomacy, and truth-telling.

It looks like a people who say: “You can kill our bodies, but not our spirit.”

To resist with guns may feel heroic. But to resist without hatred is harder — and more revolutionary.

In a world where the arms trade is booming, where France sells weapons to Indonesia even as millions of Indonesians starve, where the media covers celebrities while ignoring Papuan genocide — choosing nonviolence is to swim against the current of history. It is to declare: we will not die your death. We will live our truth.

Let this be our call:

Let us delegitimize all ideologies that justify violence.

Let us expose all empires that profit from suffering.

Let us honor the martyrs not by imitating violence, but by surpassing it.

Justice is not given — it is won. But let us win it with means that are worthy of the world we want to build.

Because there can be no peace without justice, and no justice without struggle.

But above all, there can be no true struggle without conscience.