2016. Today, it is 2021. The concert was 5 years ago. PNG celebrated its 46th Anniversary of freedom and sovereignty as a nation.

20,000 plus Black Brothers Home – Run Concert or West Papua for MSG Full Membership Bid enthusiasts and supporters were at the Sir John Guise Stadium that night.

They relished for good, or for worse, the nostalgia of a Papuan rock band that made a whole world noof 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, ultimately, 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?”

Read, here:https://m.facebook.com/groups/105819973102833/permalink/194378634246966/

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 hardening those 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.

(4) 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!

(5) United Liberation Movement for West Papua chairman and Interim President of the Provisional Government of Republic of West Papua issued a statement to wish Papua New Guinea and its people well in its journey ahead.

He congratulated PNG on being independent and free for 46 years thus far.

Read, here:

INTERIM PRESIDENT: THE LINE SEPERATING PNG AND WEST PAPUA WILL FALL LIKE BERLIN WALL

September 15, 2021: Happy 46th independence anniversary to Papua New Guinea. We send a message of solidarity from your brothers on the other half of New Guinea. We are there with you in spirit for this great celebration.

I know that one day all of New Guinea, from Sorong to Samarai, will celebrate true independence and enjoy God’s creation on our green island. This is our long-term dream. With one half unfree, our island is not complete.

We are one island, with one ancestor. Just because a colonial border separates us, does not mean we are destined to be apart forever. One day this artificial line will fall like the Berlin Wall, bringing our people together once more. It is my heart’s dream to see elders from each half of the island meet and watch their grandchildren dance together in peace like the Bird of Paradise.

We continue to dream of liberating the people of West Papua from tyranny, 21st colonialism imposed by the Indonesian government. You have reached your 46th year of sovereignty – we have been fighting for the last 58 years for independence and freedom.

We will pray for your celebrations and thank the forefathers who liberated PNG. On the other side of the island we still struggle for our freedom, but our forefathers have already set our destiny. Now the new generation, in West Papua and PNG, must fight to liberate the rest of New Guinea.

One day we will join these independence celebrations hand-in-hand, with the Morning Star raised alongside the PNG flag. We will stand together and celebrate together.

I wish you all the best. God bless your country. Wa wa wa.

Benny Wenda
Interim President
ULMWP Provisional Government

(Photo caption: Papua New Guinea – 46th Anniversary of freedom from colonial tutelage, transition to sovereignty and royalty kicked in following the wave of decolonisation sweeping the globe in the 1960s; Cold War – the fear of spread of communism into the Pacific triggered off US and the UN General Assembly to sacrifice the UN’s pet project called West Papua for capitalism to prevail, and a beginning of a bloody trail of human rights attrocities across the border ever since as the Indonesian occupation industry overwhelmed Papuan dreams of freedom; Heroes – the concert held by music super star David Bowie in 1987 at the Berlin Wall brought down the wall when he sang his hit song , ‘ Heroes’, the Cold War ended, and Germany united as one country; The Papuan nation – PNG and West Papua, ‘ One People, One Soul, One Nation, One Country)