Peaceful Societies

Facebook and the Buid society in the Philippines both have peaceful cultures based on a surprisingly similar approach to interpersonal relationships. They both foster indirect communication. The comparison is easy to explain.

Many people compare socializing on Facebook to having a “water cooler conversation.” There is even a group page in FB with that name. A Google search for “water cooler conversation” AND Facebook yields about 80,000 results. But the analogy is inexact.

Yes, people send messages to select groups, or to single individuals, and of course we have online chats at times. But most people direct their comments to their entire group of “friends”— scores, hundreds, or thousands of them. “I gave my dog a bath this morning.” Maybe someone will care. The banality of a lot of the postings is part of the charm of the whole phenomenon. How many of the 575 “friends” really care about the suds, or the pooch? It doesn’t really matter.

The peaceful aspect of the social networking process is the fact that so many of those messages are NOT, in fact, directed at specific individuals. They are sent to the entire, undifferentiated group. Everyone can read them—or not. No one has to answer. Some click “like”, most don’t; some comment, most don’t. All of that is OK within the social networking world. And it is amazingly similar to the approaches of many of the peaceful societies. In fact, for a lot of the nonviolent peoples, talking to groups rather than individuals is one of their more important strategies for maintaining harmony.

There is something about the direct request, the direct comment, the direct action, that may raise the possibility of irritation in some listeners. Perhaps they should be called “sensitive” peaceful societies—groups of people who are fearful that something an individual does, or says, may cause offense. Indirection is the name of the game among those folks. Individuals will laugh a lot, keep conversations light, and approach issues with others without directly coming to the point, by dropping hints, which the other people may guess at and respond to—or not. Replies are equally indirect.

A good case in point is the Buid, also spelled Buhid, a society in the mountains of southern Mindoro Island that is sensitive to one-on-one, dyadic relationships to an extreme. In their communities, people often address comments to a group, or sometimes to a distant mountain, so that no one individual is put on the spot, no one has to answer. If requests are unanswered, so what? No one is hurt and peaceful relations are maintained. That is the overriding concern of that society.

Facebook society is strangely similar. People make comments broadly to big groups of friends who may or may not reply, as they feel so moved. This pattern contrasts with emails, phone conversations, and even discussions around water coolers, where everyone tends to be more pointed. That directness, that getting right to the point, that habit of cutting to the chase, may, in the view of the peaceful societies, pose a very slight risk of confrontations. Best to avoid them and be indirect. Make comments to the whole.

Facebook was accused by a New Jersey preacher last Thursday for fostering adultery. On the contrary, is it, perhaps, the forerunner of a global peaceful society of 500,000,000 people? Is that last question indirect enough? After all, it is addressed to a large group of people, the visitors to this website, rather than to specific, named friends. No one needs to respond.

But if anyone does want to reply, the number of fans of the Facebook “Fan Page” for this website, established six months ago, continues to grow, a cause for appreciation on this Thanksgiving holiday in the United States. Feel free to leave a comment there. Or not.

Societies that want to hold on to their peaceful traditions have to be concerned about whether the education of their children will change their cultures, their economies, and their social values. Adults as well as young people face the challenge that education poses for a society—the potential advantages to individuals of more comfortable lives, versus the possible disconnect from the home village and its values.

The Amish deal with the violent social practices that surround their society by educating their children themselves. The Hutterites establish their own schools on their colony grounds, along with outside, public schools, to make sure their traditions are imparted early to their children.

The Orang Asli societies—the Semai, Chewong, and Batek, among others—agonize about the role of education for the future of their children and their communities. Colin Nicholas, from the Centre for Orang Asli Concerns, argued in 2008, during a public discussion in Malaysia about the education of indigenous minority peoples, that the most important concern for those societies is retaining their cultural identity in the context of the educational system.

The peaceful societies of India, and of course their young people in particular, face these issues as well. Last week, one of India’s major papers featured the fact that a Birhor boy had just abandoned his fully-funded education and returned to his native village, to a life of poverty and menial labor, as the journalist characterized it. The press focused on the decision of that one boy to return to his village because the school is run by India’s largest steel plant, Bokaro Steel Limited (BSL).

The Telegraph of Calcutta reported that Binod Birhor had chosen to return to his home village in Gomia Block, Jharkhand State, rather than stay and complete his studies. The paper estimated he would soon become a day laborer, earning Rs 100 (US $2.20) per day. Another student, Sawan Birhor, expressed his disdain for his former classmate. He said he would stay and complete his education, so he can earn Rs 15,000 (US$330) per month. “Binod would remain a labourer,” he evidently told the reporter scornfully.

The Times of India carried a similar story, though without the quotes from the classmate. That paper wrote that Binod had gone home for his summer vacation in May and had decided to not return. Neither paper gave Binod’s reasons for abandoning his education. Perhaps the environment among the Birhor boys had gotten to him, or the values they seemed to share in the dormitory. It is hard to know, though the background of the issue provides clues.

Bokaro Steel Limited is owned by a state corporation, the Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL). Located at Bokaro Steel City, in Jharkhand state, it is considered the largest steel plant in the country. Social responsibility initiatives taken by the corporation have included the establishment of medical care facilities, roads, sanitation plants, cultural activities, safe drinking water, and, in 2001, a fairly high profile school for 15 Birhor boys.

The Times of India ran a feature story on the special Bokaro Steel school in April this year. By then, four of the original boys had dropped out of the program, but 11 remained. The feature focused on five of the older boys, including Sawan, the critic of the dropout, who had just completed their class X exams. Those five had chosen to not return to their home villages at the end of the school year, in March, for their summer vacations. BSL officials asked them why.

They replied that they had no interest in going home: they would miss the televised Indian Premier League ( IPL) professional cricket matches. They also loved to watch movies starring Katrina Kaif, a popular young Indian film star. They made it clear that they had completely lost interest in the lives of their relatives and friends in their villages, Tulbul and Khakhanda, located only 70 km away.

One of the young men, Santosh, from Tulbul, explained to the Times his reason for staying in the dormitory. “I found it better to live here under the fan and watch my favourite TV programmes than go home. I don’t [get] good food like the hostel in my home. My parents are poor and can hardly arrange two square meals[a day]. Last year, when I went for the vacation, I [spent] most of the time alone under [a] tree reading books.”

The other boys expressed a similar sense of disconnect from their homes. Sawan Birhor told the paper, “now, people look at us differently in the village. My old friends go to work in the morning and there is no one with whom I can spend time at my village. There is no TV in our village. I miss movies, particularly Katrina Kaif movies.”

Tobolal Birhor had his own reasons for not wanting to go home for the vacation: “Here, we play games like football. There is no such arrangement in our village. I dropped the idea of going to [my] village after [the] examination because of the heat. It is pathetic to live in huts in this hot weather.”

The paper mentioned that, at first, the boys had a rough time adjusting to life away from their villages, and they frequently fled back home from the dormitory. They missed their families and their forests. But they soon became comfortable with urban life, deciding that it was in fact better than their villages.

Many other traditional societies face similar issues. The Buid are getting schools in their own villages, which allow them to preserve, to some extent, their own local cultures. The village schools also allow the young people to make informed choices as to how much of the culture to continue and what to do with their futures. It’s clear from the recent press reports that some young Birhor males enjoy watching a lovely movie actress in comfort much more than participating in the lives of their communities.

A news report last Friday indicated that living conditions in some remote, peaceful Piaroa villages visited by a medical team recently are deteriorating.

A medical group from the University of Carabobo, in Valencia, Venezuela, visited a couple Piaroa communities in August and found that some of the people had tuberculosis and parasite infections. Others were severely malnourished. Dr. Jesus Rodriguez, a pulmonologist, accompanied by three nurses and a psychologist, visited the Piaroa villages, particularly Caño Piedra, to do an overall health assessment.

The medical team had to travel by river for three days, then overland to get to the remote communities. They found children with yellow hair, an indicator of malnutrition. They confirmed that five individuals had TB and two others were probably infected with it, according to Dr. Rodriguez.

The news story suggested that the Piaroa diet of cassava, fruits, crickets, and giant spiders may contribute to the problems. The doctor said that the Piaroa rarely hunt or eat fish. He noted that an Integrated Diagnostic Center (Centro Diagnóstico Integral), part of the national health system, had been serving the village for four years and he told the people about it.

Rodriguez indicated that he hoped to return to the area again with food to help the starving people. He plans to bring more medicines and diagnostic devices on his next visit.

While the actual health assessments are doubtless true, some of the statements in the article about the reasons for the problems are puzzling. The Piaroa have been subsisting on cassava roots for many generations, as do people in tropical regions worldwide. Cultivating cassava, or manioc, provides an extremely important social symbol for Piaroa women.

If Doctor Rodriguez believes that the Piaroa rarely hunt or fish, his observation is contradicted by published scholarship. In one article, Germán Freire (2007) described the diet of the Piaroa in the Cataniapo River valley, a community near Puerto Ayacucho, in very different terms. Freire wrote that “hunting, fishing, and gathering are seen as more acceptable and enjoyable ways of providing meat to the family [than raising livestock].” He continued that “all research on food consumption and health carried out in the area confirms that game and wild/feral products are abundant in Piaroa territory, even around peripheral communities.” Freire cites five other research reports to back up his statements.

While there is no reason to question the doctor’s assessment of the conditions in the communities his team visited, his assumptions about the causes of the problems need to be considered in the light of other research.

While the pacifist beliefs of Canadian Hutterites have been controversial in the past, so have their communal living patterns, especially when they appear to pose problems for non-Hutterites.

Last week, the CBC reported that some Canadian business people have been complaining about the colonies, which they feel are allowed unfair competitive advantages by the provincial government. The issue that has provoked this resentment has been the move by some colonies to go into new lines of manufacturing. Their successes have caused feelings that the ”playing field” is not level.

In one story from the CBC, Gino Koko, general sales manager for Vicwest, a company that manufactures metal building products headquartered in Oakville, Ontario, expressed his resentment against his Hutterite competitors. He argued that the provincial government does not treat Hutterite-owned companies the same way it does other firms. The colonies do not pay their workers wages, which gives them an unfair advantage, he said.

Adult members of a Hutterite colony are not considered to be employees by the Manitoba Finance department. Instead, they are characterized as self-employed agents who share in the profits of the enterprise. They pay income taxes but they do not have to pay into the Workers Compensation pool or the Employment Insurance fund.

Mr. Koko said that competition by the colonies against his company has been growing over the past three to five years. “Every year they gain a bit more market share and they gain a bigger customer base,” Koko indicated. He maintained that it is unfair because the Hutterite construction firms do not have to follow the same rules.

Domtek, a manufacturing firm owned by the Newdale Colony near Brandon, Manitoba, employs 10 workers who are Hutterites and six administrators who are not. Jonathan Wollmann, Assistant Manager of the Newdale Colony, defended the system. He said the colony does pay their workers, but “not in the form of money, we pay them with a well-furnished house [and] three, four, five meals a day.”

Jennifer Howard, the Manitoba Labor Minister, agreed that the Hutterite colonies have different costs from other businesses. “I understand [the] concern from other businesses—that they have to pay things that other people don’t—but I do think it’s a different system on a Hutterite colony.” She said that the Hutterites also pay for their own educational programs, and added that the Canadian provinces haven’t really figured out these issues completely.

The CBC carried another story the next day to further explain the situation. It quoted Gino Koko again, this time emphasizing his opposition to the fact that the Hutterites do not have to pay into the workers compensation fund. Since the colonies do not report to the Workers Compensation Board, there is no public recording of injuries by the Hutterite firms. Don Hurst, assistant deputy minister of the provincial Workplace Safety and Health Department, told the news service that the Hutterite enterprises are subject to the same inspections as all other firms in the province, so he expressed confidence that their injuries are no more frequent than anywhere else.

Jake Maendel, who is the CEO of Prairie Truss, a firm owned by the Prairie Blossom colony near Stonewall, Manitoba, also contradicted critics who believe Hutterite workers should pay into the compensation fund. He said that the workers are part owners of the company, that they are the shareholders, so why should they pay?

An official from the Manitoba Finance Department told the CBC that colony members who work for the manufacturing companies are regarded as self-employed agents, people who share in the profits of the business, rather than employees. The CBC report mentioned that other manufacturers have also been complaining, but Mr. Koko from Vicwest has been the only one willing to be quoted on the issue.

The news story on November 9th received scores of comments, some clearly opposing the Hutterites but many expressing their approval of the government’s treatment of the new firms. The former reflect anger at what the writers perceive to be unfair treatment in favor of a minority population that happens to live in colonies. Many of the latter, posted by Hutterites themselves, express the view that the colonies are being treated fairly, that their circumstances are different, and that the “playing field” is in fact quite level.

While most of the comments on both sides of the debate were well written, some were not very well reasoned or effectively researched. One commenter, for instance, described the work of the Hutterites as “slave labour.” The commenter added, “they work for room and board and don’t share in any of the profits. Thats [sic] the same arrangement the slaves had in the south and it was outlawed for good reason.”

Less than two hours later, a commenter self-identified as “HuttFarmer” replied that the earlier writer did not “know the first thing about us.” He or she added, obviously piqued by the earlier comment, “And for the record, I’ve never thought of myself as a slave. I have my own free will and my standard of living is probably at least 3 times what yours is.” HuttFarmer added a point that had already been made, that all the profits from the Hutterite enterprises are shared within the community.

Amish people who run construction companies in rural areas of Eastern states and undercut the prices of neighboring “English” firms also provoke resentment for similar reasons. But unlike the Hutterites, the Old Order Amish do not own computers nor do they typically respond to critics the way the people in the colonies do.

The Hutterites obviously do not take what they consider to be unfair criticisms passively, and they are not afraid to stand up for themselves. The CBC website has thumbs up to express approval, and thumbs down to express dislike, in the same manner as Facebook, for each comment. Hutterite-friendly comments received far more thumbs up designations than thumbs down.

Suicides, a disturbing form of violence, have been a serious problem among Inuit youth for decades, but last week a group representing government bodies and concerned organizations released a set of recommendations that may help address the problem.

Representatives from the government of Nunavut, the Embrace Life Council, Nunavut Tunngavik, and the RCMP formed a working group in 2008 to formulate a strategy for attempting to slow the ever-increasing rates of suicides. The document released last week, titled “Nunavut Suicide Prevention Strategy,” proposes “an urgent, aggressive response” by all actors—everyone who could have some influence on Inuit young people. Tagak Curley, Health and Social Services Minister for Nunavut, presented the document to the territorial legislature.

The work cites some very disturbing facts and figures. For instance, the RCMP responded to 983 calls about suicides in Nunavut in 2009. Half of all hospitalizations for people 20 to 29 years old, reported the Qikiqtani General Hospital, were due to attempted suicides. In one community surveyed in 2008, four out of ten respondents had thought about committing suicide during the last seven days, and three out of ten had attempted it within the previous six months.

Needless to say, the suicide rate, particularly among men and boys, is many times higher in Nunavut than in the rest of Canada. Women are just as likely as men to attempt suicide—they are just not as successful at it. The report suggests that open discussions about the issue, in families, communities, and in public discourse forums, have been restrained. But it is so common that individuals often use threats of suicide to manipulate others into getting what they want.

The report argues that the roots of the problem go back to the suffering of the Inuit in the 1950s, when the Canadian government compelled the people to begin moving in from the land—sending people to TB hospitals in the South, requiring children to attend residential schools away from their homes, and so on. This historical trauma is still being passed along from one generation to the next, but, the document argues, breaking the cycle is both possible and imperative.

The document urges the partners to the report—the government, the NGOs, and other groups—to take action. The partners should provide Inuit youth with a “stronger protective foundation,” which would include campaigns against assaults, parenting classes, more access to camp experiences, and anger management courses.

The government of the territory should make a commitment to training people in suicide prevention. It should provide more and better information to all communities in the territory. It should ensure that Inuit towns receive more funding for community development programs. All of the partners should commit to supporting research programs that address suicides in Nunavut. The needs of the young people have to be addressed.

There is a sizeable literature about suicides among the Inuit, some of which has been reviewed in this website. A 2006 research article made many interesting observations and conclusions, one of which was that the people in two communities which had been investigated about their suicide rates took the matter to heart. They became much more involved in the welfare of their young people and actively promoted youth programs. The suicide rates dropped significantly.

An earlier report from 2004 placed the primary blame for the problem on the historical experience of people living on the land and the fact that they were forced to move into settled communities, an argument echoed by the report last week. It is easy, the 2004 authors wrote, “to understand how degraded, humiliated, and abused many Inuit feel as a result of their historical experiences.”

These two articles were undoubtedly not completely representative of the wide range of professional studies on the issue, but it appears as if the current investigators studied them and others like them. The English text of the 24 page document is available on the Web.

One of the major factors in building any peaceful society is the element of respect, an essential characteristic of traditional G/wi society but one which has been missing in recent negotiations about their future. The New York Times last Friday focused on that issue, at least briefly.

The Times became the latest major news source to pick up on the current controversy about the San societies, the G/wi and G//ana peoples, fostered by Survival International, a British NGO. Last week, SI announced a worldwide boycott of Botswana diamonds in protest against that country’s repression of the San.

SI’s announcement on Tuesday proposed that consumers stop buying diamonds mined in Botswana, and it urged people to not visit the country. The group argues that the government of Botswana compelled the San peoples to leave their homes in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in 2002 because of the likelihood of diamond mining, and it has been violating their human rights ever since.

After losing a court case in 2006 that affirmed the rights of the people to return to their homes, the government persisted in persecuting them by denying them the right to existing water supplies, and preventing them from hunting. Despite the ban on the G/wi and G//ana peoples having access to water, the government subsequently permitted a tourist lodge to open and allowed it to open a borehole.

SI launched its latest protest against Botswana at the flagship store of De Beers in London over the lunch hour on Wednesday last week. The NGO then posted photos of the protesters. A number of celebrities—Mark Rylance, Sophie Okonedo, Quentin Blake, Joanna Lumley, and Gillian Anderson—joined the campaign by pledging in advance to not wear diamonds from Botswana nor to travel there.

AFP, the international news agency based in France, carried a story later on Wednesday repeating the statements in the SI press releases. The BBC went further in its coverage of the protest. It quoted the Minister of Environment, Wildlife, and Tourism of Botswana, Kitso Mokaila, who dismissed the SI campaign as “propaganda.” He told the news service that diamonds were not the issue. “Survival is on a fund-raising campaign at the expense of a whole people,” he argued.

The BBC also spoke with Stephen Corry, Director of SI. He said that the message of the NGO was simple. “What we want to happen is for the government of Botswana to stop treating [the G/wi and G//ana] like third-class citizens and to stop having what is effectively a kind of neo-colonialist attitude towards them.” Mr. Mokaila responded that he did not think the English would want to see their people “living in the dark ages in the middle of nowhere as a choice.” He obviously did not comprehend the idea of people wanting to live on their ancestral land, but with access to minimal necessities such as drinking water and food.

SI argued that the government was ignoring the intent of the High Court ruling from four years ago. The environment minister replied that the government and the San people were in fact back at the negotiating table trying to resolve the issues in talks mediated by the Botswana Centre for Human Rights and other groups. He emphasized that the government was proud that their mineral wealth has benefited everyone in Botswana. He urged tourists to come and see for themselves.

The New York Times joined the media coverage with their own front page story on Friday, May 5, but instead of reporting the SI and government charges and countercharges, the reporter talked with G/wi and G//ana individuals within the CKGR and in the resettlement camps around it. The reporter spoke with a “tenacious” elderly man, Gana Taoxaga, who was just completing a two-day walk to obtain some water.

Three other men, three women, and an infant accompanied him on his trek. He was thirsty, and angry that he had to go so far for water. A borehole, now sealed by the government, was much closer to their homes, but he supposed that officials denied them the use of that water in order to drive them away. “The government says we are bad for the animals, but I was born here and the animals were born here, and we have lived together very well,” he told the Times.

Mr. Taoxaga carried a bow and arrows tipped in the traditional fashion, with poison made from beetle larvae, plus a satchel with his digging stick and a spear. He still tries to use his knowledge of the land to hunt and gather as his ancestors have done for millennia.

Another elderly San man, Pihelo Phetlhadipuo, living in a resettlement camp called Kaudwane, told the reporter, “I once was a free man, and now I am not.” He said if there were a magic way to live in the past, he would choose to go there. Waiting for the food rations of cornmeal, sorghum, sugar, tea, beans, and cooking oil in the resettlement camp, and spending the days and evenings at the makeshift taverns, the shebeens, has little appeal to him.

Moscow Galatshipe, a 43 year old man, said, “there are no jobs. We will all end up in prison for stealing goats.” He is bitter that there is no way out of the resettlement camps. When anyone tries to leave, he says, they are turned back at the gate.

Interestingly, the Times reporter quotes George Silberbauer, the colonial administrator/anthropologist who studied the G/wi and published a number of works about them several decades ago. Silberbauer had argued that probably the best way for the government to treat the San peoples was to respect that most of them would not want to remain museum curiosities. Instead, the G/wi should be respected to make their own decisions as to how much of their past and their traditions they would want to hold on to, and how much of the conveniences of modernization they should accept.

With all of the rhetoric of SI and the counterclaims of the Botswana government, much less the analysis by an anthropologist who wrote an apologetic for the government last year, Silberbauer’s sage counsel appears to have been extraordinarily prescient.

A food staple of the Yanadi a century ago—rats—has recently become a source of cash income for them, according to a report in a major Indian daily newspaper last week. Changes such as this in the cultures of small, traditional, peaceful societies can be fascinating.

Edgar Thurston, writing the standard descriptive work about the indigenous peoples of South India in 1909, observed that the Yanadi were experts at catching bandicoot rats. The Yanadi hunter first made an alternate escape hole from the animal’s burrow. Then, using a method called voodarapettuta, he stuffed a pot with grass and lit it. He placed the mouth of the pot against the entrance hole to the burrow and blew through a small slit in the pot, which forced in smoke.

Any beekeeper who has stuffed grass or hay into a metal smoker, lit it, and used it to puff whiffs of smoke into a bee hive—to calm the insects before examining the colony—will understand the principle. When the bandicoot rat (unrelated to the marsupial bandicoots of Australia) plunged out through the second hole to escape the suffocating smoke, the hunter killed it, according to Thurston.

In 1962, a standard book on the Yanadi by V. Raghaviah elaborated on their reasons for eating the rats that they smoked out of their burrows. Raghaviah pointed out how fond the people were of these rats because they thought that the flesh of the animals gave them immunity to rheumatism, inhibited grey hair, and even helped keep the frames of older people erect, supple, and elastic. Eating rats helped ward off old age.

That author also described the way the Yanadi loved to rip apart the underground passages of the rat burrows to find their little grain caches. Families would have festive times doing that kind of gathering, their children enjoying peering into the labyrinthine tunnels as the adults worked to rob the rats of their stored food.

Last Tuesday’s issue of The Hindu provided a clue to the ways they have adapted to modern conditions. The article describes how the Yanadi are still skilled at smoking out rats—and the fact that they now provide an invaluable service to neighboring farmers, for a fee. The journalist may have used language that is a bit overdone to describe the “droves of farmers” who pursue the nearby Yanadi rat-catchers. The problem is that a plague of rodents has been destroying their grains.

A crop called black gram, a bean that is used to make dal—an important food in India—has mostly failed due to a shortage of water, so the depredations of the rodents have been critical. The huge Lesser Bandicoot Rats can grow to 40 cm, or 15 inches long, and can be dangerous to human babies as well as cereal crops. Controlling the numbers of rats will help preserve the black gram that remains in the fields or is held in storage facilities.

The newspaper’s description of the techniques used by contemporary Yanadi might as well have come straight out of Thurston, except that they do not provide escape holes for the animals. “They spot a burrow,” The Hindu writes, “cover it with a container having the burning dry grass inside, and generate smoke through the vessel with the help of a hand-held fumigator. And, the rodent is sure to die of suffocation…”

The Yanadi people are now heroes. It is not clear if they still eat rats, however, which would surely still provoke animosity among surrounding Hindus. It would appear from the news story as if they simply enjoy controlling the rat populations and being paid for their services. The Andhra Pradesh state government, however, announced this Tuesday that it will be establishing village grain banks for Yanadi communities, as well as some other rural people affected by the drought conditions and threatened by starvation.

The Amish in Lancaster County are slowly moving into new business ventures as old ones cease to be profitable, but they have to cope with issues of growth, time, and technology that outsiders often don’t face. The Pottstown, PA, Mercury carried a feature story on Saturday that explored these issues.

The reporter, Eric G. Stark, interviewed an Amish entrepreneur named Elias Beiler, who recently bought a small potato chip company, Zerbe’s Chips, located in a corporate center in the county. His company does not conform to the stereotypes about the businesses that the Amish normally engage in. Mr. Beiler started a framing company, Creekside Builders, in 1993, but that business has been struggling due to the economic downturn. He also realized that, at 43 years old, it might be wise for him to stop climbing around on the rafters of buildings he was erecting.

A year ago he decided to branch out into other businesses. He bought Zerbe’s Chips, and another chip business that came with the deal, and put his brother Ben in charge. He also bought a local restaurant, Tasty Subs Wings & Things, which his wife and four daughters run. Three of his sons help with the construction business. Younger children help out with chores on the 20 acres of his farm that he uses for raising horses, and he rents out the remaining 40 acres of his farm to a cousin.

He spends most of his time drumming up sales for his potato chips in Philadelphia sandwich shops, but he frets over the balance of time he should spend on his businesses versus his commitment to his family. “It is key for me to lead the correct way or my sons won’t listen,” he tells the reporter.

Steve Stoltzfus and his brother Amos are the co-owners of FlorHaus, a Lancaster County flooring and design business. Amos, who is 38, is concerned that the business has been growing too rapidly. While technology changes, he is not sure that he should adopt every new tool. “Sometimes we need to slow down,” he suggests. “It is the way we do business.”

Steve tells the reporter that other Amish have criticized them for using computers, cell phones, and fax machines. Some won’t even venture into their shop because of the devices. He said they both try to hold back on adopting new electronic gadgets, but “you lose out if you hold back too much,” he believes. They try to keep their use of technology as low key as possible, and they respect the conservative ways of their society as much as posssible. It’s obviously difficult.

Amos Glick got tired of building sheds. Ten years ago, at the age of 22, he started building playground equipment instead, particularly swings. His new company, Swing Kingdom, started off in a small building and sold 50 swings the first year. Now he uses a 45,000 square foot facility and builds hundreds per year, which are sold worldwide. His father was initially opposed to the venture, but now he works for him. The young entrepreneur has an outreaching spirit about his company. “It is not that you can afford to take the risk, you just do it. You take a chance,” he said. “As long as you can feed the family and enjoy the work, what else do you want? You have to do it to benefit the community and help yourself.”

The reporter also interviewed Joel Fisher, the owner of an Amish construction company, who started barbecuing chickens last year as his earlier business dropped off. He’s been concentrating on the chickens ever since, selling them at a stand in a parking lot in Leola from around 6:00 AM until 2:00 PM, six days of the week. “Times change, and you have to change with the times or you won’t survive,” he said.

Mr. Stark, the reporter, also interviewed Donald Kraybill at the Elizabethtown College for some information about these changes in Amish enterprises. Kraybill, a famed authority on the plain people, explained that there are now about 30,000 Amish in Lancaster County, a population that will double in 20 years. Traditional jobs are getting hard for them to find. He says that entrepreneurs who have moved into new businesses and adopted advanced technologies have been criticized by other Amish people.

Kraybill said that the Amish will take business risks, but small ones. “They do things in steps,” he says. They have opened farm stands in urban areas like Baltimore and Philadelphia, and they have entered niche markets, such as an organic farmer’s cooperative in Lancaster County. These niche markets allow younger Amishmen to thrive on more modest tracts of land.

Kraybill, with Steven M. Nolt and David Weaver-Zercher, the co-authors of a new book called The Amish Way: Patient Faith in a Perilous World, placed an essay in the Washington Post last week that explores the role of faith in the Amish community. They focus on the price that the Amish have to pay in order to belong in their society.

The authors disabuse outsiders from any romantic notions about being Amish: it’s challenging, demanding, and difficult. They argue that one of the major lessons outsiders can learn from the Amish is that their society is not an easy one to emulate. The well-known symbols—the horse and buggy, the plain clothing, the lack of electricity—are really only superficial markers. “Their way of life is extremely countercultural,” they write, “and practically impossible for outsiders to embrace.”

Seekers who show up in Amish communities and ask to join are politely sent away most of the time. They would find the Amish way of life very difficult. The spirituality that sustains them would be hard for others to adopt: submission to the authority of the church, three-hour religious services, forgoing conveniences because the community decides against them.

The three scholars suggest that the spiritual seeking which engages so many Americans would fill a marketplace with “spiritual wares of all kinds.” They argue that many people have become “religious shoppers,” a process that some observers refer to as the “Walmartization of American religion.” But Kraybill et al. prefer a different image, one of Americans trying to find their religious values at fast food chains: “cheap, quick, and comfortable, but not exactly nutritious.” A contrast to the Amish.

A museum exhibition in Malaysia celebrates some of the major issues facing the Orang Asli societies: managing their interactions with nature, maintaining sustainable lifestyles, and adapting to the challenges of modernity. The exhibit features the photographs of Mahat China, a prominent Semai poet, novelist, and radio announcer. Entitled “Orang Asli and their Traditional Knowledge,” the exhibit is on display at the Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre through Sunday, October 31.

The exhibit was organized by Prof. Hood Salleh of the Institute of Environmental Development at the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and his assistant, photographer Victor Chin. The arts center website indicates that the purpose of the exhibition is to “highlight some facets of the daily life of some of these [Orang Asli] communities.” The aim of the show is to give the people of Malaysia a broader understanding of the ways the Orang Asli, the aboriginal societies of the country, interpret their world and interact with their surrounding natural environments.

Mahat China, whose nickname is “Akiya,” comes from Kampung Erong, Ladang Ulu Bernam, in Perak state. He has been a published writer and poet for several decades. His eight photographs included in the exhibit focus, he says, on the “beauty tips, simple lifestyle, environmental consciousness, arts and crafts” of the Semai people.

His own website describes his background and his development as a storyteller and advocate for Semai culture. He was the first-born son, in 1953, of a family living in the forests of Perak. As the oldest child in the family, he soon learned about responsibilities for younger siblings and the work involved with survival in an aboriginal community. He worked in rubber fields, collected rattan, and helped around the house. He finally started attending school at the age of 10.

Perhaps most importantly, he listened to the stories of his mother, a traditional, expert Semai storyteller, a cermor, and he later wrote them down. When he went off to secondary school, he was inspired by a teacher to begin writing his own stories. He rebelled against outsiders telling the history of his people and he decided he should tell them himself. He wanted the truth of the aboriginal experience to not come from others—he could write it better, he felt.

He published books of poetry, short stories, and finally a novel, Perang Sangkil, which was published in the Malay language by PTS Fortuna, in Selangor, in 2007. In 1976, he discovered that he also wanted to capture the experiences of the Orang Asli in photographs as well as in his writing. He started collecting photographic equipment and taking pictures, capturing the ordinary daily events, celebrations, joys, and tragedies in the villages. Exhibitions of his photographs portray these events for the outside world, so others can appreciate the aboriginal ways of life, he feels.

He indicates that he is retiring from his job as a radio broadcaster, but he continues to see, as his mission in life, educating “the outside world on the Beauty of his People and in so doing [ensuring] the survival of [their] culture, language, history and traditions.” He told the press that he has invited some Orang Asli musicians to the Kuala Lumpur museum for an afternoon of music on October 31, from noon to 6:00 PM. He indicates that they will be open for discussions with members of the audience who wish to learn more about Orang Asli culture, art, and music.

Other Orang Asli photographers who are featured in the exhibit include Dr. Norhayati Ahmad, a zoologist, her student, Chan Kin Onn, and Victor Chin. Norhayati and Chan exhibit ten photos of Malaysian snakes, toads and frogs. They include information about the herps they picture, such as their coloration patterns and the ways they blend in with their backgrounds.

Summarizing the exhibit, Victor Chin says, “each of the Orang Asli communities has its distinctive understanding of history and customs. … By looking at the way they conduct their lives, we can increase our understanding of their world.” Mahat adds that the works on display show the interconnectedness of human life with the natural world. “Living in harmony with nature, as the Orang Asli do, has important lessons for modern society while the colourful and diverse list of amphibians and reptiles showcases Malaysian bio-diversity which has to be protected and preserved for future generations.”

In a lengthy opinion piece published on Tuesday, Mr. Chin provided further information about the exhibit, the photographs, and Semai society. His sentences about the importance of fear to the Semai are of special interest. He quotes a Semai man named Ronnie, a 32 year old photographer whose pictures are displayed for the first time in this exhibition. Ronnie told Mr. Chin that he tries “to capture a certain Orang Asli look. Especially the look of fear — scared of unfriendly strangers, up to no good, coming into their village. Our history is full of sad stories of outside exploitations of our culture and environment.”

Dentan describes quite effectively the Semai focus on fear in his 1968 book on that society. He argues that they teach their children nonviolence by inculcating in them a fear of aggression equal to their fear of thunderstorms, which they also develop in their children.

Robarchek explains the importance of fear to the Semai in greater detail. In a 1977 article, he argues that they learn in childhood to fear the process of emotional arousal itself, which they see as threatening. Thus, the awakening of frustration is a frightening thing in and of itself. They seem to fear anger of any kind and for any reason, and they vastly exaggerate the consequences of corporal punishment. If a child were spanked, he or she might die, they believe. In fact, the arousal of any kinds of strong emotions promotes fear among them. He spotted the same tendencies as Dentan did—an onrushing thunderstorm excited massive, and to a Westerner, irrational fears.

It is interesting that fear still plays an important part in the worldview of the Semai—at least in the view of a photographer who was born 10 years after Dentan published his book, a year after Robarchek’s article came out. So important that he likes to capture that look in his work. The exhibit is open daily 10:00 AM to 10:00 PM and admission is free.

Pressures from the Lepcha and Bhutia communities of Sikkim have prompted the government of India to cancel a power dam proposed for one of their sacred rivers, a victory which should help them preserve their religious beliefs in the sanctity of nature. The news media in India in recent weeks have carried numerous stories about the controversy.

In late September, one of the major organizations fighting to preserve the sacred rivers and the mountainous region of the state, the Sikkim Bhutia Lepcha Apex Committee (SIBLAC), joined with a group of monks from the famous Pemayangtse Monastery in West Sikkim to petition the Sikkim state government. They asked Pawan Chamling, Chief Minister of the state, to cancel the so-called Lethang hydroelectric power dam project on the Rathong Chu, a river draining Mt. Kanchenjunga. The mountain, the third highest in the world, was the birthplace of the Lepcha people, they believe.

The petitioners argued that the Rathong Chu is the most sacred river in Sikkim, and the proposed 96 MW project violated their religious beliefs. An earlier power dam proposal for the same river had been cancelled by the state government in 1997 after the Lepchas and the Bhutias expressed their opposition.

Tseten Tashi Bhutia, convener of SIBLAC, argued that even the name “Lethang” was a misnomer, since power dams are normally named for the rivers they block, and this one was on the Rathong Chu. Few people were aware of which river was involved. He said that it was entitled to being considered sacred under the provisions of the Places of Worship Act. He said that since no money had yet been expended on the project, it would be easy to terminate.

On October 13th, the Standing Committee of the National Wildlife Board in New Delhi decided to reject 13 ill-advised projects in India that would have had an adverse impact on wildlife or protected areas. The Rathong Chu project was one of them. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh chairs the Board; the Union Environment and Forests Minister, Jairam Ramesh, chairs the Standing Committee. India’s Wildlife Protection Act requires the board to approve all projects that involve lands in or around national parks.

Mr. Bhutia quickly wrote to Mr. Ramesh to express the appreciation of his group for the cancellation. He did not miss an opportunity to urge that two other proposed dams on the same river should also be cancelled—the 97 MW Tashiding and the 99 MW Ting Ting hydro power projects. He argued that his group is not opposed to other economic developments, but the dams threaten to destroy their ancient beliefs, their heritage, and the religious sanctity of their landscape.

He wrote to Mr. Ramesh again on October 21, expressing for the second time his group’s opposition to the two remaining dams. He reiterated the sacred character of the Rathong Chu, his major reason for opposing the projects, and he elaborated briefly on the ecological harm that they would do. The river valley is an important focus area for biodiversity in the state, a fact which various experts have testified to in the past.

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