Peaceful Societies

The Blue Belt Programme, developed by the UK government to promote a thorough study of the marine environment surrounding its South Atlantic islands, is generating some interesting scientific results. A report published last week by one of the scientists who participated in the voyage of a research vessel earlier this year in the waters of Tristan da Cunha described the data the researchers have gathered so far.

The entrance to the CEFAS Research Laboratory, Weymouth (Photo by Richard Symonds in Wikimedia, Creative Commons license)

Sean Burns, Tristan Administrator, discussed the background of the program in July last year. He wrote that the government of Tristan committed the Islanders to protecting the marine environment and to cooperating with the UK in implementing a strategy that would be based on the best scientific information possible. The UK provides funding to the Marine Management Organization (MMO) and the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS), which provide the scientific expertise for the study of the vast areas of water that surround the British Overseas Territories in the South Atlantic.

Burns argued that the Tristan Islanders are quite proud of the way they have protected the marine environment, and rightly so. But the Islanders are aware that they could use some help. They need assistance in establishing a better monitoring program for their waters, such as surveillance patrols to help control the illegal fishing that goes on in their region. They would like to establish the seas around the islands as a Particularly Sensitive Sea Area to try and keep out large ships with dangerous cargoes and to prevent accidents such as the wreck of the MS Oliva in 2011. Also, their fisheries patrol boat needs to be refurbished.

Lobster fishing boats on Tristan da Cunha (Image by Brian Gratwicke on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

In his comments at a workshop held on July 27, 2017, for a wide range of stakeholders, Burns made it clear that the program was not something designed to fix a problem—the marine ecosystem was in good shape now. It was needed to protect the ocean for future generations. But, he added, the Island Council emphasized that all participants should recognize that the Islanders must continue to have the right to develop fishing possibilities as they might occur. The survival of the people on the island depends on a healthy, vital fishery, though everyone agreed that the fishing had to be done sustainably.

At the same workshop, James Glass, Director of Fisheries for Tristan, added to Burns’ comments by emphasizing how “Tristanians have a documented and laudable sense of stewardship for their marine & terrestrial environment.” To judge by his comments, they want to balance their desires to increase their revenues and their standard of living with the limitations of their natural environment—the seas that surround them.

A Tristan lobster (Photo by the Darwin Initiative, Sure Scott on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

According to the numerous documents in the Tristan Islanders’ Blue Belt website, the wide range of participants are all keen to protect and enhance the utilization of fisheries resources in the South Atlantic while increasing the scientific knowledge of the sea and the life in it.

A news report in February 2018 mentioned that the Islanders were getting their kids involved in the environment. The students at the grade school on the island, St. Mary’s School, were collecting plastic on the beaches. It is one way to get a handle on the extent of the trash that is polluting the waters around Tristan. What is in the water and where does it come from?

The British research ship the RRS James Clark Ross, tied up in Antarctica (Photo by User Tom L-C in Wikimedia, Creative Commons license)

James Bell, a fisheries and ecosystems scientist with CEFAS, wrote an overview last week in the Tristan Times of the work of the scientists aboard the British research ship the James Clark Ross during its eight-day visit to Tristan waters in March this year. The scientists on the ship focused on mapping the seabed. They also concentrated on the biodiversity of the water column and the sea floor, the pelagic and the benthic ecosystems. Since the primary focus of the Tristan Islanders is on their lobster fishing, the main emphasis of the scientists around Tristan was on the benthic ecosystem.

In order to survey life in the sea, the scientists worked 24 hours per day with tools such as a mid-water trawl net that would open and close at different depths to take samples of living organisms. They took samples down to nearly 1000 meters below sea level in order to compare the diversity and abundance of life at different locations and depths.

A yellow nosed albatross photographed over Tristan by Brian Gratwicke (On Flickr, Creative Commons license)

Bell commented that the Tristan islands are noted for their diversity of seabirds, particularly species such as the Atlantic yellow-nosed albatross. Andy Schofield, from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, would see as many as 20 different species on some days before breakfast. Bell doesn’t say whether Schofield sent in his sightings to e-bird, as dedicated birders are wont to do. Another scientist, Steph Martin, a specialist in marine mammals, spotted sperm whales, an orca, and even a beaked whale.

Bell indicated that he and the other scientists will be analyzing the data they have gathered and will be preparing for another voyage, on the RRS Discovery, in March next year.

A news report two weeks ago indicated that the Semai were expressing strong disgust for the then-ruling party of Malaysia, the Barisan Nasional (BN), going into the national election on May 9. As it turned out, voters in the nation were so concerned about the wide-spread corruption of the BN government, which had been in power for 60 years, that the opposition coalition, the Pakatan Harapan (PH), was swept into power.

A group of Orang Asli in Selangor in 2006 (Photo by Vin Crosbie on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

The nagging question, however, is how did the Semai and the other indigenous societies in Malaysia, collectively called the Orang Asli, vote? A news analysis published last Thursday indicates that overall the Orang Asli communities appear to have remained among the few places that supported the BN and its corrupt ways, despite the many problems that they face.

The author of the analysis, Scott Edwards, a scholar from the University of Birmingham, indicates that he spent a lot of time in the kampung (villages) of the Orang Asli shadowing politicians and attending public events, trying to fathom how the candidates were interacting with the villagers and subsequently how they voted and why. He does not separate the various Orang Asli societies in his report, but presumably many of his comments relate as much to the Semai as to the others.

He suggests that major concerns among the villages he visited were the lack of development aid forthcoming from the government—insufficient housing, lack of water, the absence of electricity, and so on. He heard concerns about the security of their tenure on their properties—that the discovery of natural resources might cause the government to confiscate their traditional lands. People were also angered about the likelihood that their children would continue to live in the same poor conditions that they have endured.

An Orang Asli home in the Cameron Highlands (Photo by Andre Oortgijs on Wikimedia, Creative Commons license)

But the results of the election show that the Orang Asli villages appear to have voted for the BN anyway. The PH opposition made little headway, winning no seats from those communities. The opposition party, now the new government, only slightly closed the majority held by the BN in those villages, he finds. He names several Orang Asli constituencies where the BN retained their majority, though in the Cameron Highlands, which has a lot of Semai residents, the results were closer. In that area, the Orang Asli make up 21.56 percent of the residents, but the BN still won the seat in the legislature, though with a majority of only 597 votes out of 24,859 cast.

Edwards focuses his essay on the obvious question: if the Orang Asli were so unhappy, why did they vote for the BN anyway? One issue that some of the villagers agreed on was the apparent arrogance of PH candidates who campaigned in their communities. They didn’t really seem to care about Orang Asli issues. For instance, one candidate, while visiting a village, kept forgetting, repeatedly, the name of the kampung he was in. Instead of engaging the people in discussions of their issues, he didn’t seem to care and just kept urging the people to vote for him. Promises of things, such as t-shirts and hats, remained just promises. Of course those kinds of failures did not apply to all the PH candidates, but they did to enough of them to make a difference.

Banners for both the BN and the Pakatan Harapan parties are displayed on a tree (Photo by tian yake on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

Furthermore, the ultimate success of the BN in the Orang Asli communities was due in large part to the grassroots machinery that the party has established in them—much more than the PH has. The BN could mobilize their activists more effectively than the PH could. In addition, the Orang Asli have received some financial rewards from their faithfulness to the party that had been in power, and they appeared to be concerned about the future reward system if they were seen to be meeting with the PH opposition candidates.

Edwards concludes that the PH will need to build up its grassroots campaign structure in the Orang Asli communities before it will be successful with their voters in future elections.

Gerard Hindmarsh traveled from New Zealand to the Society Islands last week to pursue his obsessive investigation of the sea-faring traditions of the Tahitian people. The author of an article early last year about Polynesian oceanic travel 800 years ago updated his findings with another report on May 5.

A twin-hulled Polynesian canoe replica (Photo by Michael R. Perry in Wikimedia, Creative Commons license)

A highlight of his recent trip was the opportunity to meet with the crew of the Fa’afaite, a modern replica of a traditional sea-going canoe. The 22-meter, double-hulled vessel will participate in the commemoration next year of the 250th anniversary of James Cook’s first exploring voyage into the Pacific. However, the Tahitians told Hindmarsh that they were really more interested in celebrating the achievements of Tupaia, a great Tahitian priest and navigator who sailed with Cook.

While much of the piece last week provided additional details Hindmarsh has uncovered relating to the history of the large sailing canoes, one story he related provides insight into the character of Tupaia. Captain Cook took him aboard in Ra’iatea to help with navigation through the Society Islands and elsewhere in the Pacific. But more than just a pilot, Tupaia helped the British diplomatically when they got into encounters with the Polynesians that could have been serious. Before they left Ra’iatea, the Tahitian navigator showed the British explorers the enormous field of stone works, their sacred marae known as Taputapuatea.

A drawing by Tupaia of a Maori man and Joseph Banks trading a piece of cloth for a crayfish (Original at the British Library, in the public domain)

While they were visiting the site, Sir Joseph Banks, the prominent British naturalist who accompanied Cook on the voyage, ignorantly thrust his hand into a “god-house” and groped the tapa-wrapped god inside. Tupaia probably saved the lives of the British, according to Hindmarsh, with fast talking diplomacy that successfully smoothed over the potentially nasty incident. The writer said he felt “spooked” there, as the guide had warned the visitors when they arrived at the site, “Don’t be surprised if you don’t feel ‘heavier’ tonight, so much has gone on here.” Tupaia sailed with the Cook expedition throughout the Pacific but he died of a disease before the ship reached England.

A number of Hutterite colonies in Manitoba are hiring non-Hutterites as employees in their manufacturing businesses, which is beginning to change their economic and social relationships. The Winnipeg Free Press explained the development in a news story on May 5.

According to the Wikipedia, the motto of Anola, Manitoba, is “Share in our future … Invest in your Community,” an appropriate saying for the Springfield Hutterite Colony as well (Photo by Mark McKean in Wikimedia, Creative Commons license)

The largest enterprise cited by the news service is a company called Springfield Woodworking, owned by the Springfield Hutterite Colony, which is located a short distance east of Winnipeg near the town of Anola. The workforce of the company includes 60 people, three-quarters of whom, 45, are non-Hutterites. Springfield Woodworking is a kitchen and bathroom cabinet manufacturing firm, the third largest in the province.

When Pauly Kleinsasser, the general manager of the firm, hired his first employee from outside the colony 15 years ago, he wasn’t even sure how to prepare his paycheck. Members of the Hutterite colony are not paid for their labor and do not have personal bank accounts—everything they need is provided by the group. Since then, Kleinsasser has mastered the techniques for handling the payrolls as well as the benefits packages for the non-Hutterite employees.

Kleinsasser told the reporter from the Free Press, Ruth Bonneville, that the colony could not handle such a large operation with its own people. They have 100 members, farm 7,500 acres of land, and maintain a hog finishing operation. “We’re short-handed on the farm side as it is,” he told her. He said that the manufacturing company is growing rapidly; it may expand its operations again next year. It now makes 13 kitchens per day, roughly 3,500 per year.

He was proud to show the reporter a jersey from the Winnipeg Jets, a professional hockey team from the city. His company installed a kitchen in the home of one Kevin Ceveldayoff, the general manager of the team, a couple months ago. Kleinsasser told Ms. Bonneville, “We’re doing kitchens for a lot of high-profile people.”

The shop at the Pincher Creek Hutterite Colony, Pincher Creek, Alberta (Photo by Bruce Bonta)

It is clear from the article that the success of the enterprise is due in part to the business acumen of Kleinsasser. He and an uncle, the Hutterite minister Ruben Kleinsasser, started the business by making bedroom furniture in the colony shop for outside neighbors. They branched out into making kitchens when a neighbor pressured them into making one for him. Ruben has subsequently left the company but Pauly continues to manage it.

It doubled in size seven years ago when Pauly decided to move the company showroom to an industrial area of Winnipeg. The cabinets are quality products, apparently, with thicker wood for the bottoms of their drawers than the ones made by their competitors, and they have a special, hardened, coated finish on the outsides of the cabinets. An expert in the business credits the success of the company to the workmanship and quality of their products.

Several other colonies in Manitoba are hiring outsiders in addition to Springfield, including the Crystal Spring Colony near Ste. Agathe—it employs up to 10 people to work in Allsons, a welding firm that serves the Crystal Spring Hog Equipment Company on colony grounds. On the Oak Bluff Colony, a company called EcoPoxy has five employees who are not Hutterites. The Acadia Colony near Carberry has five staff member who are not part of that colony working at its Community Truss business, a firm the makes trusses for roofs and floors. Non-Hutterites work in a manufacturing operation at the Heartland Colony near Hazelridge, not far from Springfield.

The reporter mentioned that a common complaint in Manitoba against the Hutterites has been that they do not provide many economic benefits to their rural neighbors. They tend to be self-sufficient, buying what they need in bulk from major jobbers in urban centers. But as the colonies are expanding their manufacturing enterprises beyond the capacities of their own members, they are changing the dynamics by hiring outsiders.

A new Hutterite colony (Photo by Stefan Kuhn in Wikimedia, Creative Commons license)

The expanding business enterprises are also changing the population dynamics within the colonies. While they have traditionally tended to form new colonies when they reach a population of 120 to 150, that may be starting to change. Due to economic forces beyond their control, such as the prices of farmland, they have turned to manufacturing, which is allowing them to grow somewhat larger and not subdivide quite so often.

Mr. Kleinsasser made a comment to Ms. Bonneville about the relationship of colony size to keeping the internal peace. “With manufacturing, now colonies can get up to 200 people, if peace can be kept,” he said to the reporter.

Many books about the Hutterites discuss the issues involved with the expansion of the colonies and the formation of daughter colonies, a good example being Hostetler and Huntington’s classic overview (1996). That work describes how colonies tend to divide about every 14 years: land is purchased, buildings are erected, and a daughter colony is formed. In order for the new colony to begin functioning it should have a minimum of 60 people, half of whom are children under 15. About 15 people selected for the new colony should be working males; of them, 5 may be over 25 years old and able to handle leadership positions. The remaining 10 would be younger, unmarried, and unbaptized.

The new colony has a lot of work and little competition for major positions. As it matures, however, the colony may have 120 to 130 people, of whom 35 are males over 15; 16 men may be over 30 and have lifetime appointments to all the major positions. But here is where Mr. Kleinsasser’s worries come into play. The five men between 25 and 30 would have no chance for upward mobility. Competitive feelings can and do develop in these larger colonies, especially between families, and fathers will try to get favorable positions for their sons. Competition begins to breed social problems. Factions and cliques tend to form.

The Chicken Manager sorting eggs at the Pincher Creek Hutterite Colony, 70 miles south of Brant, Alberta — The Chicken Manager sorting eggs at the Pincher Creek Hutterite Colony, Alberta (Photo by Bruce Bonta, July 5, 2006)

The branching process disrupts this competition and channels it into the expansion of the old colony into two new ones, one of which will stay on the old property. When everything is working according to tradition, the entire colony works for several years to find an appropriate site for the new colony and to develop the infrastructure. When it is time to branch, the men divide the families into two groups, balancing all known preferences and abilities, with the two groups headed by the preacher and the assistant preacher. Everyone packs and the choice is made by lot as to which group will stay and which will move. Thus the peacefulness will be maintained. Mr. Kleinsasser is wise to be concerned about the future.

An elderly leader of the Semai in Malaysia’s Perak State has advised all members of his society to vote against the ruling political party in important national elections. Gahrai Kadek, the 77-year old Tok Batin (leader) of the Semai in the state, advised the Orang Asli people to vote out the Barisan Nasional (BN) government because of its encroachments on their traditional lands.

Kampung Bersih, an Orang Asli village along the Slim River (Photo by Oxbold Sports on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

According to a news story last week, the Semai leader decried the practices of the state government in depriving them of economic opportunities, of not providing potable water or electricity for their communities, and of leaving them to eat tapioca, a starchy extract of cassava roots, three times per day. But he said he has accepted those realities. What he did not accept, and urged his followers to strenuously reject, is the deprivation of their lands.

His comments were telling. “What we will not accept is the encroachment on our land, which is protected by customary common law rights, on our ancestral graves, on the river in which we swim and fish and from which we drink, and on the jungle in which we plant tapioca, yam and bananas to eat.”

A Semai man in Tapah — Semai man in Tapah, Perak, halfway between the Slim River and Gopeng (Photo by Malekhanif in Wikimedia, Creative Commons license)

Gahrai Kadek is from Kampung (village) Gesau, on the Slim River, which is in the southeastern corner of Perak about 45 miles south of Gopeng, where the disapproval of the construction of a dam on the Geruntum River was described in a recent news story. The current Semai story, as well as the anger of the Tok Batin last week, has been prompted by the government’s disregard for the traditional lands of the Orang Asli people.

“We have tolerated so much over 60 years, but we will not stand for them seizing our forefathers’ land and destroying our rivers. We were already marginalised before they did all that,” the Semai leader said.

The reporter interviewed Semai in other communities along the Slim River. Tok Pui Nai, a 78-year old leader in Kampung Tibang, indicated that the major worry for the people in his village was that their lands were not gazetted. They were afraid that the people who had encroached on their lands would take their houses next. He also complained about pollution in the river, which makes it unsuitable for bathing or fishing. He expressed concerns about a hydroelectric power dam being built on the river next to the village by Perak Hydro Renewable Energy Corporation.

Yuk Lupa, the chief of Kampung Keding, told the reporter that it had taken the BN government 60 years to build a road into his village. He expressed his disgust about the government. Although the request for road access dated from their grandparents’ time, the government has just built one. But there have been threats that their lands would be taken away from them, so they have lost faith in the BN government. “I do not want to vote come election day,” he told the reporter.

Cassava plants, from the roots of which Tapioca is extracted — Cassava plants, from the roots of which tapioca is extracted (Photo by Shijan Kaakkara in Wikimedia, Creative Commons license)

The reporter spoke with a 32-year old man from Kampung Pos Tenau named Prima. He had the flag of a rival political organization, the People’s Just Party or PKR, draped around his shoulders as he spoke. He said he has had to be content with eating tapioca all his life (he is 32) because of the BN government.

Other villagers that the journalist spoke with expressed similar sentiments: since they have no economic opportunities, they have had to survive on tapioca. Many made it clear that they were blaming the current government for their lack of opportunities, which made it impossible for them to even consider moving to a town. They simply don’t have the funds that would allow them to do that. The 14th general election, referred to by Malaysians as GE14, was set for Wednesday May 9.

Semai children crowd around Robert Knox Dentan to grill him about proper English usage (Photo in an article by Dentan with a Creative Commons license)

The frequent references by the Semai quoted in the news report—they are so poor that they are reduced to surviving on tapioca—are a bit puzzling. Robert Knox Dentan’s 1968 book The Semai: A Nonviolent People of Malaya clears up the matter. In a section in which he described their various food crops, he wrote that the Semai grow tapioca, which they find to be unappetizing, because it has two advantages over yams and taro. One is that the tapioca roots don’t rot if they are left in the ground—the farmer doesn’t have to hurry to harvest them at any set time.

Secondly, “tapioca produces more food per acre than any other crop,” Dentan wrote (p.47). One might suspect from all the negative comments last week by the people about it that they are quite tired of their traditional staple and yearn for the consumer goods and food choices enjoyed by other citizens of Malaysia. Perhaps their votes in the election will help them out.

In 2014, the European Union granted the Nyae Nyae Development Foundation of Namibia 649,390 euros to help the Ju/’hoansi and the !Kung devise ways of mitigating climate change. Several African news services reported during April that, after four years of successes, the grant program has ended.

Ju/’hoansi starting a fire for tourists at the “Little Hunter’s Museum” of the Ju/’hoansi San in //Xa/oba, the Nyae Nyae Conservancy of Namibia (Photo by Gil Eilam on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

The Namibia Economist published a story on April 13 which indicated that, over the course of the EU Climate Change Adaptation Grant program, villages have made many improvements, such as gaining additional storage tanks for water and adding solar panels.

The EU grant funding has helped to increase understanding among the Ju/’hoansi for ways to adapt to climate change, such as the need for managing the veld by fire, controlling the buildup of fuel, and preventing over-grazing. In a statement, the EU said that the “diversification of livelihoods along with increased rangeland management is intended to increase the resilience to climate change in these communities.”

Jana Hybaskova, EU Ambassador to Namibia (Photo by Jirka Di on Wikimedia, Creative Commons license)

The same news source reported on April 25 that the EU Ambassador to Namibia, Ms. Jana Hybaskova, visited some villages in the Nyae Nyae Conservancy after the EU announced the closing of the project. She was quoted as saying that the grant has provided, “a real tangible and dramatic improvement for the Conservancy residents and one that has truly empowered them and [made] them feel more secure and confident about their futures.”

The Ambassador visited two villages, places she had been to earlier, and noted the improvements the people have made in cultivating their gardens, diversifying their foods, herding their cattle, and growing their fruit trees. She met with Chief Tsamkao of the Ju/’hoansi Traditional Authority, who thanked the EU for its investment, interest, and engagement with the San people.

“The Freeplay Lifeline is the world’s most popular humanitarian radio. It has brought untold benefits and hope to millions of listeners in the developing world,” claims the website of the Lifeline radio.

Two years ago, the EU grant funded the distribution of Lifeline radios to the Ju/’hoansi villagers, a project not mentioned by the stories last month but reported in the news in September 2016. The creativity of the EU grant program was suggested by the design of the radios. They are powered by solar panels, have winding cranks for cloudy days, and include separate speakers so groups can easily listen to AM, FM, and short wave radio broadcasts in the shade of their homes. They also include USB ports so villagers with phones can conveniently charge them, since many of them still lack electricity.

Protests by the Semai over the construction of a hydroelectric dam that is destroying their forests, waters, and livelihoods have been increasing over the past couple of months. Numerous news sources in Malaysia have been covering the developments in six Orang Asli villages located in the town of Gopeng, in Perak State.

Zambry Abdul Kadir, the Chief Minister of Perak (Photo by Debat perdana rakyat in Wikimedia, Creative Commons license)

A news story on February 21, 2018, reported the official line, that a proposed dam on the Geruntum River, which flows through forested hills a few miles east of the Gopeng town center, was needed in order for Malaysia to increase its sustainable development and to fulfill its commitments under the Kyoto Protocol to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. The Menteri Besar (Chief Minister) of Perak, Seri Zambry Abdul Kadir, told reporters who were investigating the growing protests by the Semai that he had instructed some of his executive counselors to take another look at the study that had launched the dam construction project.

On February 13, more than 200 Orang Asli people from the six villages gathered at the dam construction site, along with representatives from three different outdoor adventure companies, to peacefully air their complaints. The Semai alleged that they had not been consulted about the project. Some of the graves of their ancestors had already been destroyed as well as some of the surrounding forest lands. When Mr. Zambry was asked by reporters how the government would react to the protests, he obfuscated by replying “I do not know what is going on. Do not ask me about the technicalities.”

A group of people white water rafting on the Kampar River, Gopeng — A group of people whitewater rafting on the Kampar River, Gopeng (Photo by Cheowchinhou in Wikimedia, Creative Commons license)

The proposed dam not only endangers the Geruntum River, it also threatens the free flowing Sungai Kampar just downstream, which is one of the major whitewater rafting rivers in Malaysia. Another news story on March 1 reported that the Semai villagers had already lost half of their fruit tree plantations due to clearing operations along the banks of the river preparatory to the construction of the dam.

Uda Tiah, a 53-year old resident of the village of Sat Baru, said that construction crews had ignored pleas by the villagers to stop their work. “The contractor told us that the project is approved by the state government, but when we ask them to show the permission letter to clear the land, the contractor did not give us any,” he said. He indicated that the villagers had sent letters to government agencies and lodged reports with the police but nothing had been done to address their complaints.

A durian tree covered with fruit (Photo by Zaqqy on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

Uda Tiah said that half of his durian orchard had been destroyed already by the bulldozers. He told the reporter that the durian grove is his only source of income. Replanting the trees was hardly a viable option since they take from one to two decades to mature before they start fruiting. Other plants destroyed by the bulldozers included petai (bitter beans), mangosteen langsat, and various cultivated herbs and roots.

Talip Baharun, a 44-year old from the same village, said that the contractor had fouled the river, which he and others rely on for their drinking water. He said that they don’t have piped in water, and that they rely on the river for its fish, which appear to be affected by the pollution. About 3 km of the river bank has been cleared by the construction crews. Tommi Arisian, a 31-year old, complained that the burial ground had been posted with signs saying, in essence, “Orang Asli customary land,” but the contractor destroyed the area anyway.

A reporter at the end of March interviewed a man named Uda Tiah, a 57-year old from the village of Kampung Sungai Ampang, who also complained about the destruction of their tree crops. “I know that it is government land. But the trees on the land were planted by us. They are our trees. They should at least respect us,” he said.

An elderly Orang Asli woman in Gopeng (Photo by lets.book on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

A different Orang Asli person in Gopeng made the same point, though more emphatically. “First, it’s our orchards, tomorrow they will come and bulldoze our houses,” said Bahagen Bahaden. “We who have lived here for generations have no rights and the government can just give the land to other developers.”

A Malaysian NGO called the Malaysian Natural Treasures Protection Association (PEKA) got involved in the issue, indicating the obvious, that the river is the primary source of water for the people and that they have valid concerns about their orchards and future livelihoods. The President of PEKA, Sajeeda Muhammad, urged the government to resolve the issue and prevent more pollution of the river. “Only the Menteri Besar now has the power to help,” she said.

She wasn’t counting on the resolve of the Semai to take matters into their own hands. A news story last week reported that they have taken the matter to court—to Perak’s High Court in the state administrative capital, Ipoh. Thirty five Orang Asli filed a suit against Malaysia’s federal government, the state government, plus four organizations over the infringement of their rights on 63 ha. of land, which they claim was cleared without their consent. They seek an injunction to prevent the government agencies and the contractors they name in their suit from encroaching any further on their lands and properties.

The High Court of Perak in Ipoh (Photo by Amani Hasan on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

The attorney for the Semai, A. Sivanesan, said that almost 1,000 families in the six communities along the river had been affected by the land clearing work that had begun nearly three months ago. Sivanesan told reporters outside the courthouse that the Semai “are not against development but they have been staying on this land for over 400 years. They have special rights to this land which cannot be abandoned.” They are also seeking a declaration that they are the legal owners of the land that they have lived on for centuries. They want the governments involved to give them monetary compensation for the damages they have suffered.

Although Dentan reported in his classic 1968 book The Semai: A Nonviolent People of Malaya that the Semai preferred to flee into the forest if threatened by attackers in order to avoid confrontations, the attitudes in at least some of their villages have changed. A news report from 2015 described the willingness of a Semai community in Perak to take a private company to court for trespass when it invaded their traditional lands. Thus, the action last week by the Gopeng Semai is not surprising.

Two weeks ago, the Washington Post published a scathing opinion piece by an American scholar about discrimination by the Egyptian government against their Nubian citizens. Amy Austin Holmes, who teaches at the American University in Cairo, focused her analysis on the recent reelection of Abdel el-Sisi as President of Egypt and the ways his government has repressed the Nubians.

A Nubian man (Photo by Mohammed Moussa in Wikimedia, Creative Commons license)

During the run-up to the Egyptian presidential election in late March 2018, Prof. Holmes writes, the state media launched a wave of inciting stories against the Nubian minority in the country—and against foreigners such as herself who have had contacts with the Nubian people. One talk show host cited her research on the Nubians, and particularly her visit to the village of Nasser El Nuba, as evidence of an international conspiracy supporting anti-Egyptian elements within their nation.

She argues that the racism exhibited by the media against the Nubians is a way of discrediting their peaceful dissent and their attempts to gain their constitutional rights to the return of some lands that were historically theirs in Old Nubia. The “proof” cited for their disloyalty has been their contacts with international elements—scholars such as Prof. Holmes.

A Nubian boy (Photo by Francisco Abadal on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

Evidence of the discrimination the Nubians experience in Egypt can also be found in the fact that no schools or universities in the country teach the Nubian language. But Holmes focuses on the point that the Egyptian constitution of 2014 did include some Nubians in the drafting process; as a result, article 236 included the provision that guaranteed to them the “right to return” at least to some of the lands from which they were displaced when the Aswan High Dam was built in the 1960s. She discusses the peaceful protest by some Nubian leaders in Aswan in September 2017, where they sang protest songs and marched along an area called the Corniche to call attention to their constitutional rights.

They faced an array of tanks and armored personnel carriers deployed in the city. They were arrested and languished in prison for two months without even having beds until one of their members, Gamal Sorour, died because of a diabetic coma. After Sorour died, the Nubians who had been detained in prison were released, still to face trial. The case has dragged on and has become quite controversial. The next court date has been set for May 20.

Holmes concludes her essay by citing the treatments of some of her colleagues who have, like her, studied and visited Nubian communities. One scholar was sentenced to death in a trial that she refers to as “farcical.” Another disappeared and his body was later found bearing evidence of his having been tortured. She argues rather persuasively that the government of President el-Sisi is deeply insecure, and highly threatened by the Nubian pleas for justice.

Indian officials are distributing certificates that grant the Paliyans permission to use their forests—and in the process gaining publicity in The Hindu, one of India’s premier newspapers.

The Sirumalai hills in the Dindigul District of Tamil Nadu (Photo by Kmurugesan in Wikimedia, Creative Commons license)

According to an article in the paper on April 12th, T.G. Vinay, the District Collector (a high-ranking official) for the Dindigul District of Tamil Nadu, held a special meeting for the Paliyan living in the Sirumalai Hills to the south of Dindigul City. The meeting was held in the village of Thalakadai on April 11th. In addition to giving forest use certificates to 18 tribal people, he handed out old age pensions, widows pensions, eye glasses, and other forms of welfare to 50 beneficiaries.

Less than a month before, officials had distributed forest rights certificates to other Paliyans in K.C. Patti Panchayat as well as to people in Sirumalai and other villages. In his speech to the gathering in Thalakadai, Mr. Vinay said that requests had been sent to the appropriate government officials to improve the infrastructure for the tribal villages in the Sirumalai Hills. He promised his listeners that they would be getting road improvements and basic sanitary facilities in their communities, such as drinking water and toilets.

A Paliyan family near a Murugan Temple in the Theni District of Tamil Nadu (Photo courtesy of Steven Bonta)

He said that a proposal for bringing electricity to Thalakadai costing Rs. 1.10 crore ($US 165,000) had already been forwarded to other government offices. In order to lay an underground cable that would supply electricity to the community, permission would need to be obtained from the Forest Department. The Collector assured his listeners that clearance from that department would come soon.

A news story in The Hindu two years ago reported on similar issues in the same village, Thalakadai. According to that story, a local politician, R. Viswanathan, had promised the villagers electric power when he ran for a seat in the Assembly in 2011. That news report quoted the complaints of a farm laborer, K. Velmurugan, that the village school children have to do their homework under kerosene lanterns at night—and the kerosene is expensive to purchase in the local shops. In essence, everything in the village comes to a halt at dusk.

A thermal power station in Tamil Nadu (Photo by NLC India Ltd in Wikimedia, Creative Commons license)

The article mentioned that other tribal communities in the Sirumalai Hills had already been electrified. In one of them, Thenmalai, the people had given up hope of ever getting power when the Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (TANGEDCO) was suddenly able to get the necessary permissions and complete laying electric cables into the village—just before an announcement was made of upcoming assembly elections.

According to the news story from early March 2016, the people in Thalakadai are also left behind when it comes to health care. Because it is 30 km. to the hospital in Dindigul, and there is no bus service into the village, pregnant women usually take rooms in Dindigul when they approach their delivery dates so they will be near a health care facility when they need it. For most of their routine health needs, the Paliyan in the Sirumalai Hills rely on a village health nurse.

Readers of The Hindu can only hope that the Paliyans in the Sirumalai Hills will get their fair share of infrastructure improvements from their government officials over the next two years—and that the paper will provide a more upbeat progress report in 2020.

Ever since the 1920s, thousands of Mennonite and Amish people have escaped the rigors of northern U.S. winters each year by flocking to Sarasota, Florida. The plainly dressed men and women, who travel on packed buses from their homes in such northern U.S. settlements as Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and Holmes County, Ohio, were featured in a photo essay in The New Yorker last week and in an article in the online travel magazine Atlas Obscura the week before.

Yoder’s Restaurant in Sarasota, Florida (Photo by Richard Elzey on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

Yoder’s Amish Restaurant and Village serves the old order snowbird community called Pinecraft, a neighborhood located a few miles east of the beaches, the bay, and downtown Sarasota, on Florida’s Gulf Coast. Yoder’s is evidently known for its pies, and the bakers in the restaurant make up to 100 of them every day for their customers. The Atlas Obscura writer, much like the Amish and non-Amish patrons, was clearly overwhelmed by the vast choices of pies—peanut butter cream, double-baked red raspberry, Florida key lime, strawberry rhubarb, and so on.

Amos Yoder, a brother of the founder of the restaurant, Levi Yoder, still greets customers with stories of his family. Levi had come south from his previous home in Indiana since his doctor had recommended it might help with his Parkinson’s disease. The Amish had first settled in the area in the 1920s hoping to grow celery, but the soil conditions were not right for that crop. But many enjoyed the sunshine break from the northern winters and they began staying, at least until spring.

An Amish man riding a tricycle in Sarasota, Florida (Photo by Richard Elzey on Flickr, Creative Commons license)

The Amish visitors of course do not travel to Florida with their horses and buggies, and since they don’t drive cars, they get around Pinecraft on large tricycles. They frequent the shuffleboard courts, venues for live music, and of course Yoder’s. When Levi and his wife Amanda Yoder passed away, their children and then their grandchildren inherited the business. It has expanded into a store that sells gifts, produce, and deli products. The business employs 150 people.

Yoder’s has evolved into one of the central meeting spots in Pinecraft for the Amish, Mennonites, and non-Anabaptist people living in or just visiting the community. They share a common interest in pies, and when they finish eating, they adjourn to the nearby Pinecraft Park where they can join with others in a fierce game of shuffleboard.

The article in The New Yorker mentioned that the fairly strict rules of the Amish society are somewhat relaxed in Pinecraft. Some women wear earrings beneath their white bonnets; some of the houses used by the Amish have satellite dishes. In addition to playing games of shuffleboard, the people go swimming, play volleyball, and enjoy ice-cream cones every evening.

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