Peaceful Societies

A sit-down strike begun in April by 46 Lepcha paraprofessional teachers protesting their treatment by Gorkha authorities in India’s West Bengal State ended peacefully last week when a face-saving compromise was announced. The strike by the teachers, called a dharna in India, had been in effect for 109 days. They were pleased to receive a letter from the West Bengal Education Department that assured them an interim arrangement for their employment had been devised.

The conflict was an important news story back in April and early May in the Indian media. The basic issue was that the Lepchas wished to have their children receive instruction in their own Lepcha language in the public schools. Officials in the state government agreed and appointed 46 people, para-professional teachers, to teach Lepcha in the 46 schools of the Darjeeling District of West Bengal.

The Gorkhaland Territorial Administration objected, claiming it alone had the authority to hire teachers. After a series of maneuvers with various administrators and the courts, the newly-appointed teachers launched their strike in the town of Kalimpong to dramatize their treatment at the hands of the GTA, a group with administrative powers with whom they have had rocky relations for years.

The news last week was positive—a compromise that will allow the 27 men and 19 women to start teaching Lepcha to the children. The letter from Mr. A. Roy, the West Bengal State School Education Department Secretary, told the teachers that the education ministry had arranged for them to teach in the Lepcha medium schools, organized under the auspices of the Mayel Lyang Lepcha Development Board (MYLDB), which was formed in 2013.

Peter Lepcha, one the 46 teachers, commented, “The State government has resolved our issue in a wise manner and our dharna did not go in vain. Our problem of unemployment has been addressed and now we can earn our livelihood.” According to another news report carried by Facebook, Mr. Lepcha added, “this is a victory of our agitation, and even though schools under MYLDB might be unrecognized, at least we are happy that there will be some reduction in unemployment in the hills.”

A petition from the GTA is still pending in the courts, so until that is resolved, the paraprofessional teachers will be teaching in non-recognized medium schools and night schools that the Lepcha board administers, rather than in the regular schools. They will be paid salaries from the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, a movement aimed at promoting universal elementary education administered by the government of India. The state department of education has approved this arrangement, according to the letter.

Several officials from the All India Trinamool Congress (TMC), the ruling political party of West Bengal state, expressed pleasure at the compromise resolution. Bhupendra Lepcha, the district youth president for TMC, said that the future of the 46 teachers was now secure, and Chawang Bhutia, the TMC Hill secretary, congratulated state officials for effectively resolving the situation. He thanked the teachers for being patient.

Thinlas Chorol, a Ladakhi woman, has challenged a profession that previously had been a male preserve by founding a trekking company staffed entirely by women from rural Ladakh. In the process, Ms. Chorol’s determination in establishing her new business exemplifies the traditional equality and strength of Ladakhi women.

The writer of a news story last week about the company, Gagandeep Kaur, opens her report by indicating that Ladakh is “probably one of the best places in the world for a woman to live.” Ms. Kaur, an independent journalist based in New Delhi, specializes, in part, on writing about gender issues.

Chorol was a native of Takmachik, a small village in Ladakh, and she studied in school until the tenth level before entering the Students’ Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh (SECMOL), a progressive non-governmental organization that promotes advances in education. Her determination led her to Leh, the major town of Ladakh, where she got into trekking since she loved to explore the mountains of the region. She decided to begin a career as a trekking guide.

She worked for two years with a travel agency associated with SECMOL, called Around Ladakh with Students. Then, in 2008, Chorol spent a spring semester at India’s National Outdoor Leadership School taking such courses as backpacking and whitewater rafting. Subsequently, she served as an instructor’s aide for a mountaineering course at the school. Then, she taught a course in mountaineering at the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering in Uttarkashi, a mountainous district of northern India outside Ladakh.

After that, she worked as a freelance guide, but she was unable to get a position with an established travel agency—they hesitated to hire a woman. “In spite of being well qualified, it was extremely difficult to find any opening[s] because of my gender. It was just presumed that men are more suitable as trekking guides,” she told Kaur.

But Chorol had the insight that at least some female tourists would prefer guides who were also women. She took on various guiding jobs, but she obsessed about her first love—trekking. So she decided to launch her own business in 2009 with a commitment to hiring only other women as her employees.

She started the business, called the Ladakhi Women’s Travel Company, with only an office manager, two other guides, and two porters. She had to borrow money from her family to get started, but she has broken the myth that only men can be trekking guides. Kaur quotes one of her employees, Dolma, a 24 year old student, who reports that she loves being a guide. Dolma’s family was reluctant to have her become one, but when they realized that other women were working for Ms. Chorol, they accepted the idea.

Dolma is a first-year university student seeking a Bachelor of Arts degree, but she seems to appreciate being employed by Chorol at the tourist company. She explains how Chorol carefully trained her for a year before she was allowed to go out as a guide herself.

Chorol tells the writer that since she prefers to hire her employees from the remote villages of Ladakh, they require a lot of training, especially in communicating with tourists. Because of their isolated backgrounds, they do not really know how to talk effectively in English with the visitors, she explains.

One of the problems of running a tourist business in Ladakh is that tourism virtually shuts down in the winter since travel in the region becomes nearly impossible. Thus, tourism and trekking last only from April through October each year. But one of Chorol’s major achievements has been the fact that women are now being hired by other travel agencies in Ladakh as trekking guides. Families are comfortable with their girls entering the field.

Chorol’s ability and determination to lead Ladakhi women into significant places in the growing travel industry is not surprising. Earlier news stories about Ladakh have made it clear that the place of women in traditional Ladakhi society was already quite strong—an important aspect of their famed peacefulness—and that strength has not appeared to weaken very much due to increased contact with modern ways.

This expansion of the roles of Ladakhi women also fits in with what Helena Norberg-Hodge (1991), wrote in her book Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh. She indicated that human roles are not clearly defined in Ladakh—people move about the house doing what needs to be done, seemingly without coordination or direction from anyone.

Women have somewhat different roles from men, but their status is not only secure, they have a relatively strong position. Since the economy of their traditional society is based on the home, which the women control, they make all the major decisions. Norberg-Hodge wrote that she was struck, when she first entered Ladakh, by the uninhibited smiling of the women. They moved about joking and freely, unselfconsciously interacting with the men.

“Though young girls may sometimes appear shy, women generally exhibit great self-confidence, strength of character, and dignity,” the author wrote (p.68). The news report about the confidence and accomplishments of Thinlas Chorol certainly bears out that observation by Norberg-Hodge.

Last week the daily blog of Asymptote, a prominent online literary and translation journal, featured the work of a major contemporary Zapotec poet named Irma Pineda. Ms. Pineda, along with other poets in her community, is at the forefront of articulating cultural values to the Zapotec people.

Pineda was born and raised in Juchitán, a Zapotec city in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. Her father, an activist working for Zapotec autonomy, was murdered while she was a girl. She studied and worked for a while in Toluca and Mexico City, in Central Mexico, but then she returned to her home town. Her first language is Zapotec, much like most of the other residents of the city.

The poet writes her works in Zapotec, then “recreates” them in Spanish. She does not refer to the Spanish language versions as “translations” because, she says, she thinks of them as parallel poems—“a poem created in our language and another poem in Spanish.” She feels that creating two different versions upholds the literary traditions of both cultures.

As of 2011, Pineda had published five collections of her poems, one of which enjoyed a print run of over 90,000 copies. She published her sixth book of bilingual Zapotec/Spanish poetry, Guie’ ni zinebe / La Flor de Se Llevó, in 2013. She is a faculty member at the National Teachers University in Ixtepec, Oaxaca, and serves as a member of the Sistema Nacional de Creadores de Arte of Mexico. She has been the only woman to serve as president of the Escritores en Lenguas Indigenas (ELIAC) of Mexico, an organization of Mexicans who write in indigenous languages.

Her translator into English, for both the Asymptote article last week and for several earlier publications, has been Wendy Call, a faculty member of Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington. Her translations of Pineda’s poetry have appeared in Orion, Michigan Quarterly Review, Kenyon Review online, Cincinnati Review and others.

Asymptote was described by Publisher’s Weekly in 2011, shortly after it began publication, as an online journal that publishes original fiction, poetry, nonfiction, drama, criticism, and interviews. The journal seeks out writers who have not yet been published in English and it finds translators to translate them.

How does Zapotec poetry relate to the broader culture of that society? Some background on the Zapotec city of Juchitán is necessary. A local group, the Coalition of Workers, Peasants, and Students of the Isthmus (in Spanish, Coalición Obrera, Campesian, Esudiantil del Istmo, COCEI), founded in Juchitán in the 1970s to support workers’ rights and agrarian reform, was able to win municipal elections in the city of about 75,000 in 1981.

However, the ruling political party in Mexico and Oaxaca State at the time was deeply challenged by the Juchitán city council. Years of strife persisted between the popularly supported social and economic programs of the local political movement and the higher levels of authority in the state and nation.

Clare Sullivan, who specializes in translating Mexican poetry and teaches at the University of Louisville, writes that the poets in the city have been important actors in the local drama, for poetry is an especially important aspect of the culture and society of Juchitán. When the COCEI party overthrew the entrenched power structure in 1981, Sullivan (2012) argues (p.45), “this victory belong[ed] to poetry as well as politics.” Her reasoning is that the poets of the city “entrance” readers with their verses, remind people of their identity by “reimagining local traditions,” and urge the citizens to take charge of their own culture, language, and future.

One of the outstanding features of the Zapotec poets, Sullivan continues, is that through their effective use of language, they combine the issues involving humanity with a care for the natural world. The threats that the environment face are addressed by the Juchitán poets, including Pineda. For instance, the scholar writes, Pineda has described the human destruction of the sea in powerful language, which she quotes in her own English translation:

“the sea was once our glory but long ago stopped making fish and now it vomits rusty cans”

In her article, Sullivan (2012) describes the influence of several contemporary Zapotec poets—Natalia Toledo, Victor Terán and of course Pineda—and writes that they frequently produce works that serve as an example for others and provide hope for indigenous cultures and languages around the world.

World Literature Today, which published the Sullivan article over three years ago, still includes on its website multi-lingual recordings of readings (including English translations) of the Zapotec poets she discusses in her piece. Pineda’s poem “You Will Not See Me Die,” read effectively in English by Wendy Call, is an immensely powerful statement of the strength and endurance of Zapotec society and culture: “we will be strong, we will always survive, our song will live forever….” Pineda reads the Zapotec and Spanish versions. Numerous videos and recordings of Pineda reading other works are also available on YouTube.

The English, Spanish, and Zapotec language versions of a number of Pineda’s poems can be read on the Web. The Asymptote article last week includes the text of her poem “Love / my belly is now a dry tree / that once wanted to bloom stars for your nights.” An entry in Wendy Call’s blog in 2011 published Pineda’s poem “Light.” Eleven Eleven, a literary journal, published her poems “The Wall,” “Siren,” “The Guest,” and “from The House of Origin to the Nine Handspans.”

Accusing, and even killing, others because they are supposedly witches is a widespread plague in Africa, particularly in Tanzania. Many people in the homeland of the Fipa people—the Sumbawanga District in the Rukwa Region of that nation—claim the magical powers of witchcraft.

Sometimes those supposed magical powers are used for beneficial purposes, proponents argue—to cure illnesses, to call up the spirits of dead people, or to prevent accidents on the roads. But at other times the magic is thought to be used for evil reasons, such as causing diseases, harming others, or killing people and animals. These practices are dramatically at odds with the positive health advances and welcoming ceremonies held for newborn babies at a Fipa village in the Rukwa Region, as described by a news story in 2014. Both stories need to be told.

Hamisi Mathias Machangu, the author of a recent journal article on killing accused witches among the Fipa, defines witchcraft as “any influence of an individual possessing magical power on another person’s mind, body or property against his or her will (p.274-275).” He considers witchcraft to be distinct from magical powers in general. Machangu is an assistant lecturer in the History Department at the University of Dar es Salaam.

Accusations of elderly women as witches is a serious, but tragically common, practice in Tanzania. Many elderly women are killed as a result of their supposed witchcraft, and the crime seems to be growing worse. Between 1970 and 1980, 3,693 people were killed in Tanzania because they were suspected witches. In the decade of the 1990s, that figure rose to 23,000 deaths, of whom 80 percent of the victims were women.

The Sumbawanga District of the Rukwa Region, the heartland of the Fipa people, ranks among the top five areas within the nation for the witchcraft killings of elderly women. The very name Sumbawanga translates as “throw away your witchcraft,” from “sumba,” to throw and “wanga,” witchcraft. The name was perhaps derived from a warning in an earlier era to spiritual healers from other regions that they should avoid migrating into Fipa territory.

The thrust of Machangu’s work has been to investigate the reasons for this growing problem. One issue the author examines is the way the authority of the traditional chiefs was severely weakened during the colonial period and after independence. Traditionally, the chiefs organized the people and kept their social and economic activities functioning effectively.

During the pre-colonial period, accusations of witchcraft were rare. The people lived in sparsely settled, economically self-sufficient, farming communities. The Fipa in that period thought that quarrels between villagers, issues which threatened the harmony in society, might result in misfortunes and epidemics. They believed that the chiefs had the ability to settle conflicts with their magical powers. As a result of this perceived stability, crops and animals thrived and no epidemics threatened their communities—or so they believed.

However, this controlling order was disturbed by the British in 1926 when they imposed a system of indirect rule over the colony that minimized the roles of the chiefs. Tanzania gained its independence in 1961, and in 1963 the new government permanently removed the chiefs from their offices. They no longer had any power.

Furthermore, the national government did not implement policies to improve agriculture in Sumbawanga. Instead, new economic constraints, combined with natural increases in population, caused living conditions to become worse. Food shortages increased and famines occurred frequently. Also, since independence Fipa farmers have had problems using fertilizers, working with improved seeds, and controlling pest infestations and diseases. In essence, they were maladapted to the capitalist agricultural system imposed from above. These issues fostered poverty and of course the traditional chiefs were no longer able to intervene.

The author maintains that the economic decline prompted suspicions that the increasing problems—diseases, pests, droughts, and famines—were caused by the efforts of poor, elderly women. The old women must be jealous of the successes of the others, some people seemed to think, so they caused the misfortunes. They must be witches. The author maintains that there has been a direct relationship between increased poverty in Sumbawanga and accusations of witchcraft against elderly Fipa women. The chiefs could no longer bring rain and end epidemics.

Furthermore, instead of addressing issues of gender inequality in the district, the government has promoted male domination over females. Ever since the colonial era, males were given educational privileges that were denied to females. This trend continued after independence—girls could not have much education, so women have remained poor and ignorant. Again, this trend has fostered the witchcraft accusations.

The author identifies still another issue. Government policies instituted in 1967 fostered the concentration of people in Sumbawanga from scattered, isolated hamlets into newly created, more concentrated villages. This movement of people involved other ethnic groups as well as the Fipa who were concentrating in the centralized villages. This redistribution of the population in the new settlements, with their greater numbers of people, produced serious social disruptions: anti-social behaviors such as adultery, thefts, and violence, all of which fostered tensions. These tensions contributed to the increased wave of witchcraft killings.

Machangu also writes that the Tanzanian Local Customary Law of 2002 denied widows the right to inherit property from their husbands. As a result, disputes over property inheritances became rife, and the conflicts led to the killing of elderly women, in part in order to grab properties the women might have inherited from their deceased husbands.

Tanzanians are attempting to deal with this problem. The government has passed laws, such as a Witchcraft Ordinance enacted in 1928, which provided imprisonment and fines for the killing of suspected witches. A 2002 Witchcraft Act added to the amounts of the fines.

Various social groups campaign to eliminate the witchcraft killings: they seek to find and protect elderly women in Sumbawanga who are experiencing social exclusion and prejudice. Religious leaders condemn the practice in their mosques and churches. Some NGOs are working to stem the problem by trying to improve the quality of life for the poor and the elderly in the district. However, Machangu does not suggest that the problem is getting any better.

Machangu, Hamisi Mathias. 2015. “Vulnerability of Elderly Women to Witchcraft Accusations among the Fipa of Sumbawanga, 1961-2010.” Journal of International Women’s Studies 16(2): 274-284

An orientation program on the Isle of Man has sharpened the perceptions of Dawn Repetto about better ways to promote tourism for Tristan da Cunha. As Tourism Coordinator for Tristan, she has been participating in an exchange program supported by the Manx government. Last week she discussed the values tourists could take away from visits to her own island.

Flags of Mann and Tristan She and her family have spent three months on Mann and they are nearing the time when they will be returning to Tristan. A reporter for a local news service on Mann, Dave Kneale, interviewed her about her work on Tristan, her program on Mann at the Department of Economic Development and the Manx National Heritage, and her hopes for promoting tourism.

She explained the self-sufficiency of the Tristan Islanders. Many are employed in the lobster fishing company or by the government, but they are not done work at the end of the day. They grow much of their own food: they raise cattle, cultivate potatoes, and harvest fish from the surrounding sea. Repetto pointed out to the Manx reporter, “we have no restaurants and bakeries so island women do all of their own cooking and baking.”

She continued by discussing the social climate on Tristan. The 200 years of isolation—the islanders take pride in being “the world’s most remote inhabited island”—have fostered some unique social and economic traditions. All the land is owned communally and the feelings of community are highly cherished. People help one another and though they are very busy, they also have a happy lifestyle, she maintained.

She went on to say that a person who had no money would not starve on the island. “We are a peaceful community with no crime and it is a great place to bring up children,” she said.

Tourists have a hard time arranging visits to Tristan. The island has no hotels and no restaurants, and relatively few ships travel from Cape Town to Tristan, so it can be hard to book passage. In case a medical emergency arises, it may take priority and preempt a room on a departing ship, forcing visitors to stay on the island until the next ship with available space comes by.

Despite those problems, the island has a steady stream of travelers who do visit—and Ms. Repetto wants to increase their numbers. There is a constant backlog of people who wish to visit the island and there are not enough ships with facilities to bring them. Although the island has no hotels, it can provide self-catering accommodations and homestays in private homes.

She included in her comments to the reporter some kind words about her hosts on the Isle of Man. She told him that their island is lovely and that the Manx people are fortunate to have both an island lifestyle and the advantages of being close to Ireland and the UK. Their island is similar to her own, though of course it is much bigger.

She concluded by saying, “People have been so kind and friendly since we arrived—I hadn’t realised that this sort of kindness still existed in today’s world.” The Tristan website also has a recent news story about the Repetto family on Mann, which includes numerous photos.

A support group has launched a campaign to foster awareness and actions that will help Inuit women who suffer from violence within their families. Nunatsiaq Online, reporting on the story early last week, indicated that the focus of the new program is to involve other people—bystanders, office colleagues, neighbors—in suspected cases of violence.

Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada launched its program with the three tag lines, “Believe; Ask; Connect.” Rebecca Kudloo, the president of the organization, told the news source in an email, “We can all help end violence in our homes and communities. We want to encourage and support people to help others. Together we can make changes by listening and talking.”

The three tag lines suggest that people should believe the evidence they perceive when a woman appears to be a victim of family violence, ask her how she feels the issue might be handled best, and then help her connect with an appropriate support service. The campaign by the Pauktuutit group has been supported by a grant of $75,000 from Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada. The group has just learned that it will receive more federal support as well.

The news service reported that the director of a women’s emergency shelter in Iqaluit, Suny Jacob, said that she would support any efforts to raise awareness about the problem of family violence. But she expressed skepticism that focusing on the assistance of bystanders would be enough. Many Inuit have a lot of problems of their own and may be reluctant to become involved in the issues of others. They might fear that they could be required to be interviewed by the police, or perhaps even to participate in court hearings, all of which would demand their time and efforts.

Jacob said that since many people are so involved with their own lives, they don’t have too much time for getting involved with the lives of others. She feels that the most important thing is to support mental health services and emergency shelters. That way, women who are the victims of violence have services outside the family to which they can turn for help.

Kudloo responded that while some bystanders may be reluctant to come to the aid of a battered woman, she hopes the campaign by her group will change the general attitude of people toward the issue. Violence in the home is not just a private matter. It is important, she said, to “encourage people to break the silence. It’s OK to talk about it and say it’s not OK to hurt others.”

The news story, quoting a report in 2013 from the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, a component of Statistics Canada, said that the rate of violence against Nunavut women in 2011 was 13 times higher than the rate for the rest of Canada. It went on to indicate that 1,715 women in Nunavut were the victims of violent crimes that were reported to the police in 2011, compared to 1,014 men that year. When only statistics of sexual crimes were examined for that year, Nunavut had a rate of 1,135 per 100,000 people, compared to 99 per 100,000 in the rest of the nation.

Earlier news reports have made it clear that one of the major reasons for the violence in Inuit society is the breakdown of the traditional social structure. The violence in Nunavut, according to a story in 2011, appears to be a direct result of the historical trauma of the Inuit having moved—or having been pressured to move by the government—off the land and into settled communities, and in the process, of abandoning their traditional ways.

But the reasonable question is, how much violence existed against women in traditional Inuit societies, out on the land? A recent journal article argued that violence was present in traditional Inuit society before the period of historical traumas began. It continued during the worst of the traumatic episodes, and it continues today. The author of that article cites a variety of Inuit works to document her assertion—that the Inuit past cannot be idealized, and that their contemporary social realities must be confronted realistically.

However, Briggs (1974) provided a nuanced view of the traditional Inuit women and the society they lived in. She wrote that while Inuit men and women were ambivalent about loving and being loved, they did not, at least in their traditional culture, exhibit institutionalized gender conflicts, and they showed very little tensions between the sexes.

An important feature of Inuit marriages was that the men and their wives had very clear roles. The men were the hunters, enduring the frequently very difficult, dangerous tasks involved with providing for their families. They also did all the very heavy work and repaired not only their own tools but everything around the camp. The women did a lot of work around camp such as sewing, child care, and cooking.

Briggs (1974) makes the point that both spouses credited each other for their respective contributions. Both thought the work of the other was absolutely essential. Neither could live without hunting or warm clothing. Both were critically important—at least in their traditional society. The work of both partners was interdependent and complementary, and while some women could help a bit with the hunting, and some men could do a little of the housework, they believed that the work of the other was indispensable and that they were basically incapable of doing it.

In public, men and women would maintain a formal separation—when a party of strangers approached the village, the men would go out to greet them, while the women would retreat to the house and make tea for when the visitors were brought in. Behind the formal, public view, however, Inuit couples—particularly people who were middle aged or older—often had close relationships. In the privacy of their evenings, they would share experiences, reminisce about the past, play cards, and perhaps enjoy foods that they kept only for themselves.

Briggs (1974) did not romanticize the Inuit. Rather, she provided a careful record of her perceptions of life in the traditional Inuit community out on the land. The tragedy appears to be the historical traumas which fostered violence among them. The practical discussions among activists such as the Pauktuutit group and the Inuit women’s crisis center are essential, but so are the historical facts recorded in the literature by scholars such as Briggs and the possibilities that they may suggest.

The Kadar living in the Anapantham Colony had to move to another location, Sasthanpoovam, nearly 10 years ago when their colony was nearly destroyed by landslides. A mother and a child had been killed in the tragedy. By 2010, they had moved to temporary shelters in the new community and, according to a news report at the beginning of last week, it is now thriving.

Well-maintained roads connect the new colony with the nearest township, the temporary buildings have been replaced by permanent structures, and the Kadar are most appreciative. Reporter Vaisakh E. Hari writes that Kerala government agencies have built 68 houses for the Kadar in Sasthanpoovam, with Rs. 2.50 lakh (US $3,938) from tribal development funds and the same amount from Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group funds.

Changes and some modernization struck the reporter during his visit to the new settlement. One person was using a mobile phone with a customized ring tone. The Kadar are integrating outside values while keeping alive their own traditions, the reporter writes. Children are starting to regularly attend tribal schools in the area.

One resident of the colony, Sasi, told Vaisakh Hari that “a huge change [is] visible in the mentality of the residents.” Their contacts with outsiders were quite limited at the former location, but now the people are going into nearby communities for jobs, such as in construction work. “The barrier between them and the outside world is slowly diminishing,” Sasi added.

The use of the traditional Theendarippura, a special building for pregnant women, has lessened, but the Kadar are requesting the construction of a new one anyway, so the government has allocated Rs. 4 lakh (US $6,301) out of Scheduled Tribe funds to build it. And the people continue with their primary trade, collecting non-timber forest products such as honey, which they sell. The reporter indicates that an earlier prohibition on women coming out of their homes to greet visitors has lessened.

But according to the news report, the Kadar still worship the same two gods, Maladaivangal and Murugan, as they have in the past, and their idols are still commonly seen in the colony. Ethnographies of the Kadar over the years describe different gods. Anantha Krishna Iyer (1909)wrote in a supercilious fashion that “the religion of the Kadar is a rude animism (p.11).” To support his judgment, he described their worship of Kali, especially the preparations by virgin girls for the ceremonies. The Kadar also worship Lord Ayyappan, a major deity of southern India, and Malavizhi, whom he describes as a sylvan god and ruler of the hills.

Another early ethnographer, Edgar Thurston (1909), followed the example of Anantha Krishna Iyer by referring to Kadar religious beliefs as “a crude polytheism (p.21).” He indicated that their practices focused on the worship of gods, most of which were located at special spots in the mountains. He described five such places. For instance, the Kadar worshipped Iyappaswami at a rock located beneath a teak tree. They appealed to that god for protection from sickness and disease.by makinge marks on the stone with ashes.

Hermanns (1955), in his account about Kadar religion, describes a variety of religious practices and the gods they worshipped. Among them, he writes, the chief is Aiyappan (Ayyappan), the first man and ancestor of the Kadar. Ayyappan is a hunter god who assists the Kadar in securing game, protecting them from snakes and wild beasts, and helping save them from various other dangers in the forests.

One elder told Father Hermanns, “‘Aiyappan is our most powerful protector and mountain god. We honor him together with Shiva (p.146).’”

The reporter for The Hindu reflected the enthusiasm of the day with his headline, which gushed, “A Day to Rejoice for Tribal Children.” The story at the beginning of June was that a new primary school had opened for tribal children at the Attathode settlement in the Pathanamthitta District of Kerala. Many of the tribal people in Attathode are Malapandaram.

Map of Sabarimala vicinity The local Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA), Raju Abraham, joined the festivities in opening the new school. Attathode is the second largest tribal settlement in Kerala. Children from some of the other Malapandaram settlements along the road from the district administrative center, Pathanamthitta town, to Sabarimala attended the opening. The huge temple complex of the prominent god Lord Ayyappan is located in Sabarimala.

District Collector S. Harikishore joined the headmaster, Bijumon, and the teachers in welcoming the tribal students into school on its opening day. The report indicated that the school opened for 50 students in classes I to IV, of which 22 were in Class I. More children were expected to come in the days to follow.

Financial support for the school seemed to be secure. Mr. Abraham announced he could pledge Rs. 30 lakh (US $47,262) from the infrastructure development fund for constructing the self-contained school. He indicated that the Member of Parliament, T.N. Seena, would donate another Rs. 10 lakh (US $15,754) from her local area development fund.

The District Collector joined the chorus of support by indicating that the District Lead Bank had pledged to provide the children with school uniforms. He said that the children would receive meals three times per day, and the school would transport them to and from their homes.

The offers of help were overwhelming. The Sabari Saranashram Trust offered to provide food for the children at the new school, and the Carmel Engineering College at Perinad had provided desks and benches. Arrangements had been made for three teachers to be posted to the new school from another tribal school at Kisumom, the MLA said.

An interesting aspect of the June 2nd news report was the statement that many of the children were given “official names” when they were enrolled in the school register, as if their real names didn’t matter. He gave examples: Kunjumol, a school teacher, brought Chandu, who was renamed on the register, Abhishek; Ponni, a girl, was named Meenakshi on the register. The reporter did not explain why they were renamed.

Brian Morris explains, in his book Forest Traders (1982), that renaming Malapandaram children is a common practice. He points out that individuals are not permanently associated with given names. “Anyone may have several names during his lifetime, even concurrently, changing them as his fancies and moods determine (p.152).”

Morris mentions another Malapandaram school, at Achencoil, where children refer to one another with names that are not used by their own families. As an example, he says that Chuppayya refers to his sister as “Karuppayi,” while other relatives of hers call her “Vellachu” or “Kochupennu.” Personal names are not systematized, Morris concludes. It appears as if the new school decided to respect this Malapandaram naming custom.

The same writer for The Hindu, Radhakrishnan Kuttoor, filed a much more discouraging report from Pathanamthitta last week. The new school, hailed so enthusiastically six and a half weeks earlier, was now on the verge of closing. The fault appears to be that of the Tribal Welfare Department, which has failed to provide the support it had promised on opening day.

The reporter indicates that 22 of the 50 students come from the Malapandaram groups living in forest areas of Laha, Nilackal, and Chalakkayam. But the children are not getting the support promised. The school lacks a blackboard as yet. Furthermore, it is supposed to serve food to the children three times each day, but so far officials have not released the funds needed. The District Collector, S. Harikishore, intervened and sanctioned Rs.10,000 (US $158) to help the struggling school from the Kudumbasree Mission fund. But his help may not be enough.

The Hindu names a wide range of agencies that are not helping as they should. The Education and Food and Civil Supplies departments have not made arrangements for serving meals in the middle of the day to the children. Furthermore, the Finance Department has raised objections about allowing the salaries of the staff to be paid. The Tribal Welfare Department has failed to release the funds to operate a jeep that was to transport children from Laha and Chalakkayam, 25 km and 12 km away, respectively.

The headmaster, upset about the lack of support, has gone on leave and the school, according to the newspaper, was probably going to be closed the following Monday—that is, July 20—if the situation were not resolved.

The racism that Nubians in Egypt sometimes experience from the Arab majority in their country was dramatized last week in a widely publicized incident involving a popular soccer (football) star. The incident exemplifies the bigotry that the Nubian writer Idris Ali wrote about in a major novel, which was the subject of a review here just three weeks ago.

The racism captured the attention of Nubians and news commentators in Egypt. It started when an outspoken Nubian soccer player named Ahmed El-Merghany condemned a military battle two weeks ago, fought between the Egyptian army and Islamic State militants in North Sinai. According to news reports, the army killed over 100 militants in the battle, but numerous Egyptian soldiers died also.

El-Merghany had the temerity to express his personal opinion about the situation on his Facebook page, on which he described the President of Egypt, Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, as a failure. El-Merghany plays as a midfielder for the soccer team Wadi Degla—or at least he did. He had played for another team, called Zamalek, chaired by a man named Mortada Mansour, until 2013 when he left and joined Wadi Degla.

Shortly after he published his critical comments, in Arabic on Facebook, the chairman of Zamalek, Mr. Mansour, an outspoken lawyer who had, himself, announced last year that he was running for president and then soon withdrew, leveled a blast at El-Merghany for expressing critical opinions about the government. Among other things, Mansour called El-Merghany a “bawab”, a racist term that refers to his dark skin complexion and suggests that he is nothing but a doorman—a low-status job that many Nubians do, in fact, hold.

In response to that racist taunt, the General Nubian Union, which seeks to promote the interests of Nubians, condemned Mansour’s comments. The Union quickly announced that it was going to sue Mansour “for inciting hatred and discriminating against a group of the [Egyptian] society with the intention of disdaining them,” it said on its Facebook page.

The Union added, “his racist remarks saw him insult the player and the Nubians by telling him ‘you are a doorman and servant’, also disdaining a respectable profession which has been the job of many Nubians over the past decades. We [have gotten] used to such rotten comments from Mansour against any person who disagrees with him or the authorities.”

Wadi Degla, for its part, announced that Mr. El-Merghany had been put on leave. The team emphasized in its announcement that it was against their rules for players to make comments about politics. “We have been against mixing politics with sport since 2012,” the club said. It has suspended him for the rest of the season.

The club did condemn Mansour’s racist remarks, however. It said it “denounces the insults subjected recently to the player who is responsible for the whole situation.” But the club was defensive about “offloading” the star player. They did it, not because he had criticized the president, but because he had spoken out about politics.

Another news report quoted the team as saying, “Wadi Degla put[s] emphasis on our respect for freedom of speech which is provided by our constitution, however, we strongly reject expressing any political view by any employee.” Wadi Degla is in eighth place in the Egyptian soccer league and Zamalek is in the lead.

The opening paragraph in a recent journal article by Piriya Pholphirul about Thailand begins with the amazingly hopeful statement that “‘happiness’ is the ultimate human desire.” Skeptical readers, living in societies that place their highest values on wealth, power, position, or status, might well question such an assertion.

A Wikipedia article, the “Culture of Thailand,” explains that the formal Thai greeting, called the wai, is “often accompanied by a serene smile symbolizing a welcoming disposition and a pleasant attitude.” The article continues that “Thailand is often referred to as the ‘land of smiles’ in tourist brochures.” As part of their culture of serenity and happiness, the Thai people strongly discourage displays of conflict and anger.

But are there differences between the Rural Thai and the Urban Thai regarding this issue? Professor Pholphirul, from the International College of the National Institute of Development Administration in Bangkok, investigated the topic in his research. The thrust of his article is to analyze the happiness of the Thai people in various social, economic, and health circumstances, with a particular focus on whether the respondents live in rural or urban settings.

In order to investigate the topic, he obtained data referred to as a “Happiness Indicator” out of a study titled “The Development and Testing of the New Version of Thai Mental Health Indicator.” The study was conducted by the Department of Mental Health, Ministry of Public Health.

The data for his study were obtained by using the Thai Mental Health Indicator Questionnaire with a representative sample of Thai people in all urban and rural areas of Thailand, among people from 15 to 60 years of age. Samples were taken from high, moderate, and low income areas. A total of 2,402 samples were gathered, about 480 from each of the five regions of the nation. Of the total samples, 690 were from people living in urban areas and the rest from rural respondents.

Not surprisingly, people living in urban areas reported higher levels of education than the Rural Thai people. Also not a surprise is the fact that people living in the cities earned more than those living in the country. The urban people earned an average of 6,512 Baht (roughly $217) per month compared to 5,589 Baht (about $186) for rural earners.

The author indicates that the urban dwellers, on average, reported more health problems than the Rural Thai. Pholphirul divides health problems reported by survey respondents into chronic conditions and common ailments (colds, sore throats, headaches) suffered one month before the interviews. The urban residents had only slightly more chronic illnesses overall than the rural residents, 19 percent compared to 18 percent, but a significantly higher percentage of common illness than their rural brethren, 28 percent compared to 24 percent.

Overall, looking at all the levels of happiness examined in the survey questionnaire, the people in rural Thailand reported that they are only slightly happier than the city dwellers. However, the Rural Thai provided moderately higher results at the positive end of the scale. About 19 percent of the rural people said they were extremely happy compared to 17 percent of the urbanites, and 43 percent of the country people said they were very happy, compared to 40 percent of the urban respondents.

Another scale the author prepared was of what he calls “Life Satisfaction.” While the data show that the overall results for Urban Thai and Rural Thai are very close, significantly more rural people than urban people reported they were extremely satisfied with life (10 percent compared to 6 percent) and, at the other end of the scale, more urban residents said they were extremely dissatisfied with life (3 percent compared to 2 percent). Pholphirul argues that life satisfaction is a factor that affects happiness.

Summarizing the entire survey, the author concludes that more Thai people report they are happy than unhappy, and that overall the rural people are happier than the urban people. Also, the regions with the greatest densities of urban areas—the Central Region and the Eastern Region—have lower levels of happiness than the more rural North and Northeast regions.

Prof. Pholphirul adds that despite the benefits of urban life, such as more choices for consumers, greater chances for jobs, better opportunities for education, and more conveniences, urban Thai people are more likely to have to confront mental and physical issues than rural people. The country people, on the other hand, may well emphasize that their rural ways value “generosity and a non-competitive environment (p.984).”

Another suggestion Pholphirul makes is that the more competitive urban environment may well result in couples having less time to spend with one another. So divorce rates may increase in urban areas, causing city people to derive less pleasure from life in the future.

Fifty years ago, Phillips (1965) probed what he refered to (p. 54) as the “happy characteristics” of the Rural Thai: regular good humor, friendliness, affability, and interpersonal gentleness. He added that their conversations were often marked by nervous giggling and frequent discussions of unimportant subjects while they attempted to determine what others were thinking and to fulfill the minimal amount of interpersonal contact. They desired to make good impressions on others through their good manners, flattering comments, and excessive politeness. Their relationships were pleasant and jocular, fun though not necessarily socially significant, for a good reason, he concluded: they want to “avoid face-to-face conflict!” (p.54)

While Bang Chan itself, where Phillips did his research, is now a suburb of Bangkok, and conditions there are changed, outsiders can gather from the current study that the more rural areas of the country still value their traditional culture. Outsiders can hope that scholars like Pholphirul will continue to investigate issues that Phillips raised in his pioneering work 50 years ago.

Pholphirul, Piriya. 2014. “Healthier and Happier? The Urban-Rural Divide in Thailand.” Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment 2(8): 973-985.

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Kerala and its Peaceful Societies Part 1, the Kadar

Kerala and its Peaceful Societies Part 2, the Malapandaram

Nubians Insulted by Egyptian Racism

Happiness and Peacefulness in Thailand [journal article review]

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