Of Strangers in the Village, Grease Devils and Elephant Census

by Shanie

"I am as much a stranger in the village today as I was in the first summer I arrived......I thought of white men arriving for the first time in an African village, strangers there, as I am a stranger here, and tried to imagine the astounded populace touching their hair and marvelling at the colour of their skin. But there is a great difference between being the first white man to be seen by Africans and being the first black man to be seen by whites. The white man takes the astonishment as a tribute, for he arrives to conquer and to convert the natives, whose inferiority in relation to himself is not even to be questioned; whereas I, without a thought of conquest, find myself among a people whose culture controls me, has even, in a sense, created me, people who have cost me more in anguish and rage than they will ever know, who yet do not even know of my existence."

(August 27, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) One of the best known African American writers of the twentieth century was James Baldwin. Born in Harlem, New York, he moved to Europe, to Paris and later to Switzerland, where most of his creative works were written. The above is from ‘A Stranger in the Village’ which was included in a collection of his essays published just before his death. The essay is about his life in a remote mountain village in Switzerland which he visits on a regular basis. On his visits, he stays in the chalet of a friend whose family are from the village. Everybody in the village knew him by name though they scarcely used it. And many of them, even after all those years, still were unable to embrace him as their own. There are the children, he wrote, who made ‘those delightful, hilarious, sometimes astonishingly grave overtures of friendship in the unpredictable fashion of children; other children, having been taught that the devil is a black man, scream in genuine anguish as I approach.’ The adults too shared this ambivalent attitude.

Baldwin’s experience as a stranger in the village is in some ways similar to the feelings that are being aroused in many of the towns and villages in several parts of Sri Lanka by the phenomenon of a ‘grease devil’. Baldwin did not face any hostility but only one of non-acceptance. When he walked in the streets of the village, the children taunted him with Neger! Neger! They were probably brimming with good humour when they did so. But it aroused in Baldwin different feelings. It is such feelings that seem to be aroused and released in Sri Lanka now.

Baldwin says the rage of the disesteemed is personally fruitless, but it is also absolutely inevitable; this rage, so generally discounted, so little understood even among people whose daily bread it is,is one of the things that makes history. Rage can only with difficulty, but never entirely, be brought under the domination of the intelligence and is therefore not susceptible to any arguments. Rage cannot also be hidden, it can only be dissembled. This dissembling deludes the thoughtless, and strengthens rage and adds, to rage, contempt.

Raising the bogey of the LTTE

It is difficult at this stage to determine how much truth there is in the phenomenon of grease devils and how much of this is due to popular imagination. But there is always a residuum of truth in popular perceptions. The reaction of the propagandists and apologists for the state is worrying. Once more, the public is being asked to believe that this was an international conspiracy or was akin to attacks on the camps of the security forces launched by the LTTE in the past. It is these that seem to suggest that there are elements who have something to hide. Even more worrying is that cabinet ministers representing the left parties too keep repeating the conspiracy theories.

The very fact that this phenomenon seems confined to areas inhabited by the minority communities and the rage within local communities seems directed at the Police and security forces should have alerted a responsible government to adopt a different strategy in re-assuring the people that their fears and concerns were going to be taken seriously. Instead, we have mass arrests of protesting people in several areas; the women in the affected areas are apparently living in mortal fear. The fears and anxieties of a people, particularly of a vulnerable group, cannot simply be dismissed out of hand.

Even at this stage, if the government and the security forces are serious about re-assuring the public that they have nothing to hide, it is necessary that a committee of respected individuals representing all communities be appointed to inquire into this phenomenon by talking to the local communities and the law-enforcement authorities and to separate fact from fiction. This way, the public will be re-assured that nothing is going to swept under the carpet by raising conspiracy theories and/or the bogey of the LTTE.

Violence in Pottuvil

While the phenomenon of grease devil had already surfaced and people in different areas claimed to have been confronted by grease devils, violence erupted first in Pottuvil when the local community confronted some persons who were found hiding behind bushes in the forest. Those persons were attacked by a mob alerted to the presence of these persons in the jungle. Confusing reports were released as to the identity of the persons found in the jungle – first it was army personnel, then it was wild life officials. They were there, it was reported, as part of the teams taking a census of elephants. If that were so, the public, particularly the local communities, should have been told beforehand how the census was being carried out – at least to seek public co-operation. But it certainly seems very peculiar that a census can be carried by the enumerators hiding behind bushes, with no fall-back support.

But the census itself has not been without controversy. The census began earlier this month and the wild life department was to receive the support and assistance of wild life conservation groups. Reports say that conservation groups had offered to provide around 200 volunteers. They have now withdrawn their offer after the Minister for Wild Life reportedly said that the strongest young elephants would be given to temples. Conservationists have called the census a ‘smokescreen to capture wild elephants when they are young and take them for domestication.’ Rukshan Jayawardene, Chairman of the Wildlife Conservation Forum, is quoted as saying that one concern about the census was that elephants would end up in private residences working long hours.

Breeding males, according to Jayawardene, are already in danger of dying out because of the various threats they face on a daily basis. "The young tuskers that one day may grow up to be breeding males are going to be in temples or homes and they will be worked. On humanitarian grounds alone it is wrong and as a predominantly Buddhist country this is indefensible.

Wild Life Conservation

There have, in recent times, been an increasing number of incidents of elephant-human conflict. These happen because the natural habitat of the elephants are gradually getting reduced by human action. It is not villagers clearing jungle for their chena cultivation. The main culprits have been state authorities giving permission for the building of tourist hotels and granting lands for large-scale commercial cultivation by multi-national corporations. This week, the Sunday Island highlighted the fact that tens of thousands of acres of virgin forest land had been given for banana cultivation to a multi-national corporation. All these lands are home to elephants and other wild life. In fact some of these forest lands lie within the Somawathiya National Park and some others within the Chunnakkadu Reserve in Kantale. Ennvironmentalists have been protesting about these unlawful transfer of jungle lands for commercial cultivation but without any success. In this particular case, even the approval of the Central Environmental Authority foes not appear to have been obtained. In fact, it is reported that the CEA had refused to approve several projects. But, despite this, clearing of 3,000 acres of forest land in Kandakaduwa in Somawathiya National Park was going ahead. In other forest areas too, vast stretches have been cleared and cultivation has commenced. In Wekandawewa, an ancient tank has been encroached on thus cutting off its water to the villagers. Environmentalists claim that Galle, Puttalam, Dambulla and Hingurakgoda are likely to lose forest land to the banana project in future. Apparently, in a Food and Agriculture Organisation report, Sri Lanka has been ranked the 4th worst country in the world in terms of deforestation for the period 2000-05.

A couple of weeks ago, this column reported on Sri Lanka’s bid to host the Commonwealth Games in Hambantota in 2018. Thousands of acres seem to have been earmarked for this project. Some of the land encroaches on the Yala National Park and the earmarked area is home to a variety of fauna and flora, including endangered species like the Ceylon Leopard and the Sloth Bear. State officials appear to be fearful of protesting lest they earn the wrath of the political leadership. Such is the prevailing political culture. The national interest is being sacrificed to satisfy the egos of politicians.

We have also had no further news of the case of the government politician in whose home wild life officials had found a fresh leopard skin. A poor villager is prosecuted, quite rightly, for selling venison but politicians seem to be able to get away with any criminal act.

A Postscript

A recent news item in the Guardian newspaper in the UK is too interesting not be shared. Right wing nationalists in East Germany are fuming that they were taken for a ride at a "Rock for Germany" music festival held recently. 250 souvenir T-shirts were donated anonymously and distributed at the music festival. The slogan on the distributed shirts read ‘hardcore rebels’ along with a skull and nationalist flags. But after the first wash, a new message appeared on the T-shirt: ‘If your T-shirt can do it, you can do it too – we’ll help you get away from right-wing extremism". Apparently the stunt was pulled off by Exit, a group which helps people to disassociate themselves from the far right. Exit claimed that a supporter had developed a special fabric ink for concealing hidden messages. It had never been done before and they had to experiment with it a lot to make sure it worked. There were so many points along the way where the plan could have failed, Exit said, but it all went perfectly.