Hartels and getting caught in the rain

…things that interrupt the flow…

Yesterday was an interesting day here in Kalmunai. There was a Hartel called by the council of Tamils. A hartel is a general strike. Think of South Africa during apartheid and the forms of protest available to the black population. During a hartel, shops don’t open, people don’t go to work, and the city is quiet. You might think that this is a pretty simple concept; a general strike means that everything is closed and people don’t go to work, and the point is made. However, things are much more complex than that. Someone once said about Irish history that if you have three people in the room, you’ll have three different sides to the story, if you have three Irish people in the room, you’ll have 9 different version of the same story. It is like that here.

If you take the country as a whole, the majority are Buddhist Sinhalese. The Northern Province and the eastern province are majority Tamil. What I didn’t know when I got here is that Tamil refers to someone of Tamil ethnic background who is Hindu. There are Tamil speaking Muslims here but they see themselves as Muslim first, Tamil second. So…when we speak of the Tamil community we are not including the Muslims. The Christians seem to view religion and ethnicity as separate things so they consider themselves Tamil as well. And the Christians are in the minority so you don’t see Christian communities here. In Kalmunai, there is a Muslim district to the north and one to the south and the Hindu district is in the middle. (Our office and our homes are in the Hindu district.)

The Tamils have been here for centuries, before Sri Lanka was colonized by the Portuguese, this country was split up into several different kingdoms, some Sinhalese, some Tamil. The colonial powers, first Portugal, then Holland, then England, used the divide and conquer method. So the British, being the last colonial power here managed to subdue and rule the whole island, including every kingdom and province. When they left and independence was reached in 1948, the country was united and managed as one whole, by the Sinhalese majority. Religious and ethnic conflict has been part of life since. The Buddhist see it as their duty to protect Buddhism and though religious freedom and the freedom to express your religion through many forms is protected by the constitution, the constitution also states that Buddhism must be protected. So in reality, religious oppression is more the norm. (And no one religion is at fault in my opinion, it seems that converting from any religion to any other creates major fallout).

Also, since independence, the union of the north and east provinces has been an issue. It was instituted by presidential decree 17 years ago, on the condition of a referendum in each province and that the LTTE would lay down arms. And In 17 years referendums have not been held… (nor have the LTTE laid down arms; probably each side is waiting for the other). The Tamils hold a huge majority in the Northern Province, in the east however, they are not the majority but about 40%. So the Tamils want the 2 provinces joined as it would strengthen their hand and the Muslims don’t want to two joined as it would weaken them in the east.

So we have the Sinhalese and Tamils fighting, the Tamils and Muslims fighting, the Muslims fighting each other and the Tamils fighting each other, because even within the same ethnic communities there are strong differences of opinion over how issues should be settled.

So on Wednesday, a hartel was called by the Council of Tamils; it was followed by most Tamils, except for the Karuna faction, a dangerous offshoot of the LTTE that is now opposing everything the LTTE does. Karuna faction was threatening people who were supporting the hartel and even forcibly opening some shops. The Muslim shops were all open because the Muslims generally don’t support Tamil hartels and vice versa.

So how does this interrupt our day (besides the obvious)? Well, half our staff lives here and half live in Batticaloa. Those who live in Batty can’t get to work in Kalmunai because the buses aren’t running and also, we need to stay neutral, so…if we ask our staff to come to work, it looks like we’re supporting the government side, or Karuna faction. If we ask them to stay home, if looks like we’re supporting the Tamil side. So…the staff come to work wherever they can and then they go home. Needless to say, it’s pretty interesting.

The other thing that interrupts the flow of course is the rain. It has rained every day or night now for a week. This slows down construction. It also makes the market very muddy. It also provides for some interesting entertainment. The neighbour kids literally shower in the rain, and they look like they’re having a great time. Last night we were walking home from a coworkers place and got caught in the rain. It started spitting big fat drops, and then it let loose. We were soaked in minutes. Our walk home is about 10 mins and by the time we got home we looked like we’d been standing in our shower fully clothed. (Actually the shower pressure is less than the rain so it looked kind of like we’d been standing in a Sri Lankan downpour for ten minutes)