Spirit of Liberation 3

SEE, JUDGE AND ACT

"The Young Christian Students movement (YCS) gave me a sense of dignity. I learned that poor people can help others and that one should help others without making them feel small." That's the experience of Geneview Hapuarachy-Madawala. In 1958, when she was fifteen, she became active in the YCS. The YCS was for pupils of secondary schools. A number of them flowed to, successively, the Young Christian Workers (YCW) and the Christian Workers Movement (CWM).

YCS not just a do-good movement

Workers had to be reached early, otherwise they were lost for the movements. "In my four years of experience as organiser for Sinhalese groups I have found it almost an impossibility to form workers who have already been in service for some time. Due to ill-fitting and unsuitable conditions of work and poor wages, maltreatment and poor living conditions they have been too hardened to even listen to the teachings of the Church. Therefore I am of opinion that it would be a better practice to influence the newcomers to work, and through them gradually reach the older workers too." This message went from Colombo to YCW international headquarters in Brussels in 1953.¹ The YCS was called pre-YCW. It was however inde­pen­dent and should not be tutored from another movement. Marcel Ayrin­hac was especially in charge of it. High school pupils, he thought, had to be impressed with the truth that a manual worker had a dignity. And they had to get aware of their responsibility towards the poor, also if they themselves went far in the world. On no account pupils should get estranged from their own environment. Work in the saltpans gave them an impressi­on of manual work, work in the slums gave practical experience nearer home.

Geneview Madawala's family was in straitened circumstances. Her parents were exempted from paying fees to the school, which had been visited by Geneview's mother before and which was run by religious. Geneview came into contact with the YCS after a devastating flood. "The small group of Young Christian Stu­dents had a raffle in our school", she remembers. "I thought it was just a do-good movement, where you try to help people in need. But when I got really invol­ved, I found that it was more than that. We made people aware of their Christian res­ponsibi­li­ty. We also got people aware of situati­ons and of what they could do for the community. Of course we mainly helped students. Some of them used to come to school without proper meal or books or other things to do their studies. We collec­ted things from the students and gave others a proper meal in the after­noon. We were very keen on seeing that no one else knew that these students were being helped." So the YCS educated for res­ponsible citizenship. The same was true for the YCW and the CWM.

“White revolutionaries”

In the YCS, the YCW and the CWM personal education and chris­tianization of the own environment went hand in hand. The notion was that for Christian values it was difficult to flourish in an unfavourable environment and that laypeople could exert more influence in their environment than religious could do from the outside. Christianization has a wide meaning here: the point was not so much conversion to Christianity, as radiation of values that partly were shared by Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims. Personal education for members of the movements meant Catholic education: Roman Catholic doctrine and expressions of religiosity were essen­tial. There were, for example, pilgrimages and study sessions on Christian (Catho­lic) marriage. Persued reforms were pro­found. "We are going to make the world better by changing ourselves, inviting the others to join us in that, and then co-operating in reforming the environment and structures", Joseph Cardijn taught. Ceylo­nese (Young) Christian Workers called themselves white revolu­tionaries.

Roads to a better world were study and action, which were closely interrelated. Christianization had both a material and an immaterial component. Hopeless misery could be in the way of responsible attitude to life; this awareness was alive in the movements. So the attention was drawn not only to educa­tion, morals and leisure, but also to living, studying and working. Those had to satisfy minimum demands at least. The conviction was also that every person could be a valuable member of society. "The working class is like the personifica­tion of Christ on Earth", Cardijn wrote in 1919 already. "Lord Jesus, a Worker like me", the Ceylonese (Young) Christian Workers prayed. For people who from childhood had understood that they were of the inferior sort, or that manual work was insignificant, this was an real stimulus. The Roman Catholic church had never been happy anyhow about castes distinction. In the Ceylonese movements it did not play an important part; members even combated it.

Anton Fernando, a boy of the (lower) caste of washermen, became the national president of the YCS. In 1957 he had belonged to the first match of members who had been educated in Sinhala. "We also organized work and study camps", he tells. "We had one camp at a pilgrimage place called Talawila. A group of thirty, forty students from Chilaw diocese were staying there for two weeks. The daytime we went and worked: we were fencing some area and building some roads. In the evening we had studies. We dis­cussed our work experience, mixed up with people and dis­cussed their problems. Training these young men to take leadership in the commu­nity - that was the purpose of the work camp."

The movements were working with cells: groups of five to ten persons who were socially active and exchanged experiences. The members were called leaders; the YCS, the YCW and the CWM were movements of leaders, who wanted to act as a leaven in society. "To be a leaven amid the unheeding masses, to go on working when they are insignificant, unappreciated, opposed, needs courage. To overcome their natural timidity, to face the turmoil of labour's battlefield, to tame the fierceness of the wolves with the innocence of the lamb, is His (Christ's) to give who told them to go as lambs among the wolves", a CWM manual reveals. Leaders had to set the good example and had to be in search of natural leaders, who could help to spread Chris­tian values in their own environment. `Christi­an' not neces­sa­rily meant `related to Christ'.

Pat Peiris and Elias Appu

"Go ahead! Keep sturdy!", Henk Schram used to say to Pat Peiris, who is one of the great pioneers of the movements. He was born in a simple Buddhist family in Matara - in the south of the country - in 1930 and wanted to become a monk. After his parents and two sisters passed away, it did not come to that. Peiris was fifteen when he went to Colombo, where he became an ap­prentice of an ayurvedic physician. When the doctor died, Peiris was alone again. He set to work in a co-operative and studied in the evening. "I always wanted to explore socie­ty", he explains. "I wanted to know more about the world and do more than was possible in my village." Peiris became a Catho­lic; he thought Buddhist customs too restricti­ve. In his former dwelling-place that was not accepted grate­ful­ly.

Pat Peiris started spreading Catholic reading-matters among his colleagues. A friend introduced him to the YCW. Peiris found that there was much talk about what should be done, while in fact there was done very little. When Peiris and a friend of his put this on the order-paper, the other members one by one left the cell. In order to get new members, Peiris and his mate started selling Peter Pillai's magazines Social Justice and Samaja Samaya in the street. A few months later two cells were formed. Peiris' comrade soon left the movement. Peiris: "Social Justice was teaching the doctrine of the church. My friend Reddo however found that most of the ser­vants of Saint Joseph's College found it difficult to maintain their fami­lies. We spoke to father Schram to repre­sent the matter to father Peter Pillai, who was the rector of the college. Father Peter Pillai said: it is not possible to do anything. Then Reddo got disgusted. He said: you, big men, preach doctrines, but these people are under­paid! I cannot rely on you: I am leaving the YCW, and the church too!" Pat Peiris in 1951 became the first full-time organizer of the movement.

In Hendala, a village north of Colombo, he's still remembered vividly by former Young Christian Workers. His name is mentio­ned in the same breath with Elias Appu's. Appu is held to be the worker who took the movement, which was English-speaking, white-collar and urban by nature, to lowly educated Sinhala-speaking workers in the country. He was living in a small mud house and spoke a language that was understood in his environ­ment. That means: he could be rude and was very social. From the descriptions he rises as a counsellor, also in personal matters, who encouraged villagers to organize themselves. "He was for justice", Peiris says. "He was against the employe^r, but he was not bitter."

Peiris' field of action was more extensive than Appu's: it mainly took up the southwestern coastal region from Marawila to Beruwala, but the organizer also came outside. In Marawila, some thirty miles north of Colombo, he assisted father Michel Dumortier. Dumortier had not yet mastered the vernacular and started therefore in 1952 with a group of English-speaking youth. Schram thought that interesting: by way of those youth Dumortier could get access to the working class. Schram also reaso­ned that any social progress or liberation movement in Ceylon had to get going by educated people. Pat Peiris was - as is evident from Schram's personal documents - his `state-horse': he was really proud of him. Outside Colombo Peiris used to work via the parish priest, who got a few young fel­lows toge­ther. Peiris - and sometimes Schram - came and had a chat with them and invited them to involve friends. They talked about the village and the things those young guys were bothering about. Like this it was tried to have something getting off the ground slowly but surely.

Aware of one's neighbours

Cell meetings as a rule took place once a week. They started with prayer, whereupon the participants told about what they had seen and heard and whom they had met. "We had a register", Nicolas Fernando, who was a tobacco worker, remarks. "You should write down the names of seven people whom you meet today. Like that you do seven days. Those are your con­tacts. The first week you take one day and write down your contacts, the second week you take two days. That makes you aware of who is your neighbour and whom you are moving with. You also write down their school or work, their family situa­tion, their problems." All this was called facts finding. In the move­ments it was quite important.

The Dynamism of the Christian Workers Movement, the above-menti­oned manual (Colombo 1959) says - a bit more extensi­vely - the following. "Contacts are those persons a cell member meets in the course of his daily life. Some of these will be met regularly, others will be met less often but may be important because of their in­fluential position in relation to the field of apostolate for which we are res­ponsi­ble. Each cell member cultivates an awareness of his con­tacts. This is necessary for any apostola­te directed to­wards the masses. Each cell member must learn to regard his contacts with that love Christ expects from him. Therefore he collects as much rele­vant information as possible about them. This information will reveal circumstances, needs and problems requiring atten­tion. Especially it will reveal any salient positive qualities which an individual possesses. It will be the means of enlis­ting others as helpers in the work done by the cell. A treasu­rer will record contacts who have been reported at a cell mee­ting in a register for the use of the cell."

Young Christian Workers talked among others with people who were sleeping on the roads and discussed with them how they came to their position and what their problems were. The next stage was: confronting found facts with the gospels. "What does Christ or His representative the Pope think about it?", was the question. "What would Christ us expect to do about it?" So the practised method was the one of Joseph Car­dijn's see, judge and act.

"It is essential for the dynamism of the Movement that the regular and important contacts are from the very beginning looked at as those who must be engaged, involved, committed in action for others", the CWM manual says. "At all times they - Doctors, Lawyers, Trade Union Leaders, Municipal Council Members, etc. - must be engaged in relation to cases, servi­ces, facts of the week, campaigns, etc., to be executed and fostered by the cell. It is only by persistent efforts in this direction that slowly a community of action, an apostolic missionary community, gets established in a parish, place of work, etc."

“Isn't this a situation where the people can show solidarity, love and compassion?”

In order to have an activity radiating, as many people as possible had to be involved. Hugo de Alwis, a typist clerk of a lower middle class family, in 1956 became a Young Christian Worker in Nayakakanda, seven miles south of Colombo. Nayaka­kanda comprised seven small villages and was multi-ethnic and multi-religious. Most inhabitants were Catholic. De Alwis: "One evening, when I was at home after my work, Young Chris­tian Workers from Alwis Town came and told me that a house was burned. We went there on push-cycle. There were two small chil­dren and the hus­band and wife. Father, the breadwinner, was a labourer. We, Young Christian Workers, sat under a coconut-tree. `The immediate thing is to find food for this family', we said. From our pockets we contributed something for the night. We also approached the owner of a butik (small shop) for giving his garage to the family for three days. We collected the things that had been saved from the house and brought the family to the garage. Next day we came together again and decided to rebuild the house. One fellow got up and said: `Isn't this a situation where the people can show soli­darity, love and compassi­on?' There were threehundred families in the village. We enlisted everything that was necessary to build the house. We selected people to whom we would go and ask for materials according to their ability. The family whose house was burned, was the only Buddhist in the village. Catho­lic people asked: `What have you to do with those Bud­dhist people!?' We told them: `That family was also created by God and is a family among you!' Our message was understood. The materials we asked for, should be the key to open the hearts to this situation. We got the materials, but did not invite anybody. When we wanted to start to build, there were over twohundred people to help us! Every­thing and every abili­ty were there to build the house! The villagers were there until we went to the garage, brought the family and put them into the house. That was a very happy occa­sion for the whole villa­ge."

“A priest of the Holy Catholic Church was listening to all the funny ideas that we had!”

The movements appealed to one's sense of responsibility. The logical consequence could have been that participants covered the way of see, judge and act independently. Chaplains, who were involved, and cell members - when they acted outside - only fitted the role of animator. In practice this often was too much to ask. "Most chaplains are far from being pedagogi­cal", a French YCW extension worker reported. "The relation­ship of chaplain and layperson often has the appearan­ce of a rela­tionship of master and servant.^" The Frenchman, René Delecluse, had been working with the Ceylonese movements in 1957 and 1959 and knew those in other Asian countries too. Joe de Mel, who has been a chaplain of the YCS, the YCW and the CWM: "Sometimes it was difficult to tell a man: it is your deci­sion, not mine; I only give you an advise on what is possible! Particularly at the beginning, the workers movement was very obedient."

Laypeople were not only obedient - they were, by the way, expected it to be - they also could lack needed knowledge or, as De Mel expresses it, not be used to exercising their own leadership and their own mind. Especially insecurity with respect to social doctrine of the Roman Catholic church could be great, even amongst the priests. Most of them were not ac­quainted with, for example, papal encyclicals. "The chaplain was the one who could bring the thinking of the whole church on Cardijn's worker movement into this country", Ernest Poru­thota remarks. "No­thing was available in Sinhalese for the ordi­nary workers to read." Poruthota has been a chaplain. He made a start with translating the social doctrine of the church since 1891 into Sinhala. People were on the road. What Vivian Pulle, a well-educated former Christian Worker, tells about Henk Schram and himself, also holds good with regard to other priests and laypeople. "Father Schram", he says, "not only gave us the feeling that we could make ourselves heard, but by implication he made us see that it was our duty to make ourselves heard. He encoura­ged us because he listened: a priest of the Holy Catholic Church was listening to all the funny ideas that we had!"

The things mentioned could cause complications. Harry Haas, a compatriot of Henk Schram, made young religious familiar with the YCS method. After one year the nun who was in charge of the novices thought that a couple of them should leave because of their bad spirit: they were asking questions! At the head­quar­ters of the movements once upon a time chairs were sailing through the room while two men were agitating from a table. Marcel Ayrinhac: "I also climbed that table and seized those fellows by the collar. Before the police arrived, I had got out everybody." A canteen of the movements was closed after a strike. "There was mismanagement, the workers were not proper­ly paid and there was a lot of injustice the­re", a former Christian Worker remembers. "The workers wanted wages higher than the wages in other places were", another former Christian Worker thinks. "We were giving them in addi­tion to their wages a bonus, but even when we were running a loss, they wanted higher wages."

"We wanted people to be disciples rather than to be devotees", Ossie Perera says. Perera was a member of the financial com­mittee of the movements. The fact that it existed, was remark­able: funds came from the church hierarchy, which was, when it came to handling money, reluc­tant to give the responsibility fully to the laity. Perera thinks that Schram, when he was asked to take over the handling of the funds from vicar gene­ral Fortin, may have propo­sed to involve laype­ople it that. Laypeople had begun to bear responsibility.

Devotion and human rights

Devotion in one's own living sphere was an important goal Henk Schram had to his mind. One of his friends, a distinguished lawyer, stood in the breach for human rights. Being a friend of archbishop Thomas Cooray, he could put in a word for priests who left priesthood. If (Young) Christian Workers had got into trouble, he also came to the rescue. And for the Houswi­ves Association he drew the constitution. The Houswives Asso­cia­tion put pressure on the government to fix reasonable prices for co-operative shops and, by that, influence general price level. Driving force Lorna Wright could be sure of Schram's support, the more so because he thought that this self-help organiza­tion could be to advantage of poor women. "If to give 10 cents to a needy person is an act of love, then is it not a vast act of love to make commodities available at fair prices to all, especially the poor?", Christian Workers in Nuwara Eliya (in the mountainous interior) asked. "Did not Christ castigate those who imposed intolerable burdens on the poor?"

“Education has come to mean merely the equipment necessary to create and expand one's money earning capacity”

Schram would have been glad to see teachers too gathering themsel­ves in the spirit of the Christian Workers. "The tea­cher today is one of the most neglected, frustrated and inef­fective members of society", YCW newspaper We shall be one Person complained in 1958. "Education has come to mean merely the equipment necessary to create and expand one's money earning capacity. This factory quality of education is a permanent surprise in a land of the East with its admirable tradition of religion, philosophy, the arts and humanities, which formed the core of education, and education itself was something closely linked with the development of personality." Of Schram's hope with respect to education little was reali­zed.

The same is true for a movement of young agricultural workers, which also had the attention at Brussels headquarters^. Marcel Ayrinhac in 1954 reported to Joseph Cardijn the start of it, but the movement would not get off the ground. Lucien Schmitt asks himself what he could have done with such a movement in the countryside: people were living there contentedly around the temple and were not thinking in terms of trade unions. Young Christian Students, who in this milieu initital­ly no more spread, have been encouraged however to fix their eye upon agriculture. One of them succeeded in making tractors fit for paddy fields. Members of the movements assisted Schmitt on his farm for boys who were re-educated. Those boys learned among others goat farming and growing vegetables and sold their products to the market.

A remarkable initiative was cultural circle Rasanjalie. K. Francis, a painter (of art) and author, was the organizer^. The YCW chaplain in his parish didn't like him for some time because of Francis' contacts with and sympathies for commu­nists. Once the chaplain asked him to remove the Muslims from a painting showing a YCW flags flying crowd. Fran­cis: "I orga­nized Rasan­jalie under patronage of the YCW. Painters, musi­cians, writers and drama-people took part in it. We con­ducted classes for young people and organized music, dance, drama and painting exhibitions. For young artists there were few oppor­tunities. Everybody was welcome, Buddhists and atheists too. Schram helped me."

Equal in dignity – even poor people can build schools and funds

A lot of work was done in the movements. Take for exam­ple Palliyawatta, a poor village between the ocean and a canal. Most of its inhabitants were of the fishermen's and washer­men's castes. Villagers went past the houses in Colombo and environs and collected things that were washed in the canal. Michael Fernando was a hairdresser and a Young Christian Worker in Palliyawatta. "Our village school was at an almost delapidated condition", he tells. "We borrowed money from father [Jacques] Rastoldo, who was our parish priest. Out of the loan we hired a film projector and printed tickets. Once a week we had a film show. We also raised young men. In that way we could build a new school. Father Rastoldo organized the youngsters. I was job­less, but I never was at home. When father Rastoldo left, he got a job for me."

In another village Young Christian Workers organized a public library. There were also organized groups in which workers discus­sed problems in their workshop and where they were informed about their rights and duties. To form a trade union in a workplace, one needed a leader. He ran the risk of being dismissed. Therefore in Dalugama in stead of a trade union, a welfare society was started. It monthly collec­ted money and helped workers in a funeral or in case of ill­ness. Justin Samaranaya­ke, who was involved: "When you go on with a welfare society for some time, the workers learn that they have to be united and they will think of a trade union. Even in the welfa­re society, we usually discuss the labour pro­blems. The welfa­re society may be transformed into a trade union, without workers being pushed out by the employer: if all are united, he more easily accepts a trade uni­on."

In Buddhist Galle the YCW cell consisted mainly in teachers. Bernadeen Perera, who was one of them: "Children came to school without breakfast and had nothing for interval. After interval I found them sleepy. We gave them two slices of bread and a cup of milk. It was an initiative of the Young Christian Workers, but also Buddhists gave for that. Some students were not good in their studies. We visited them at home and disco­vered that they had problems there. There was however little we could do to improve that. So we spoke to the tea­chers concerned to get more under­stan­ding. One girl always fell asleep. Her mother appeared to be a midwife, who had to work during nights. I let the girl sleep. Women who had no means for livelyhood we gave money to buy materials for lace-ma­king. A few rupees only were needed for that."

Helping people to help themselves

Sister Antoinette Marthuret (Forget) was busy for small fis­hermen in Moratuwa, a big town near Colombo. Fishermen had to cede more that half of their catch for renting their boats. Co-opera­tives should have brought solace, but failed. "Fisher­men didn't trust each others", sister Antoinette ex­plains, "and the mudalalis (traders), from whom they had rented boats, didn't give up in two twos." The archbishop sent father Joe Fernando for studies to Canada. When Fernando came back, he helped fishermen in Negombo with orga­nizing co-operatives. Fishermen started saving money by that, so that they could afford better housing and boats.

"The YCW campaigns are adapted to the problems of the coun­try", a French extension worker concluded in 1959. "Take for example the `Safety Bottle Lamp Campaign'. Thousands of people make a light in their palm-leaves huts by means of a simple bottle, which is filled with kerosene and in which a wick is being soaked. It frequently happens, that the bottle falls, where­upon the kerosene spreads and a fire breaks out. Several people have been killed in that way. The campaign consists in having young workers making another kind of lamp. One looks for old boxes the cover of which can be screwed tight, fills them with textiles, pierces the cover and puts the wick trough it. It's simple, but the danger of fire is suppressed. This kind of things can be done by thousands of lads and girls in all the villages of the country. This can become a mass acti­vity of the first order."

Active in the slums

Many members of the YCS, the YCW and the CWM were active in the slums. The start had been in 1950, also in order "to break down the dividing wall between the church and the poor by showing the Catholic slum-worker's love for his neighbour in the slum". - Quotation from a report from 1958. - The move­ments were con­scious of the fact "that these voluntary workers cannot change the entire situation even if they work for a whole life time: that is the job of honest Governments and municipalities, who alone can tackle so vast a problem." The boys and girls in the colleges and convents, the Catholic actionists and Young Chris­tian Workers however could "do their little bit to make poor chil­dren a little happier". While notably pupils were busy with that, they "began to see the real problems of the slums: malnutrition, infection, immorali­ty, bad education and everything that dire poverty brings about in degrading Human Nature". An article with pictures was published in The Catho­lic Messenger, a nationwide paper, "and soon help came from North, South, East and West of the Is­land". Friendly doctors offered their servi­ces and there was even opened a dispensary.

Malcolm Pereira, who was a Christian Worker: "We had a lot of slums at that time. We used to go there every week and wash the wounds, take medici­ne - we didn't talk about religi­on. In my town, called Dehiwala (about six miles from Colombo) we worked for the fis­hermen. When the cycloons blew their houses, we collec­ted money and built the houses. We used to see the condi­ti­ons of the people in the huts. If there was anybody to be taken to hospital, we took him. We gave them cloths and rations and organi­zed clas­ses for teaching children their school subjects. We also had a move­ment, called in Sinhalese `A Hand­ful Of Rice'. This idea of charity was there in ancient Sinha­lese society: a family puts aside a handful of rice every day and keeps it in a tin. When the tin fills up, we, from the (Young) Christian Workers Movement, go to the houses and collect this rice and we bring it to those who don't have. We had a cam­paign for this. We went to every house and said: `We want to bring this practice back. Please do this!' Even in the slums, if there were some afflu­ent people - there were some bussiness people who were doing fishing and selling their fish - we used to tell them also to collect this rice. At the end of the month or after two weeks we went and collected all this rice and redis­tributed it to those who had not."

In a letter from 1954 by a Ceylonese Young Christian Worker (miss H. Nicholas) is some talk of the start of "a sewing class for the poorer women one finds in the slums". The work was temporarily held up because of financial needs. Edna de Silva, a rich friend of Henk Schram, showed slum dwellers the way to authorities, for example to plead for drains or toi­lets. She also pointed out how good cheap meals could be prepa­red. And she could simply lend her ears. "It was an awful place", she reveals. "The first time that I went, I got such a shock that I fainted. I was so shocked, but I am so thankful to Henk for encouraging me to visit the slums: I had no idea of how our people lived." Didn't the slum dwellers stare with surpri­se, when they saw well-to-do ladies and gentlemen visi­ting them at home? No, is the general impression: polarization was not yet that strong and there was not yet such a fear of conversion. Edna de Silva: "The people loved us and we loved them. We saw that it was not just money that they wanted: they wanted some kind of recognition of their worth, their humani­ty. Both for them and for us it was a tremendous education." About 1956 the tide of popular feeling got on the turn. Most members of the movements retired from the (slums) field.

Filching a usurer's cash-book in a colourful movement

"Even if Schram and Ayrinhac came here on a social visit or when they came to have a meal with us, their and my husband's one conversation was on how people could be helped", Bertha Naidu remembers. "Did that man get his job? Did he get his money? How shall we go about it?" Bertha Naidu-Matthysz has Dutch, French, Prussian (German) and Irish blood in her veins. Active Sellaway, her husband, was an Indian Tamil. His father had substituted Catholicism for Hinduism, had been outcas­ted by his family for that reason and had come to Ceylon. The movements were colourful by composition.

They were also colourful otherwise. Lucien Schmitt still derives pleasure from telling about Reggie, who had lost a nice job already by standing up for others. One day Reggie heard that a colleague of his had fallen into the hands of a usurer. One could borrow from a man like him at twenty per­cent a month. Reggie succeeded in filching the usurer's cash-book and demanded a lot of money for it. When the man refused, Reggie told everybody whose name was in the cash-book that he needn't pay off his debt. Schmitt: "I don't say that it was Christian, but it shows that these people were engaged to helping others."

A report from 1952 shows a wide spectrum of people who had taken refuge with the YCW. Some had been dismissed unjustly. One worker appeared to have been discontinued for dishonesty. Another one had brought on the carpet that conditions of work were bad. Still another had not received his due salary, was over­charged for rent, or could not, after having been deserted by her husband, properly provide for her family. There was also called attention to wider problems. In one workplace the labou­rers had only three days work a week; they were dra­wing half of the ordinary salary. The patients of a hospi­tal made many complaints on the conditions prevailing there. In a shoe factory seventy-five dismissals had taken place in one and a half years; there was now a union in formation.

Investigation, mediation and love

Young Christian Workers investigated, mediated, called in lawyers or labour inspection and offered direct help. They had among others an own employment bureau, a secretariate of assistance, an information service and papers like Teen Ager. For their monthly called Tharuna Kamkaruwo (Young Workers) young people wrote short stories and poems. It could not be maintained for want of trained basis to support it. The em­ployment bureau could make use of good relationship between especially Henk Schram and employers. There were even a few employers who wanted new employees only from the YCW employ­ment bureau. As is to be expected, hundreds of people got a job through the bureau.

"We must love everybody in the same measure as a boy loves his girl and a girl loves her boy: at each moment and in every­thing", the Young Christian Workers learnt. "Love is the foremost command." In order to be able to give the other what Christ asked, self-sacrifice and knowledge of the needs were necessary. Members of the movements mapped out a lot of needs. Social inquiries were means to that. Young Christian Wor­kers examined from 1948 among others amusements and recrea­tion, the social responsibility of young workers, conditions of employ­ment of clerical workers, shop-assistants and domestic ser­vants, living and working circumstances and religiosity of young workers in general, and the problem of unmarried mot­hers amongst female domestic servants.

Little idea of the dignity of labour

"Most [young] workers live in extreme poverty. They usually have very little leisure or holiday to be enjoyed. Young workers have little idea of the dignity of labour. They work hard and earn little and feel the situation is hopeless." Those conclusions were drawn in 1958. Reports from 1953 talk of starvati­on wages, nepotism, absence of legal rights, and lack of protec­tion by public authorities. Suggestions were not welco­med, initiative was killed, curiosity lead to trouble with the bosses in the places of employment. "Many young workers soon develop a sense of frustration, become gamblers, drunkards, or Communists." According to the reports, lack of sense of values, wastage of time, shir­king responsibilities and petty thieving were also frequent. Pointing at their reports, Young Christian Workers appealed to public opinion, Ceylonese government, the archbishop and - in co-operation with their colleagues in other countries - the United Nations.

Canteens for working girls

A door to the workers world, a door also through which workers problems flooded (Young) Christian Workers, were canteens. The movements had one in Fort, Colombo's commercial centre. Soeur Marcelline, a Belgian Sister of Charity, was in charge of it. Many girls who worked in offices as stenos, typists and tele­phone operators came there and ate their meal. They also could discuss their problems and there was a chapel, where mass was said once a month. Further there was a canteen in the port for a while. In Pettah, next to headquar­ters, was a restroom, where especially salesgirls could recover their breath. These girls otherwise had to go - if they could afford lunch at all - to some unhygienic spot in the neighbourhood, or eat the poor meals they had taken from home in a free corner in or outside their working place.

“We motivated the girls to work more in unity with each others”, but.....

Many girls had come to the city in order to be able to help their families, but their salary was barely sufficient to meet their own expenses. For that they had long hours of work. According to Stanislaus Fernando, who was the national chap­lain of the movements and wrote a history of the YCW in Asia, the large number of unemployed girls complicated the position of the working girls. Yvonne de Zilva-Wijeyeratne and Geneview Hapu­arachy-Madawala devoted themselves to the working girls. "The salesgirls had to keep standing for a long time", they tell. "We discussed with them what they could do to better their situa­tion and someti­mes we got them to talk to the employers. We motivated the girls to work more in unity with each others, so that they could go and ask for something. We also walked into shops as customers. In the meantime we tried to say a few words to somebody and asked to come over to our restroom at head­quar­ters. The owners of the shops were not pleased, but would not say anything to us."

At the Young Christian Wor­kers' the salesgirls found friend­ship and the awareness that they had rights, but it appeared to be very difficult to change their situa­tion profoundly. There used to be a lot of infighting among them in the sense that one would try to be good with the boss, so that she got some­thing better than the other girls. And girls might be too frigh­tened. "The sales­girls very often come from very poor homes", a report from about 1958 explains. "They are forced to support their fami­lies of nine or ten too, which is defini­tely impossible. Because of poverty these girls work under all circumstances. The average salary is forty rupees per month. We have been trying to get more facts and also to get the girls to join a Trade Union, bur for fear of loosing their jobs these girls don't join any Union. The fact also remains that the Employers do not allow them to join a Union - once more evidence of the fact that having good Labour Legislation on the statute book alone does not better the conditions of Labour. After many attempts we have at last a group of Young Chris­tian Workers started with five of these shop girls. We have also been able to persuade some girls to join a Union. Two of these girls who are at present in this group have lost their jobs without legitimate reasons."

Stanislaus Fernando put forward additional reasons why it was difficult to gather girls for YCW meetings. "They had only the Saturday afternoon and Sunday free from work and some were off at 13.00 hours, others at 14.00 hours", he wrote. "Since Sunday was the only free day it was difficult to hold meetings on that day. Anot­her difficulty was that since they were the first (Sinha­la-speaking) girls who had come out to work in the city, they were not accustomed to or allowed by their parents to delay too long in the city after work." Harry Haas grew up in the same region as Henk Schram and came to Ceylon in 1959, where he became a chaplain in Chilaw diocese. "In the begin­ning we acted too radically", he says. "We had a YCW group of woman teachers and a YCS group of girls. The groups co-opera­ted and the teachers were also mentors. When the woman tea­chers made home visitations, the people started talking: they suspected the women either of searching for sex or of sprea­ding Communism. One teacher cried because in a village was rumoured that she was looking for a hus­band." The free­dom of women and girls, in other words, was limited.

Many priests, moreover, did not see the importance of a move­ment of working girls and were restricted in their freedom of movement them­selves. "The main hindrance to the growth of the girls YCW seems to be the question of the chaplains", a confi­dential report from 1959 reveals. "Father Stanislaus [Fernan­do] and Father [Harry] Haas (from Chilaw diocese) are the only two chaplains who attend the girls cell meetings. They have the colla­boration of two nuns." Society was, indeed, apprehen­sive about intercourse of men with women. Ossie Perera bursts out laug­hing when he is asked whether Henk Schram learned anything from him. Perera: "It would have been in the early fifties. My son was a scout at Saint Joseph's Colle­ge. They had what was called a camporee (national jamboree). My wife and I visited the site and met father Schram, who was talking to a lady. They were seated side by side on a bench in the park. My wife got a little taken aback. Next time when I met father Schram, I told him. He smiled and said: thank you, Ossie! Then I told him: you are in Ceylon, not in Holland! After ten or fifteen years, when he was going away, we had a little fare­well party. In his speech he said: there were people like Ossie, who would remind me that I was not in Holland but in Ceylon."

In spite of all this, Young Christian Workers succeeded in having girls groups meeting weekly, if it were only for a quarter of an hour. By way of the Labour Department they got some improvements for the girls in a particular shop. "In one of the recently opened large shirt-making factories we sent two girls (Buddhists) who may be in the position, in the not distant future, to start a Section", Yvonne Wijeyeratne repor­ted to Brussels in January 1956. In that year there were two or three girls groups, in 1958 eight and in 1959 fifteen, among which cells for factory girls. Further there is talk of a city girls club, of a cell outside Colombo the members of which - to contact more people - decided to visit the fishing areas and to distribute milk and give medical aid, and of members who started evening classes in English for poor chil­dren.

More than the YCW boys the girls seem to have been concerned about religious and moral aspects, like a girl's unadvisable engagement to an Anglican who refused to become a Catholic, or the `evil of immodest dress'. "Whereas boys should be trained and formed to become workers and fathers of working families, the girls' training and formation should be oriented towards their vocations as mothers of working families", a meeting of Asian and Australian YCW chaplains and lay leaders - among whom Henk Schram and Sellaway Naidu - stated in Manila (Phi­lippines) in December 1955. With their male colleagues the YCW girls shared appreciation of being oneself as much res­ponsible as possi­ble.

Giving a lot for raising up the downtrodden

Yvonne Wijeyeratne worked for years unpaid full-time in the movements. Geneview Madawala earned less than she would have done normally. Quentin Fernando did not accept promotion, so that he could keep active in a trade union. Pat Peiris asked for - and got - demotion in order to be more able to do his trade union work. Members of the movements were willing to give a lot for their ideal. "We thought we were doing some­thing for the sake of God: the upliftment of the workers", Yvonne de Zilva-Wijeyeratne explains. "We had to recognize the dignity of labour and were trying to raise up the downtrod­den." Texts from the time are breathing high ideals. "The salvation of thousands of young working boys and girls of today and generations to come will depend on us", a YCW report from 1950 says.

Mass rallies

"The Y.C.W. Movement is not just another show, but it is a live and very tangible expression of a noble idea", Edmund Peiris, the bishop of Chilaw, declared at the annual Christ the King rally at Saint Joseph's College on 1 November 1959. The presi­dent of the CWM, Walter Abhayaratna, who was the director of a company, dwelt at length on the work done by the movements. The YCW had been responsible for among others building over fifteen houses and rehabilitating over twenty-five belonging to poor families. The movements could raise quite a crowd. On 1 May, Labour Day, fishermen had their boats blessed. Malcolm Pereira, who was a bank clerk, tells about festivities in Dehiwala. Pereira: "The first time alrea­dy we were able to influence four-, fivet­housand parishioners to fly the YCW flag of Christ the Worker. Flags were distribu­ted free. Our slogan was: `May Day is a day of love.' There was a parade in the church and the surrounding area and we had groups of people from various indus­tries clin­ging their imple­ments and tools for bles­sing. The inte­rest of all that was solida­rity among the working people in our own paris­h. Our concentration was May Day in small groups. Mass movements at that time were all Marxist political propaganda. We didn't want to have a general parade, because that's a grand display, with rebellery."

In connection with the movements, publications at the time talk of mass rallies in Colombo. Former (Young) Christian Worker Joe Ferdinandusz chortles when he is confronted with that. Those rallies were visited above all by white collar workers and elite, he thinks. Ferdinandusz himself helped organizing May Day and Christ the King rallies in Negombo, a fishermen's town north of Colombo. He held there speeches on among others Catholic (lay) theology of the workers. There may have come a few hundred people. The organizers wanted to show Christians' solidarity with the workers. What, however, was the use of a separate May Day rally? Couldn't the (Young) Christian Workers have shown their solidarity in co-operation with the others? "Most of the May Day rallies were red, poli­tical rallies", Joe Ferdinandusz reacts. "Do you think there was one huge May Day rally? No, every politi­cal party or group of political parties had May Day rallies. Tell me, when did the Marxists themselves unite - with Stalin and Trotsky uni­ted? So worker solidarity for you!" However that may be, the Roman Catholic church in Ceylon had got a social face.

© JO SCHOORMANS

1 In: letter B.R. Perera to Pat Keegan 21st July 1953.

rin other words: he made a stand for workers interests

"Il y a aussi la question aumônier et laïc, qui a souvent l'allure d'une relation de maître à sujet (...)."

.Florence Triendl in a letter to Pat Peiris on 14 June 1956: "Pat, please don't forget to make notes on any develop­ment of rural groups in Ceylon (plantations, small villages). This is an urgent need for Asia and needs much adaptation of YCW methods. An interesting `pilot village' has been set up by the YCW in the Camerouns [Africa]."

.K. Francis wrote about thirty books (most of them no­vels), has been working for The Catholic Messenger and produ­ced Christian and Catholic programs for radio. In the years 1952-1956 he was active for the Sinhala section of the YCW.