WTO protest, from many perspectives
Sunil Yapa’s “Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist” is an expressive collage of the experiences of seven people involved in the 1999 World Trade Organization protests in Seattle.
In “Heart,” his debut, Yapa showcases the subtleties and contradictions of emotion, yet his narrative doesn’t hesitate to describe the harsh, very human aspects of physical and psychological pain.
Each chapter puts the reader into the minds of individuals whose emotional involvement in the conflict range widely, from relative disinterest to ideological zeal. Yapa, the son of a Sri Lankan father and a mother from Montana, is especially equipped to write from a variety of perspectives, having spent time in places such as Greece, Chile and China.
Victor, a 19-year-old homeless man, is involved in the protest by physical proximity alone, and his distance from the politics of the WTO is nearly comical. His sole purpose for originally entering the shouting mob of protesters was in the simple attempt to sell marijuana. But he is unwittingly the fulcrum of the day’s events, and the suffering he endures with the crowd spurs in him a spectacular spiritual growth.
Two protesters struggle to adhere to their belief in nonviolence while antagonizing police with anti-globalization chants and taunting actions. A pair of police officers also struggle to find personal definitions for the difference between crowd control and de-escalation. The police chief is genuinely and repeatedly apologetic as he eventually abandons nonviolent tactics to dispense chemical and physical compliance into a crowd that by happenstance includes his estranged son, Victor.
Dr. Charles Wickramsinghe, a Sri Lankan finance minister, begins his role with thoughts of far-reaching implication, although his goal is direct. He must secure a final signature necessary for his country to join the WTO. His experiences in the midst of the protest and with his political peers lead him to a journey not overtly of spiritual growth but rather one that will cause him to evaluate his station and role in world politics. In this way, his growth as a character both parallels and stands inverse to Victor’s.
Most chapters provide a satisfying view into each character’s background and experiences. But some chapters are barely two pages long, which offer only a scant moment from one point of view. The style is moderately incongruous to early chapters, when the riot itself had not yet begun and sympathy for each character is just developing, but when the violence erupts, the structure lends itself well to the chaos inherent in a riot, mimicking the rapidly changing focus of a participant to the crowded maelstrom.
Yapa’s writing of each perspective treats readers to an understanding of multiple viewpoints in the conflict and builds empathy for all those involved in a morally ambiguous situation.
In today’s society, as political barbs fly and armed conflicts rage overseas, polarized and extremist viewpoints are plentiful. Yapa’s novel is a much-needed and refreshing pivot point. His novel makes a case for the validity of all opinions in a conflict the better part of two decades old. This rare quality of his work is a practice that many could benefit from in current conflicts, foreign and domestic.