Category: Society & Culture

Young Maldivians ensure Hay is made in the sunshine

Hay Festival organisers were last night pondering how to get festival-goers dancing to French DJ Ravin, who was blending electronic fusion with distinctly local bodu-beru rhythms for an appreciative crowd shuffling around the outskirts of the dance floor.

“Ask MNBC to stop broadcasting live,” suggested a nearby young Maldivian.

It was like flicking a switch. Almost immediately a horde of youngsters formed a mosh pit and raved for three solid hours in what was no doubt one of the most energetic parties ever seen on the presidential retreat of Aarah.

As they hooted and cheered his name, Ravin could be seen on stage shaking his head with amazement at what was probably one of the DJ’s most enthusiastic audiences.

Ravin’s set was the finale of two days of literary and cultural events – the Maldives’ first major literature festival – with authors and artists international and local discussing their work and craft. The attendance and involvement of young people was particularly noticeable, as were the many families relaxing and playing in the sunshine.

Reassuringly for the authors, the on-site bookshop did a roaring trade with queues for book signings. Jung Chang’s Wild Swans and Ian McEwan’s Solar were particularly popular, and young Maldivians were observed tottering around Aarah underneath huge stacks of tomes freshly-purchased and those brought from home to be signed. Judging the look of exhaustion on McEwan’s face in the green room after his signing session, every McEwan novel in the country now has a signature.

Despite a slow beginning – less than 10 tickets were sold on the first day they went on sale – huge last minute demand forced organisers to issue 200 more tickets for both days. Such was the last minute demand that a brisk black market trade sprang up, with tickets purchased for Rf100 being sold at the Aarah ferry queue for up to Rf300.

Climate change was a distinctive theme of the event. Environment Minister Mohamed Aslam announced that the Maldives has applied to UNESCO to declare the entirety of Baa Atoll a protected biosphere reserve, while the President’s advisor on climate change Mark Lynas spoke on the challenges facing the government’s 10 year road to carbon neutrality.

A Hay-goer in a modern interpretation of traditional Maldivian dress

Monty Don, President of the UK-based Soil Association and an early proponent of organic food, spoke of the need for populations to source their food locally, while award-winning foreign correspondent Peter Godwin spoke of the political and social decline of his homeland Zimbabwe at the hands of Robert Mugabe.

Jung Chang, author of the internationally acclaimed novel Wild Swans and autobiography Mao: The Untold Story, spoke about her experiences growing up amid the cultural revolution, joining Mao’s Red Guard, and her growing understanding of his brutality.

Ian McEwan finished the lineup, introducing his climate change satire Solar about a Nobel prize-winning and climate scientist and womaniser who discovers how to cheaply extract hydrogen from water using photosynthesis.

Hay Festival Project Director Andy Fryers said he was delighted at the reception to the sell-out festival, “particularly the exuberance of the crowd once they realised what Hay was about.”

“One of the speakers said it was fantastic that there was such a youthful and questioning audience. People were really engaged,” Fryers said.

A key challenge of the festival was introducing the concept of a lecture – sitting and listening to a speaker and then opening the session up a debate – which was a new idea for the Maldives, Fryers said, if one that was eagerly embraced.

Other challenges included ensuring that a wide-range of people were brought on board, and that the event was “inclusive, not exclusive.”

“It was amazing to see 60-70 young volunteers appear virtually out of the ground and put in hours of their own time to make it happen,” he added.

Ian McEwan and Peter Godwin speaking at Hay

The Hay organisers have begun talking about ideas for a possible repeat of the festival next year.

“We always say we try to give a new destination three years, unless something catastrophic happens, to capitalise on all the hard work of the first year,” Fryers said. “We’ve already started talking about how to take the idea forward in the Maldives.”

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Local council elections scheduled for February 5, 2011

The Elections Commission (EC) has announced that the local council elections will take place on February 5, 2011, two months after the period stipulated in the Local Council Election Act.

EC President Fuad Thaufeeq told Minivan News today that the commission took into consideration the number of public holidays, including the end of the year school holidays, as well as the rights of candidates.

“If we ignored these holidays and conducted the local council elections, many people will experience difficulties,’’ he said.

He added that the courts and government offices would face difficulties if the EC did not take public holidays into account.

“If the commission decided if a candidate was not eligible, the person would have to file the case at the High Court and the court will determine whether he is eligible,” Fuad explained. “But if that sort of issue was raised when the courts are closed, that would be a much bigger problem. So we decided to hold the elections in February next year.’’

While the constitutional deadline for council elections elapsed in July 2009, enabling legislation for the elections was ratified by President Mohamed Nasheed on July 29, 2010.

The Local Council Elections Act stipulates that elections must take within a 122-day period after ratification.

”Dates are not applied, all the due dates have been passed,” said Fuad. “If we have to conduct it according to the deadlines we cannot do this at all.”

In accordance with the Decentralisation Act, the list of 184 administrative constituencies was published in the government gazette on Thursday.

Following the public referendum on October 9 on the government’s proposal for administrative consolidation, Addu Atoll is listed as a single island.

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Eight men rob expats, collide with coconut tree

Police are investigating eight men who allegedly robbed five Bangladeshi farm workers of Rf8000 (US$622) on Fonadhoo in Laamu Atoll, before attempting to flee in a car.

One of the suspects was seriously injured when the car hit a coconut tree during a high speed police chase. Police arrested two of the men, one of whom was admitted in Laamu Atoll Gan regional hospital, and the other who is to be transfered to Male’ with a serious elbow injury.

Fonadhoo police station is now investigating the case.

Island Chief of Fonadhoo Ahmed Yousuf said the men were not islanders from Fonadhoo, but were travelling from Mundhu in Laamu Atoll.

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“Careless contractors” to blame for cracked buildings, says government

Carelessness on behalf of contractors was to blame for large cracks that appeared in several high profile shops in Male’ on Thursday, a investigation by the Maldives National Defense Force (MNDF) and Housing Ministry has found.

On Thursday evening the foundations of the Seylam building, adjacent to the Agora supermarket on Male’s main road Majeedee Magu, slid due to the construction of Jambuge next door.

Residents living in the building abandoned it and were forced to move to other areas that evening, while police cordoned off the area as people gathered to see the cracks.

Speaking after the incident, Deputy Minister for Environment Dr Mohamed Shareef said that shallow foundations of both buildings had structural weaknesses that caused them to slide when nearby contractors pumped water from underground.

‘’We found out that the Checkmark building [a prominent garment shop next to Agora] had a shallow foundation of 1.3 metres and building next to it had a foundation of 2.5 meters, and when the Jambuge contractors evacuated the water from the foundations, it caused the foundation of the Checkmark building to slide,’’ said Dr Shareef. “The Checkmark building was also constructed very weakly and carelessly.’’

Dr Shareef said although similar incidents could lead buildings to fall, “there was no serious damage caused this time.’’

‘’The government can introduce sophisticated laws, but if people are not implementing it won’t do any good,” he said. “Police and the ministry can’t always observe whenever a building is constructed, and contractors should pay more attention to nearby buildings when constructing take the safety precautions.’’

He suggested that it would be more helpful if the contractors “gained some knowledge about engineering.”

The dense construction of high concrete buildings around Male’ on often shallow poorly-constructed foundations has occasionally led to fears that parts of the city could collapse if too much pressure is placed on the brittle reef.

State Minister for Fisheries and Agriculture Dr Mohamed Ali revealed in May this year that cracks had been discovered in Male’ reef that could potentially cause the reef to collapse.

The cracks in the Malé reef were “serious problems because it is the reef on which we are building this infrastructure.”

In January sheet piles near Nasandura Palace Hotel slid and created a hole on the street outside. Some experts suggested that the cause of the cracks were heavy structures on the reef such as buildings, and warned there would be consequences if heavy structures were built in these sensitive areas.

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Comment: The NGO sector should protect human rights, not promote its abuse

In present day Maldives, the NGOs are organised in a more professional manner than in the past. Though it is not to say that the NGO sector in the Maldives is weak and requires strengthening, however the question today we all deliberate is what the NGOs can do in the democratising process of the Maldives.

Political pressure on NGOs

It is an indisputable reality that in any political environment, NGOs will be pressured by various political parties to take political positions. Nonetheless, the role of NGOs should be to work in the best interests of the Maldivian citizens. NGOs should be the voice of the people. NGOs should act neutral, be accountable and act as watchdogs. If there are critical issues to be raised against the government or political parties, the NGOs should have the credible evidence to situate their positions.

NGO coalitions

Nowadays, we see the NGOs join hands to work on various issues. NGOs realise the strength in standing together to pressure the government, people and the political parties. We have successful ventures of NGO partnerships such as campaigns like ‘JUST’, ‘I choose to Vote’ and others.

Unfortunately, we also see a trend where the names of NGOs are used to disadvantage or in the name of religion. I don’t believe that religious activities should be allowed to be conducted under the banner of NGOs.

In majority Islamic countries, religious groups conduct religious activities under a religious placard so that the two can be distinct. Hence, religious groups with the intention of grabbing power by targeting vulnerable groups  can be monitored and watched.

NGO coalitions

At present we see the movements of two types of NGO coalitions. One movement is mobilised to work for the cause of humanity and development, while the other interest group is mobilized to conduct religious activities.

The just cause of humanity and development is transparent and identified for a specific purpose. Dissimilar to this, the NGO coalitions mobilised for religious activities are dangerous and leave question marks.

The concern is that these types of coalitions are NOT moved to strengthen the understanding of Islam that we love in our country. But the secrecy in which they empower conservative Islamic scholars, brainwash people to isolate themselves from the normal course of life, lobby for the removal of girls from schools, isolate and intimidate girls and women and prevent vaccinations being given to children and so on in the name of Islam. These conservative coalitions are dangerous and need to be watched and monitored.

Conservative radical NGO coalition

The names of Adhaalath and Salaf come to our minds when we think about conservative movements. Adhaalath is a political party but lobbies for conventional Islamic way of life similar to Salaf. Salaf is an NGO that has hijacked Atoll radio.

We saw how Salaf managed to take control of Atoll Radio. Initially, there were speeches by Salaf scholars; slowly the radio channel management taken over by Salaf. Salaf was devious in promoting its way of life through Atoll Radio. Now, the Salaf group promotes their conservative ways of life and underline points by stating that Salaf scholar says this or that.

Salaf and Adhaalath sponsors conservative Islam through different mediums and strategies. The earliest recruitment came in the form of the NGO coalition movement against the policies on liquor, then the movement to raise funds for Pakistan Relief.

The latest exploitation of this radical movement is to fight against coeducation in education system. Why haven’t they come out strongly or protested an outcry against the abuse of children and abuse of women that is happening almost every day? How can we as Muslims tolerate such inhumane acts towards our children and women? MP Muthalib promotes the Salaf and Adhaalath agenda stating that if a law comes into force that protects violence against women, than it would prevent men having multiple wives? This is the level of their thinking when they talk about Islam, and it demeans our much-loved religion.

If you investigate closely you can see their motives in exploiting the NGO sector by mobilising the majority island based NGOs and counting them as their partners, reaching 172, but actual decision makers on behalf this conservative NGO coalition is the majority Male’ based NGOs Salaf, and political party Adhaalath, and the Teachers’ Association that seems to have lost the cause of founding their NGO in the first place.

The decision-making process in the so-called NGO coalition is undemocratic and controlled by only a few people. Do you really think that within such a large NGO coalition it would be easy to make decisions and mobilise unless the island based NGOs are not controlled?

We do not want what happened to Afghanistan to take place in Maldives. The Taliban controlled and turned Afghanistan to a conservative country in the name of Islam so that Taliban could have total control of Afghan people.

NGOs should work according to their mandates

All the registered formal NGO institutions should only work for the people of the Maldivians and closely try to fulfill and achieve their mandates and objectives. It’s vital to NGO sector to be responsible and accountable to people with their mandates, money they get and also create a peaceful environment during the political transition. The NGO sector should learn to be neutral, non-partisan and be watch dogs for human rights violations in the Maldives.

All comment pieces are the sole view of the author and do not reflect the editorial policy of Minivan News. If you would like to write an opinion piece, please send proposals to [email protected]
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Three police officers injured in drug bust

Three police officers were injured in an special operation conducted last night to arrest an alleged drug dealer.

“Police went to Henveiru Kahafathi with a court warrant after receiving information that suspected narcotics were hidden inside the house,’’ said Sub-Inspector Mohamed Dawood. “A person named Mohamed Ahmed attempted to obstruct the duty of the police and attacked three police officers using two knives.”

The acting head of the Drug Enforcement Department (DED) said that police discovered 18 bullet-sized packets of suspected heroin worth of Rf65,000 (US$5,058) hidden inside the bathroom of the house.

‘’I presume he attacked the police to protect his illegal drugs,’’ he added.

The suspect trafficker is now in police custody.

‘’In another operation conducted this week, police seized eight cases of vodka inside a dhoni (traditional boat) docked at Male’,” he said. “Police checked the dhoni in the presence of an expat working in the Dhoni and he is now under arrest.’’

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Mass absenteeism at foreign employment section provokes lockdown

Staff at the foreign employment section of the Ministry of Human Resources, which handles visa applications for migrant workers, have gone on strike.

Human Resources Minister Hassan Latheef told Minivan News today that he has not been able to identify a specific reason for the strike, which has “jammed” the service.

‘’Only this morning we learned that they were not coming out for work,” he explained. “Every day many people come for the services from the department and we had to transfer the staff of other departments to that section. People gathered near the gate of the ministry and were furious as they had to wait long.’’

He added that irate members of the public had locked the gate from the outside while all the staff were in the building.

“We reported to the police and they arrived and broke the lock,’’ Latheef said. ‘’And the department commenced providing services again.’’

The ministry is now trying to ascertain why the employees have gone on strike.

“I do not think that it is a coincidence that all the staff were absent on one day and none of them is responding to calls,’’ said Latheef.

Permanent Secretary for the Human Resources Ministry Mahid Shareef also said the reason for the mass absenteeism was yet to be clarified.

“They usually complain about the lack of staff there, but we do not know whether that is the reason they did not come for work today,’’ he said.

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Addu Atoll to become ‘city island’

Addu Atoll is to be considered a single administrative island to be developed as a city, following the outcome of the public referendum on Saturday, President Mohamed Nasheed announced yesterday.

Speaking to press at the President’s Office, Nasheed said that after official discussions with the main opposition Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP), the parties agreed to jointly propose amendments to the Decentralisation Act, based on the results of the referendum, and list administrative constituencies by October 17.

“When the islands are announced, there will be a major change to the largest atoll in the south, Addu Atoll” he said. “In my view, the results of the referendum showed very clearly that citizens of the atoll want to develop as a city. So we will designate Addu Atoll as one city island. Addu Atoll is an island with the districts Hithadhoo, Maradhoo-Feydhoo, Maradhoo, Hulhudhoo and Meedhoo.”

Instead of an atoll office, he continued, the southernmost atoll will have a municipality run by an elected municipal council.

With over 30,000 inhabitants, Addu Atoll is the second largest population centre in the country. However, as much as 60 percent of some islands currently reside in the capital Male’.

President Nasheed denied that the results and the low turnout was a failure of the government, as small islands rejected the government proposal for administrative consolidation with larger islands.

“In a democracy, if an election is seen as useless, there’s nothing I have to say about that,” he said.

Moreover, Nasheed argued that establishing a nationwide transport network was the government’s policy on population consolidation, as outlined in the ruling Maldivian Democratic Party’s (MDP) manifesto, as opposed to “taking a population and settling them in another island.”

While the referendum revealed that small islands did not want to “lose their identity”, Nasheed said that a secret ballot was needed to determine the views of the electorate as he routinely received petitions from islanders requesting relocation.

According to official results, of 26,676 people who participated in the referendum, 8,402 voted in favour of the proposal while 16,695 voted against it.

However, of the six islands in Addu Atoll where voting took place, citizens of Hithadhoo, Maradhoo, Maradhoo-Feydhoo and Hulhudhoo endorsed the proposal, while islanders of Feydhoo and Meedhoo rejected it.

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Games could mean serious business for the Maldives, says MESA

A team of young Maldivans from the Maldives E-Sport Association (MESA) returned home last week fresh from competing at the Sri Lankan Cyber Games (SLCG), facing off against the tournament winners in their first exhibition match outside the country.

‘E-Sports’ – competitive multi-player computer gaming – are extremely popular in the Maldives. MESA holds its own gaming festival every year (the next is at the end of November) and attracts sponsorship from companies such as Dhiraagu, Point IT, Coca-Cola and Raajje Online, rivaling a major sporting event.

The Maldivian side is getting noticed on the international pro-gaming circuit too, explains MESA’s President Ismail ‘Levitan’ Azmee, for despite their relative lack of experience, the team drew their exhibition match with the Sri Lankan champions at the SLCG.

The game was ‘Call of Duty 4’, a first person shooter (FPS) in which two teams of players must coordinate to achieve a set objective, such as capturing a flag, or more usually, exterminating the opposition with virtual gunfire. A player is reincarnated at the beginning of each round.

Matches at the SCLG were a race to 13 win, Azmee explains.

“The first match we lost 9-13. But in the next match we got to chose our [preferred] map, and we won 13-11,” he says. “If you know the map, you have an advantage over your opponent because you know how to flank them.”

The Sri Lankan teams were very experienced having played together for three years, while the Maldivian side: Ali Ayham, Mohamed Maaiyz Nasheed, Mohamed Samhan, Mohamed Bassam, Ikram Easa, Mohamed Jinad, Mohamed Iyash and Ali Farooq had only eight months.

Teams play opposite each other at a bank of computers, communicating using in-game commands to avoid tipping off the opposition.

Sportsmanship was tested during the match, when, outnumbered by jeering spectators, one of the Maldivian side was ‘knifed’ in-game by a Sri Lankan player.

With all the high-powered weaponry in the game, the close-combat killing of an unobservant player is considered the ultimate humiliation.

“But we kept our cool, and knifed him back twice,” says Ali Ayham, one of MESA’s exhibition players. “They became quite agitated after that.”

Other games played included racing simulation Need for Speed.

“The Maldives is strongest in Counterstrike and Call of Duty, but we also have possibly one of the best Guitar Hero players in the region,” says Azmee. “He doesn’t miss a button.”

Far from the inconsequential past-time of idle and dissolute youth, MESA is one of the Maldives’ largest, youngest and most active associations. Were its 10,000 to 12,000 members to form a political party, it would come close to being the third largest in the Maldives, after the ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) and the opposition Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP).

Accordingly, MESA wants nothing more than to trigger a surge in high-tech investment to the Maldives.

“Maldivian industry is limited to tourism and fishing,” Azmee says, “and we want to introduce electronics in the near future. The country has a high youth population, and one of the biggest forms of entertainment in the country is electronic. Most gamers are not out to compete at a professional level, they just play for fun, but for those that want to take it to the next level, MESA is trying to make that happen.”

Gaming, he says, “is not just entertainment – it’s an industry. Game testers are paid more than doctors in the Maldives – you have to be an extreme gamer and really know your gaming history. It’s a demanding job.”

MESA has already built connections with companies in South Korea, where computer gaming is the de facto national sport. “They have committed to supporting us to develop the electronics industry in the country,” Azmee notes, adding that the association has letters from the government supporting the creation of an “electronics village”, in a location such as like Hulhumale.

“We particularly want to attract game developers,” Azmee explains. “There are already a few mobile game developers here who have submitted proposals to [famous developers] Electronic Arts and Square Enix, but there are currently few opportunities for professional developers in the country because of a lack of support for the industry.

“There are a lot of people here with the required degrees, but no opportunity to develop what they have been trained to do. They have to accept jobs with low wages doing things they are not trained for. We have asked companies to come and develop here – we’ve already talked with them, we have all the documents and support from the government, even from the President himself.”

Internet access speeds in the Maldives are not up to the level of competitive gaming however, Azmee says, which has forced MESA to decline some offers to compete online.

“We don’t have the net connection here to play online competitively, although we have really good PCs. We are working with both the telecoms companies to try and get better pings (speeds).”

However corporate support for sponsoring gaming within the Maldives is already strong, Azmee says.

“At the SLCG in Sri Lanka we observed that while they had 200 teams, they had far less support than we have in the Maldives – they’ve asked for our assistance to get it. We are shortly going to start the first ever South Asia E-Sport Association here in the Maldives, and in the near future we’ll be signing MoUs with Pakistan, Singapore, India and Vietnam.”

Locally, MESA runs a gaming centre in Male’ on the main road of Majeedhee Magu, decorated with painted characters from the popular FPS Counterstrike. Many more players from the islands play online, and the association’s local servers attract many German, Brazilian, Korean and Singaporean players as well.

Prior to MESA’s arrival the centre had a reputation for being somewhere where local drug addicts would come to buy drugs, shoot up and hang out, says Azmee, and some still drift to the centre.

Astoundingly, MESA has had significant success in rehabilitating addicts by getting them involved in gaming. Users become so absorbed in the expansive, online multi-player game worlds such as World of Warcraft (WoW) that they “forget” one addiction, trading it for another far less harmful.

“It works, and the government has acknowledged it,” Azmee says. “They tried with the youth centres to get them playing sports but it did not work. A lot of the addicts in Male’ are just people with nothing else to do, and for them gaming can truly be a life-changing thing.”

Far from a solitary pursuit, so-called ‘massively multi-player’ games such as WoW require groups of players from around the world to cooperate and work together to achieve common goals within the game, such as slaying difficult adversaries. The action-reward nature of such games and the social interaction has proven so addictive for many players that WoW is sometimes disparagingly referred to as ‘World of WarCrack’.

But its dealer, Blizzard Entertainment, has out-performed any drug mafia. WoW boasts more than 11 million paying players, and revenues in excess of US$1 billion per year.

For MESA’s competitive wing, games are serious business. Top players must practice up to eight hours a day “if we want to be the best at what we do, just to stay ahead of the competition,” Azmee explains.

It’s not all in-game practice either – the teams watch and analyse replays, and study the performance and tactics of world-ranked teams such Dignitas.

But despite the in-game challenges, the greatest obstacle comes in the form of convincing their skeptical parents that time spent gaming can lead to a viable career.

“A lot of parents are concerned, and say we are wasting our time and that playing games changes you sociologically. We’ve consulted several universities on this and found studies that show that gaming engages the mind, reflexes and problem solving abilities,” Azmee says.

“I try to explain to parents and educate them that games are not bad if played in the right way – and obviously you should not let a young child play a game like Grand Theft Auto. We are planning to introduce a ratings system to help parents learn more about the games their children are playing.”

While convincing the parents is a series of battles, MESA’s elite players appear to be winning the war.

“At first they gave us a lot of trouble by saying it was better for us to focus on studying and that there was no future in gaming,’ Azmee says. “But that changed when they saw all the medals at the last Maldives gaming festival. Now they are really helpful.”

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