Day: November 8, 2011

SAARC foreign ministers arrive for summit

Foreign ministers of SAARC nations have arrived in Addu City for the 34th working session of the SAARC Council of Ministers on Wednesday.

Foreign ministers of all eight SAARC countries, with the exception of the Indian and Bangladeshi ministers who are set to arrive tomorrow afternoon, are due to arrive in Gan this evening.

According to the official SAARC website, the foreign minister’s meeting will focus on establishing common positions on issues ranging from communications, transport, climate change and good governance before the main summit with heads of state and government on November 10-11.

A new report on the Rights of the Child by UNICEF Regional Director Daniel Toole will also be launched at Wednesday’s meeting, which will conclude in the afternoon with a press briefing by the Chairperson of the Council of Ministers.

“Addu City is in the final stages of preparations for the SAARC Summit, which will be officially inaugurated at a ceremony on Thursday afternoon. A new VIP terminal has been constructed at Gan International Airport along with a VIP harbor for visiting dignitaries. Dhoogas in Gan has been converted into a 50 bed hotel complex, renamed Gan Island Resort. A State Banquet Hall has been built in Hulhumeedhoo and the Addu link road has been resurfaced,” reads a news update on the official website.

“Neighboring Fuvahmulah, which plays host to the SAARC leaders’ spouse programme, has seen a brand new airport built for the occasion, as well as a cultural village showcasing the Maldives’ rich history.

Addu City and Fuvahmulah are expected to receive over 5,000 visitors for the SAARC Summit.”

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“It’s not as friendly as it used to be”: the price of politics on Maalhos

Eid brings Muslims worldwide together in a shared sense of celebration. It is also a litmus test for change.

Earlier this year councils were elected for the first time on Maldivian islands. Although they allegedly give islands a larger voice in the national dialogue, in some places the shift has rearranged community life.

“The activities are less common – women don’t play and men do less for Eid,” said Haleema Adam, a Maalhos resident.

Her daughter Nazeera attributed the shift to the advent of multi-party democracy.

“The democracy and party systems created divisions, now people don’t always agree on things,” she said. “Now, people make distinctions by party lines. They still go to the celebrations and help cook for big events, but it’s not as friendly as it used to be. If [our family] plans a party, the others won’t come,” she said.

In keeping with most reports from Maldivian islands, Maalhos residents do not find solutions in aggression. “They don’t show anger in the face,” said Nazeera. “But in the heart it’s there, so they don’t want to play at Eid.”

Eid activities are a favored pastime – ask most islanders on Maalhos about the festivities and they will smile as they recollect a favorite food, game or performance. Yet as young people move to Male’ and technology becomes more accessible, the strongest memories seem to rest with the elderly.

At Ramazan, a conche shell is traditionally blown to signal to other islands that the holiday is being observed. Lately, television and radio have eliminated the need, and therefore the tradition.

Electricity has been a useful advent, however. According to Nazeera, boys and girls no longer have to wait for a full moon to play gon kulhun, a night time game of tag and capture.

Aneesa Adam has many grandchildren, and has lived on Maalhos for most of her life. She remembers a swing that was traditionally hung from a tall palm tree before Eid prayer and used by children throughout the holiday.

“Now, the really tall palm trees have gone,” she said. “They were cut down to build the jetty. A nearby resort bought the trees and in exchange built our jetty.”

The game of fankulhun, a palm leaf version of dodge ball played by women, has fallen in the wake of uncompromising fashions. “Now, we’re too fashionable, too western to play those running games,” said Aminath Nasiha. Another girl gestured to her hijaab.

The changes in Eid traditions are most noticeable by women, who note that activities faded with the rise of Islamic fundamentalism.

“Religious people don’t like activities that gather men and women together. Those who are in charge of the activities have also become more religious, so they can decide what happens,” said Haleema. “Islanders like the activities, women especially, but most have stopped with religion. We don’t like the change.”

“We used to have Women’s day and Fisherman’s day and all those days,” said Haleema. “The women would cook and we’d bring the food in a keyn (large dish) to the school, because it was the only communal space big enough for everyone to gather.” She said the practice stopped four years ago when sheikhs disapproved.

Maalhos residents used to cook on the 40th day after a death to remember the life of the deceased. “We thought it was a Muslim tradition, but now they are saying it is a waste and not good,” said one resident.

Mosques have been gradually segregated over the years, but now women report being told to pray at home. Maalhos has four mosques, two for men and two for women.

Entertainment has been restricted as well. Haleema said local authorities oppose concerts and dance shows as well as a variety of traditional activities. On a quiet island, few options remain.

Several sports-based games featuring women are less common, or are played on a quieter level within families or household units. Women interviewed said they used to play bodu beru, a traditional drumming music still featured at most events. None could explain why they had stopped.

At a bodu beru celebration this Eid girls encouraged onlooking foreigners to dance. When asked if they would join, most girls gestured to their hijaab or burqa and shrugged. “You should have come two years ago, I was dancing then, oh!” said one girl. “But then I took up this [burqa], and that changed.”

“It’s just not very comfortable to dance with this long dress,” said another.

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Five lessons for the Arab Spring learned in the Maldives: Time

“Observers of the Arab Spring are wondering what will become of these revolutions once the euphoria subsides and the struggle over democracy grows apace,” writes Jyoti Thottam for Time Magazine.

“There is one corner of South Asia where these questions hit particularly close to home.

In October 2008, voters in this 100 percent Sunni Muslim nation decisively threw out Maumoon Gayoom, the man who had ruled the Maldives for 30 years, making him Asia’s longest-serving ruler. The 41-year-old Nasheed, a human rights activist and longtime critic of the regime, became president, riding a euphoric wave of idealism. As one of his allies told my colleague Ishaan Tharoor, ‘We are not interested in revenge. Now is the time to look to our future.’

So what’s happened to the Maldives since then? On a visit there earlier this year, I found a country that was roiled with protests over rising prices and joblessness, where many people were deeply uneasy about the new prominence enjoyed by Islamists and where the former dictator’s presence still loomed large.

“Despite those challenges, its new democracy is firmly in place. Every country will take its own path, but there are some useful lessons.

1. Don’t be afraid of the Islamists.

In the Maldives, the conservative Islamist Adhaalath Party was until recently a key political ally of Nasheed’s government. The partnership, while it lasted, wasn’t easy. To keep the Islamists happy, for example, Nasheed did little to change the country’s extremely punitive apostasy laws. In an interview with me in Malé, Ahmed Shaheed, a top foreign policy official in Nasheed’s government, explained the rationale for working with the Islamists — their grassroots appeal: ‘That’s where the mullahs excel. On a daily basis they talk to them, five daily prayers, other events, in constant touch with them and as Muslim people who want to know about Islam, about rituals and so on so there is a lot of contact between the mullahs and these lot.’

It turned out that their popular support in local elections wasn’t as strong as anticipated. But the Islamists aren’t just a political force; they’ve also been pushing for the establishment of religious schools, and for expanding the extensive links between madrassas in Pakistan and students from the Maldives.

For all those reasons, Nasheed wanted to keep the Islamists involved in the political process, rather than allowing them to develop into a separate, unaccountable power center. At least for now, the strategy seems to be working. I spoke to Ibrahim Fauzee, head of the extremely conservative Islamic Foundation of the Maldives and a former inmate of Guantanamo Bay (he was picked up in Pakistan in 2002 and repatriated without charges after three years). He does not, however, challenge the legitimacy of Nasheed’s government. He told me: ‘Now we have much more freedom, because we are opening our eyes to the world, following democracy. The nation is going to accept democracy. It’s encouraging us to promote religious activities. We can hold programs. Before, it’s not easy to arrange events in open areas.’

Those events and programs sometimes make liberal Maldivians shudder. The radical preacher Zakir Naik (said to have inspired the accused would-be American militant Najibullah Zazi) spoke to a crowd of thousands in Malé last year, at the invitation of the Islamic Foundation. The real test will come now, with the Adhaalath Party in the opposition.

2. Do worry about the economy.

During the first week of May, the capital city of Malé went through a week of nightly protests, in which young people filled the narrow streets to express their anger over the government’s decision to partially float the rufiyaa (the local currency), a move that led to a sudden drop in its value and a spike in prices. Many in the government suspected that the protests were organized by opposition parties; whether that’s true of not, it was a wake-up call for the government.

‘It was ironic because in the Middle East we saw people wanting to bring down dictators, and here it is the other way round,’ press secretary Mohamed Zuhair told me. ‘We have already brought down the dictator. Probably what happens here might play out in the Middle East.’

3. Be ready for ghosts.

After he was ousted from power, former president Gayoom wasn’t killed or exiled; he still lives in the capital, Malé, and is still a leader of the Progressive Party of the Maldives. He may never be elected president again, but he still wields an enormous amount of influence – most Maldivians have never known any other leader. Even officials in the government sometimes find it hard to hide their animosity toward the man whom they blame for decades of human rights abuses. When a dictator rules for 30 years, his support networks don’t dry up overnight.

4. Expect pragmatic foreign policy.

During Gayoom’s rule, foreign policy was largely put to the service of keeping him in power. In 1988, when faced with a coup d’etat, Gayoom invited the Indian military in to help him. India obligingly sent in paratroopers and put down the rebellion within a matter of hours, further strengthening the Gayoom regime’s ties with India. Of course, that didn’t stop him from also courting Pakistan — where thousands of Maldivians students have studied in madrassas. Since the new government came to office, those two relationships are still by far the most important. India is the acknowledged regional superpower, although its economic support is now much more important than its military support. And until the Maldives expands and improves its schools, devout Maldivian families will continue to send their children to Pakistani madrassas in the absence of any better option.

5. Create strong institutions, not just governments.

Perhaps the most important lesson — one that I heard over and over in my conversations with Maldivians — is that after dramatic political change, a country has to turn its attention to civil society. The nature of any authoritarian regime is that it extends itself into every institution — from schools to the media to the police and judiciary. The hard work of the post-revolution revolutionaries is taking those institutions back and making them truly independent.

One of the most inspiring people I met was Aminath Arif, founder of the Salaam School and a longtime campaigner for education and women’s rights. She was full of creative ideas to improve the skills and employability of young people in the Maldives so the all-important tourism industry wouldn’t need to bring in so many guest workers. She even supported the radical idea of relocating most of the country’s populations to the two largest islands, to make it more feasible for the government to build bigger, better primary schools. Sadly, she died in July after suffering burns in an accident. Her work, and that of the Maldives’ new democracy, continues.”

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