Tag: maldives

President Yameen to personally oversee health sector

With additional reporting by Daniel Bosley

President Abdulla Yameen has announced that he will personally oversee the Maldives’ health sector until it overcomes its current problems.

“When things don’t get done, it is the president elected by the people who has to bear responsibility. But the democratic way is to delegate the work and let others do it. And doing things through institutions and offices,” local media quoted Yameen as saying in Addu City yesterday (August 11).

“If everything has to be done by the president, then we can just pay the president a large salary, send everyone else home and the work will be done. But we have offices and departments because we don’t want to do that.”

Speaking at a Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) rally, Yameen alleged that, despite a lot of developments having been brought to the health sector during Gayoom’s administration, no investments have been made during President Mohamed Nasheed’s time in office.

The Ministry of Health has been headed by Defence Minister Colonel (retired) Ahmed Nazim after former minister Dr Mariyam Shakeela’s renomination was rejected by the Majlis last month, and had fallen under the oversight of Vice President Dr Mohamed Jameel Ahmed.

In an interview with Haveeru earlier this week, Dr Shakeela alleged that she had received threats and intimidation prior to her departure, suggesting that political opponents wished to remove her in order to benefit from corrupt development deals.

“When things fail, all the complaints are targeted to the president and in the end it is whoever is elected to the post of president that needs to carry the responsibility for everything,” President Yameen told local media.

“Therefore, I have decided that although the sector was not overseen by me previously, I am going to run the health sector directly under my oversight until it overcomes its current hurdles,” he continued.

Corruption claims

Dr Shakeela – whose time in office was marked by a number of high profile mishaps within the sector – told Haveeru that she had not been provided adequate powers to carry out the changes required.

“When I was given the post, some people said this can’t be done by bringing in someone from far outside after we worked hard to bring this government,” she was quoted as saying.

“So from the start there were some people who were bent on showing that I was a failure.”

The state-owned Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital (IGMH) – long criticised for lack of qualified doctors and inadequate medical facilities – transfused HIV positive blood to a patient in February due to an alleged technical error.

In June, Fuvahmulah councillors called for Shakeela’s resignation after a case of stillbirth, an interrupted caesarean, and the death of a soldier on the island. A few weeks after, over 300 protestors demonstrated in Haa Dhaal Kulhudhuffushi over deteriorating conditions at the regional hospital.

Responding to Shakeela’s interview this week, PPM parliamentary group leader Ahmed Nihan told Minivan News that acting minister Nazim was carrying out “tremendous” work in the sector – work he is confident Dr Shakeela could not have done.

Nihan argued that the removal of Dr Shakeela was an example of good democratic practice after PPM members became dissatisfied with her performance.

On Monday (September 11) the ministry was reported to have signed an agreement with Sunshell Maldives Pvt Ltd for the MVR1.2 million (US$77,821) renovation of Hithadhoo regional hospital.

Yameen yesterday also praised acting health minister Nazim’s performance, saying he was “working very actively and conducting some very important work”.

He said that Nazim regularly deliberates with him on health sector issues, implementing his suggestions.

“I am therefore confident that with the current minister, I will be able to bring about the changes I desire in even the atoll level hospitals,” said Yameen.

The president is visiting Feydhoo and Hithadhoo islands in the southern atoll to examine ways in which the government’s development agenda can be implemented.

In addition to inaugurate a road construction project in Feydhoo, Yameen announced a land reclamation project to be started on the same island next year, as well as a atoll-wide sewerage project to begin this year.

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The Islamic State has supporters in paradise: Washington Post

“When the medieval Arab traveler Ibn Battuta gazed upon the Maldives, an Indian Ocean archipelago of more than a thousand coral atolls and turquoise-blue lagoons, he thought it ‘one of the wonders of the world.’ ” writes Ishaan Tharoor for the Washington Post.

“He didn’t need much persuading to halt his voyage, and assumed the role of ‘qadi‘ — or chief religious judge — for the entire archipelago, deliberating on matters of state while enjoying the delights of the islands’ beaches and, as local lore goes, its women.

Ever since then, travelers and honeymooners have flocked to the Maldives for their own bit of paradise. The country’s myriad scattered luxury resorts now bring in hundreds of thousands of tourists every year — in 2012, the Maldives counted over a million visitors, nearly three times the country’s existing population.

But there’s trouble in paradise, also. This past weekend, some 300 people in the capital city Male — a tiny, crowded concrete island in the sea — marched down its main thoroughfare waving the black flags of the Islamic State. They chanted slogans against democracy and held banners that read “Shariah is the only solution,” among others. They ended their protest with a prayer offering support to mujahideen waging jihad around the world.”

Read more

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Comment: The Maldives Police Service – politicised or incompetent?

On September 1, 2014 the Maldives Police Service (MPS) marked a decade of existence as a civil institution that is separate from the military.

From its very inception, the MPS have been promoting contemporary policing philosophies and concepts to describe the kind of policing it would practice. Terms such as community policing, evidence based investigation, forensics and DNA are used to describe its policing strategy and promote the MPS as a modern, professional and service oriented organization.

To achieve its goals the MPS receives significant foreign aid and assistance from a number of countries.  Its officers are trained from highly prestigious police academies, training institutions and universities. Also, the Maldives government invests heavily in MPS.  It is estimated that there are more than 3000 police officers within the MPS to police the population of Maldives which is under 400,000.

But for all the strategic intentions and resources, neatly bound strategic plans and the trainings from across the world, the MPS is failing at its core missions—preventing crime, improving safety and gaining legitimacy.

Crime

Over the past 10 years crime in the Maldives has increased substantially. Official statistics show that reported incidents have more than doubled during the last 10 years from 9,140 crimes in 2004 to 18,984 crimes in 2013.

Violent crimes, financial fraud, drug offences, sexual offences and terrorism, to name some, have increased substantially. Of course, the increase in crime cannot be directly attributed to MPS— there are complex social, economic, political and legal factors at play here.The increase in crime may also reflect administrative changes in defining, collecting and counting crimes. Because no research has been undertaken to capture the ‘dark figure of crime’ which go unreported or unrecorded, such as a general victimisation survey, it is fair to claim that the actual crime rate of the Maldives is likely to be much higher than what is officially recorded and published by the MPS.

Irrespective of what the numbers reveal, there can be little disagreement that crime in the Maldives and its impact to the people of the Maldives has taken an incredibly negative trend in the past ten years.

With the increase in crime, people’s sense of safety has also decreased throughout the Maldives. Fear of crime and the likelihood of becoming a victim of crime in the Maldives are huge. While the MPS are partial culprits to the ever increasing crime problem, they have an important role to play in reducing the fear of crime. To reduce the fear of crime the police need to be proactive, however.

And therein is the MPS’s biggest failure—it continues to operate like a fire brigade reactionary force that reacts to crime rather than proactively prevent crime.

Preventing Crime

Prevention is a key task of contemporary policing and there are many things the MPS could do to prevent crime.  It seems the MPS speaks of crime prevention very much but little is actually done towards this end.

The MPS engages in piecemeal advertisements through the police website and social media, however, and conducts some information sessions to public and school children under the rhetoric of crime prevention. For instance, the MPS has been conducting information to young school children and parents with slogans such as ‘together we can reduce crime’, but fails to properly assess and engage the at-risk youth or parents who usually don’t attend these ‘feel good’ public campaigns.

Moreover, there are no clear targets or evidence based content to these information sessions. In other words, the MPS primarily conducts situational crime prevention activities which promote target hardening, even that without a clear strategy or outcome analysis.

There are many other ways such as Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED), co-production of safety and security through community policing and social and restorative justice approaches that could be further used by the MPS to enhance its crime prevention activities.

The Crime Prevention Committees that have been formed in the islands, the community policing version of MPS, lack regulatory procedures to operate and thus depend on individual stations to make it work.  Recently it started activities that are highly militaristic in terminology and in ritual called ‘Blues for Youth’ and ‘Be Ready Camps’ that has no clear objectives, goals and measurable outcomes.

There are many factors that indicate crime prevention is not a highly valued function within the MPS. The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, in their evaluation of the implementation of MPS strategic plan 2007-2011 found that 84% of police officers they surveyed highlighted police officers do not receive sufficient training or resources for crime prevention. The survey further found that there was a perception within communities they surveyed that the police were failing hugely on prevention of crime.

The frequent restructuring and repositioning of crime prevention function from department to department is also indicative of the lack of importance placed on this core function by the MPS (a 2010 organisational structure available from the internet has crime prevention as a separate department but the latest media report on crime prevention on MPS website cites crime prevention as a unit of the Public Affairs Department). Indeed, the MPS often conflate crime prevention with media and public relations.

Legitimacy of the MPS

The police are defined by the authority to use force—including deadly force—against its citizens. And police officers have huge discretion in using this force. While the law governs how the police should use their power it is often left to individual officers’ discretion to apply the force. Thus, it is imperative that the police are not only held responsible for their actions but also accountable.

Since its very inception the MPS have been criticised for its use of force.

Because the establishment of the MPS coincided with the period of political transition in the Maldives, it has been continuously pulled into political discourses and events. As political demonstrations intensified during the early years of MPS’s inception it failed to practice a Public Order Policing strategy that would be in line with democratic principles.

Between 2004 and 2008 the MPS received huge criticisms and accusations of actively sabotaging pro-democracy rallies and dispersing opposition led public demonstrations fiercely and violently. While the police by its very nature is susceptible to politics and politicians, the police in a democracy should always refrain from being politicised. The police should never overreact to political events or political rhetoric. Nor should the police incite politicians to overreact.

The 2004 to 2008 period could easily be described as the ‘political era’ of the MPS.

From 2008-2012

The politicised nature of the MPS in these early years continues to haunt the organisation. Furthermore, it is questionable whether or not MPS has been able to leave that behind despite a new Constitution and a new Police Act which mandates the MPS to uphold the law and democratic principles rather than the government.

With a new government elected in November 2008, there were huge expectations that the ‘political era’ of the MPS would end and that policing in the Maldives would begin a new democratic era. Because MPS is a relatively young organisation with a young workforce, however, the new government’s capacity to bring the level of changes it wished for the MPS was perhaps limited.

Because the newly enacted Police Act (2008), which was passed before the Constitution, gives the president the power to appoint the commissioner of police and deputy commissioners of police, there were some changes at the very top of the leadership at the MPS in 2008. However, the new government also failed to initiate or guide a police reform agenda beyond the cosmetic change in leadership positions. And the MPS lacked the capacity and the willingness to reform within.

The extent of politics within the MPS is evident from comments made by senior police officers that they refused to ‘salute’ the newly democratically elected president [Mohamed Nasheed]. While the exact truth behind these sentiments is not clear, it is evident that senior police officers harboured huge resentment against the newly elected government and the new president.

Some, including Abdulla Fairoosh who temporarily took control of the MPS on February 7 2012 as the acting commissioner (despite no reference to such a post in the 2008 Police Act) and Abdulla Riyaz, the commissioner of police appointed on February 8 2013, took study leave soon after the new government had been elected in 2008.

Beyond 2012

As the events leading up to and of the February 7 and 8 2012 would reveal, far from being a new and apolitical organisation, the MPS remained unchanged.The controversial role the MPS played in the transfer of government on in 2012 is well documented.

The new government’s own Commission of National Inquiry (CONI) found that the police acted beyond its power and authority in the violent dispersion of demonstrators on February 8, 2012. Since then criticisms against the MPS has been that it was too political and if it could be saved from the political interferences, the service could effectively police society.

The recent suspected abduction of journalist and human rights activists Ahmed Rilwan (known in the social media as Moyameeha) has, however, spiralled into a more deserving criticism against the MPS—that service is not only too political, it is incompetent too.

The failure of MPS to provide any substantial information about Rilwan has more and more people questioning the capacity police to provide safety and security to the people of the Maldives. The MPS often blames politicians for interfering with their work, the legislator for not passing necessary laws, the judiciary for not keeping pace with the ‘scientific investigative methods of MPS’ and the corrections system for being a hole in the criminal justice system.

What the MPS fails to understand, however, is that it is the failures of the MPS that has most significantly inhibited effective justice and democracy in the Maldives.

Unless the MPS pay more attention to its core missions—reducing crime, improving safety and gaining legitimacy—there can be little improvement and satisfaction for the citizens of the Maldives. And if the past is of any experience, the MPS lack capacity and willingness to reform within. If any change needs to be brought to the MPS there needs to be a holistic police reform agenda that not only changes the police but policing too.

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IFJ and MJA again urge government to expedite Rilwan case

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the Maldives Journalists’ Association (MJA) released a further press statement expressing concerns over “the slow progress made in the search of journalist Ahmed Rilwan Abdulla”.

“Today marks one month since Rilwan was last seen yet the IFJ remains critical of the investigation and the release of information by the authorities,” the statement dated September 8 reads.

“The huge public response to Rilwan’s disappearance shows the strong desire for justice and answers, not only by his journalistic colleagues but the public at large,” the statement quotes IFJ acting director Jane Worthington as saying.

Rilwan was last spotted on CCTV footage at the Hulhumalé Ferry Terminal. Eye witnesses report seeing a man fitting Rilwan’s description being forced into a vehicle at knife point in front of his residence at approximately the time Rilwan would have reached his residence.

The IFJ states that evidence found by Minivan News – later corroborated by other media outlets – suggests Rilwan was abducted, while the authorities have so far not provided any information which links the reported abduction in Hulhumalé to Rilwan’s disappearance.

“One month on, the demand for answers remains strong and if the figures the police provide are correct, there is vital information that is not being shared with the media that might find the culprits behind his disappearance,” said the statement.

The IFJ previously released a statement last month calling upon authorities to undertake a full investigation with the “utmost seriousness, with all findings released to the public.”

“The disappearance of journalists is a serious matter and full support must be provided to the family,” read the August statement.

Rilwan’s family have resorted to lobbying the People’s Majlis in order to gain information about the investigation, noting last week that police updates on the investigation did not included evidence on progress.

The most recent police statement noted that they had questioned 318 individuals, interrogated 111, searched 139 locations in Hulhumalé and conducted dives to search 267,197.5 square meters of ocean.

“These are just statistics,” responded Rilwan’s brother, Moosa at the time. “We want to find him. We want the police to tell us if they have any leads, if there is progress”.

The Human Rights Commission of Maldives and the Maldives Democracy Network have also suggested the police should be conducting investigations more transparently. The UK government has this week expressed concern over the disappearance.

Speaking to Minivan News today, police media officials said  that there were no further developments in the investigation that could be shared with media or the public.

Meanwhile, Rilwan’s family and friends continue in their efforts to find him and spread awareness about the disappearance.

In a social media campaign dubbed ‘Find Moyameehaa‘ – referring to the pseudonym adopted by Rilwan on social media – friends and family have so far conducted various activities in the streets of Malé.

Efforts included the gathering of 5000 signatures on the Majlis petition in just over one week, and a gathering for families victims of violent crimes.

“Friends and family will once again be meeting the public on Friday afternoon from 4 to 6pm at the Artificial Beach,” Rilwan’s long time friend Yameen Rasheed explained.

According to Yameen, Friday’s event will be focused on addressing questions surrounding Rilwan’s suspected abduction, spreading information about Rilwan and the loss society will face in losing young minds like him, sharing various literary works he has produced, and conducting a special prayer in hope of his quick and safe return.

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Police called to investigate bullying in Imadudheen School

Police have confirmed that they are currently investigating a case involving multiple instances in which an 8-year-old student at Imadudheen School has been bullied.

While the police declined from providing further information on an ongoing investigation, local media reports that the case involves the student being bullied multiple times, and the school management repeatedly failing to take sufficient action in the matter.

“We have been raising these concerns with the school management from the moment we became aware of it. We have submitted the complaint to the class teacher, the leading teacher, and even the school principal,” local media quotes the victim’s parent as saying.

“However, the problem has still not been resolved. We filed a complaint with the police finally when the class teacher threatened our daughter saying she will be expelled from school if she pursues this matter any further.”

Ministry of Education Media Official Maina Latheef stated that the matter has not been submitted to the ministry as an official complaint, although she explained to Minivan News that she was looking into the issue.

“We will be able to tell you more in detail about what actions we can and will take once we finish looking into the matter. However, we maintain that the act of bullying is unacceptable and no child must have to be subject to it,” she said.

Imadudheen School’s administrative office was not responding to calls at the time of press.

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Former undersecretary sentenced to house arrest

The Criminal Court has sentenced Hinna Khalid of Valhufehi in Henveiru ward to six months of house arrest.

Hinna Khalid served as an undersecretary at the President’s Office during President Dr Mohamed Waheed’s administration.

Khalid has been sentenced on charges of abusing powers for personal gain while serving as head of the Malé municipality.

The case was presided over by Criminal Court Chief Judge Abdulla Mohamed.

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Road Development Corporation contracted to build two roads in Feydhoo

The Ministry of Housing and Infrastructure has contracted the Maldives Road Development Corporation to build two roads in Feydhoo, Addu City.

At an event held at the ministry for signing of the contract today, Minister of Housing and Infrastructure Mohamed Muiz revealed that the project is worth MVR7.9 million.

According to Muiz, the corporation will be building Rahdhebai Magu and Bandharu Mathee Magu, with work commencing as soon as the environmental impact analysis of the project is completed.

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UK foreign office expresses concern over Maldives’ human rights situation and Rilwan disappearance

The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has expressed concern over the human rights situation in the Maldives, as well as the disappearance of Minivan News journalist Ahmed Rilwan.

“We are also concerned by reports that parliamentarians, human rights advocates and journalists have recently been the target of death threats, and by the disappearance and apparent abduction of one journalist on 8 August,” said Minister of State at the FCO Hugo Swire.

Swire’s comments came in response to a written question submitted by Conservative Party MP Karen Lumley.

The minister expressed concern over freedom of religion, rule of law, and women’s rights, as well as reports of death threats made against a number of politicians and MPs in recent months.

Former health minister Dr Mariyam Shakeela is the latest to have reported having received death threats. Similar messages have been received by multiple journalists and politicians, including Jumhooree Party leader Gasim Ibrahim.

Rilwan, 28-years-old, was last seen on the Malé-Hulhumalé ferry on August 8, just minutes before his neighbours saw a man fitting his description forced into a car outside his apartment.

“Officials at our high commission in Colombo, which is also accredited to the Maldives, have raised concerns on human rights, as well as the recent threats and this reported disappearance, with the Maldives Government,” reported Swire.

“We have also urged them to ensure that those responsible are prosecuted as appropriate. The Maldives Government has expressed deep concern following the disappearance, and noted that they are committed to ensuring the safety and security of all Maldivians,” he continued.

While Rilwan’s disappearance has been highlighted by many international groups – including the UN, Reporters Without Borders, and the Committee to Protect Journalists – the FCO’s comments mark the first time the case has been mentioned by a foreign government.

There is little information regarding Rilwan’s disappearance despite a MVR200,000 reward being offered by his family and a petition signed by 5000 people submitted to the People’s Majlis.

The petition called upon the legislature to find answers to questions regarding the police’s investigations. Similar concerns regarding the investigation’s progress have been raised by the Human Rights Commission and civil society groups.

After police released a statement on Thursday night (August 4) – claiming it had questioned 318 individuals, interrogated 111, and searched 139 locations – Rilwan’s family voiced concerns over the case’s progress.

“These are just statistics. We want to find him. We want the police to tell us if they have leads, if there is progress,” said Rilwan’s brother Moosa.

“We want to know what the results of these extensive searches are. It’s been a month, my family and I fear for his life.”

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Comment: Nasira Abdulla – an inspirational misfit

The following is a comment piece submitted in response to a video profile of Nasira Abdulla produced by Hulhevi Media in July, 2014.

Born in 1957, Nasira passed away yesterday (September 8) after suffering breathing irregularities.

Ostracised by some, she was also an inspiration to many living the capital Male’.

‘She has always been known as the insane woman. A social reject living on the streets, she has suffered every abuse…’ Over 8000 hits in less than 24 hours? Of course. These are the days of social media. ‘Putting it out there’ is easy. Should I ‘like’ it? Or should I ‘share’ it?

Nasira’s story is an insightful look into the life of the homeless in Malé. She is street-smart and pragmatic, but her quick wit and sense of humour belies a litany of social injustices that is universally experienced by the homeless: verbal and physical abuse, rejection by family and society at large, the constant and soul-destroying search for shelter and the need to hustle to find money to keep hunger at bay.

I get lost in the trackless jungle of social media; I blame my age and my natural impatience with technology. However, ‘social rejects’ are nothing new to me. I grew up with ‘Firihen Fathuma’.  She came to thatch our kitchen roof, reconstruct the boundary fence between our house and our neighbour’s and to spread the coral sand before the onset of Ramazan.

Even then there was a dearth of men wanting to do manual jobs in the Maldives. Men were doing much more important things such as imprisoning and banishing one of my brothers for political dissension, or delivering long sermons on how to respect one’s superiors.

I found Firihen Fathuma’s disregard to social conventions somewhat liberating, viewing her with considerable envy as she walked her tuna home from the fish market.  Another of my brothers got into considerable trouble for taking on a dare to squeeze her chin as he cycled past her on Handhuvarudhey Goalhi. In his defence, she did sport a particularly well curved and magnificent chin.

But enough – I digress.

Why the interest in Nasira? Is it because we see in her a little bit of ourselves, that constant temptation to break free from the straight jacket of social norms? Or more pointedly, is it because we recognise her to be the end product of a system based on self- interest at the expense of nurturing a sense of common responsibility? In either case, Hulhevimedia, thank you for sharing.

I do believe it is an outrageous misfortune that the country has fallen, yet again, prey to the old elitist oligarchy with an over developed sense of  entitlement, and an underdeveloped  moral compass as badly off kilter as those of the thugs who roam the streets of Malé. In a previous life, I would have cried for Nasira as Maldivians are passionate about misery, but I’d like to think that I have grown out of that particular victim mentality.

So instead, I take refuge in words…

In April, Yameen – the latest incarnation of the old regime – announced the development of  SEZs (Special Economic Zones.) The insidious end results of these types of economic policies have already been eloquently pointed out by  Maldivian Economist in his article, ‘SEZ bill opens doors for economic slavery‘ and by Mushfique Mohamed in his ‘The Scramble for the Maldives‘.

I do not wish to reiterate the shortcomings of such an economic policy. However, I wish to extrapolate on the effects of such policy and how such policy decisions are directly related to societal poverty and the proliferation of displaced people.

Yameen’s is the kind of economic policy that is embedded in the dangerously misleading premises of the ‘American Dream’ – the all pervasive  belief that a free market allows everyone, regardless of race, culture or social status, to reap the benefits of their hard work.

Thanks to the power of celluloid, the print media and the globalisation of western culture, this dream has become so much part of our economic thinking, that many of us do not question it.

The words of a prominent businessman in the Maldives, that I was once made privy to, echo these sentiments exactly: “I made my money through sheer hard work. I risked everything. Why should I feel sorry for those who choose to sit on their arses and do nothing to better themselves?”

Makes sense. Or does it?

What is not so obvious is that it is easier for some to get off their behinds and reap the benefit of hard work than it is for others. Those who are rich, well established and have their behinds comfortably perched on the top rungs of the social ladder are in a better position to access the advantages of such policies. In fact, it can and should be argued that such policies are placed primarily for the benefit of such an oligarchy; that these simply legitimise their plunder of the nation’s wealth.

Ordinary Maldivians, who have already endured years of victimisation, poverty, lack of health care and who are deprived of the liberating influences of a good education, are not in a position to walk the yellow brick road to the emerald city. A nation’s human capital develops because of enlightened and humane policies, and having the foresight and strength to deliberately discard the brutal rule of the survival of the fittest.

The failure to do this is epitomised by citizens like Nasira, and by the hordes of young adults who roam aimlessly around the islands, often drugged and armed with  a rather laisse faire approach to human life. The excluded, oppressed and exploited have nothing to lose; they are all misplaced one way or another.

It is not because the chances aren’t there. It is not because the Maldives hasn’t got potential. It is not because Nasira is not resilient, eloquent or intelligent. She is all these things as the five minute clip proves to us. It is simply because she did not start from a level playing field.

Please don’t remind me of the Arnold Schwarzeneggers, the Halle Berrys, and the Ella Fitzgeralds  – or their Maldivian counterparts who crawled through the social cesspool of constant poverty to shine as beacons of success. These are the exceptions to the rule.

There will always be one or two exceptions, if not by nature, then by the ‘benevolence’ of the oligarchs who will ensure by personally controlled patronage, that such exceptions exist for the benefit of their highly spun public profile.

Economics and social policies based on self interest and nepotism, create social casualties such as Nasira. While the rich 10 percent gets richer, the poor 90 percent become the non participants who wait with begging bowls at the bottom- perhaps in the hope of catching the trickles of good things that these policies so famously postulate.

It is like starting a sprint race from one end of Majeedee Magu to the other, with four fifths of the competitors placed five hundred meters behind the forward few. Maybe the exceptionally talented can Bolt to the lead, but the vast majority will always remain trapped in the back.

The final insult is of course to build the discourse round the unfortunate woman saying that she is mad and she chooses to live this way. This is also part of the narrative of the ‘American Dream’, that those who fail the system do so because of their own personal failures.  The system provides- the individual fails. It is the perfect framework to demonize the economic under- achievers.

The final indignity is that Nasira is already a statistic, like Firihen Fathuma, a misfit of society.

I am just saying. Just putting it out there before I go to have my latte’ and give some very serious thought to the new app I want for my Ipad. Or perhaps, I will have some face time with my friends.

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