According to psychology research undertaken in the USA, people express being happy when they experience what is called an ‘internal locus of control,’ a sense of being in charge of one’s own destiny.
One of the fundamental doctrines of Sunni Islam is that Everything happens acording to the Will of Almighty Allah, hence, a very strict Muslim will say ‘Insh’allah’ whenever they say that they will do something or expect something to happen. It is called Taqdir, the Doctrine of Qadar, or, the Doctrine of Power. If understood correctly, this doctrine can give great hope and power in times of loss and struggle. Yet the way that this doctrine has traditionally been used in the Maldives was to render the masses completely impotent, dependant on the power brokers of society in a fashion which sapped the Dhivehin of any sense of control or capacity for resistance.
Life swung from depressed helplessness, to explosive rage, the type of rage one experiences when one is frustrated deeply, dehumanised, humiliated.
The power brokers controlled the Dhivehin like Gods, and the Dhivehin were at their Mercy, degrading and debasing themselves in front of these ‘Befulhu’ Gods for every little favour. The experience was one of slavery. It was cruel, and deeply painful for the poor.
Attempts to break this power down in the name of the liberation of the Dhivehin through the creation of a republic, ultimately failed to break this system down. Once in power, the ‘Republican Presidents’ were possessed by the same culture of power, that all consuming ‘beast’ of narcisistic bliss bestowed by the general cultural understanding of any institution of leadership. One with even the greatest, the noblest sentiments, could not contain the beast,, its irepressible hunger for the bliss of being Worshipped, could overcome the greatest, most selfless heart.
This monster, now starved of its insatiable, ferocious lust for power for over two years is now rising through the possessed opposition.
This is why the opposition do not want democracy to succeed. This is why they wish to strangle the cultural development of personal autonomy and move of democracy. They wish the Dhivehin to beg at their feet, worshipping them, powerless before them like slaves, debased. This is the only motive that they have for their lack of co-operation in Parliament. They wish for Maldivian people to believe that they are not ready for democracy, to prove themselves correct, so that the masses look to them as the ones who were correct and therefore, who should be followed.
According to Ludwig Feurbach, humanities experience of God is in fact the experience of the power in ones society, the anthropomorphic projection of the will to power of a King or tribal leader, for example.
Maumoon, having tasted the complete control of power, wishes to once again immerse you in his power, to render you completely powerless in your own right. He wishes to do it by projecting his will as the all Powerful Will of God. He wishes you to remain a helpless beggar before the God that he presents, as it is ultimately, as Ludwig explained, worship of Maumoon himself.
Freud observed that one who is deeply religious to the point of anxious self debasement is in fact psychologically undeveloped, development being the experience of relative capacity for self determination, or, as Maslow would express it, ‘self realisation.’ Maumoon wishes to use religion to deprive the Dhivehin of the development of personal and social autonomy. He wants you to remain infantile, ‘his children’, forever.
On the other hand, if Durkheim was correct, and ‘God’ is the personified projection of our own society, then the concept of God can be utlised to inspire, motivate an oppressed society to struggle for freedom. God can be an expression of ones own force for personal and social, yet ‘non-violent’ resistance. When we magnify our own thrust for liberty by making it Divine, we can universalise, magnify the power, elevate the level of emotional energy fuelling our own struggle. We see this quite strongly in the moderate side of what we call Islamic Revival. The teaching in the Mosques of the struggle, the ‘non-violent’ Jihad, and those who embrace this Islamic Jihad (in a non-violent manner) as the essence of their dignity are examples of this expression.
Ones understanding of God will depend on who one is in society, and how much agency one has. We see the battle over the ownership of the true nature of God being played out in the Maldives.
Nietzche also argued the experience of God is the experience of power. He said that the will to power, for the elite, is called “Love and Benevolence,” for the middle classes it is called “equality” and for the oppressed, the will to power is called “Justice.” The Arabic equivalent of all these words are part of the ’99 attributes of God…’
Indeed, we see that the God of Maumoon and of the affluent middle classes is Compassionate, Benevolent, and the God of many of the islanders and the poor, is angry, hungry for Justice.
These anthropomorphic expressions of the will to power will remain in competition with each other, unless one particular class of people become so psychologically smashed that that their social will dies. For the class whose will dies, this is the beginning of depression, anxiety, helplesness, dependancy disorder and consequentially, physical sickness. For the class who wins the struggle, this is the beginning of bliss, of absolute power, of the complete appropriation of God and everything God is into themselves.
The death of political and religious pluralism is the death of a particular class of people. Religious and political pluralism is the sign of a healthy people, of a healthy society. To destroy political or religious pluralism in the name of creating unity, order, and love between all, is to create pain, disorder. This is because, to control a society completely and to control the religious thought of a people in the name of Benevolence, which Maumoon wishes to do, and done so for 30 years, is to take absolute power. It is to rob the masses of any will of their own.
In this scenario, rendered powerless, the defeated class must be kept poor to stay dependant on the leaders. They must be dehumanised by institutional protocol.
For they who feel so helpless, so controlled, so powerless, the only hope for freedom, for dignity, is belief in an afterlife.
The will of this class of people, which the opposition wish to create in the name of restoring order and humanity, can be awakened by the presentation of a kind of a Deity I have not yet described, a Deity of Death, the Deity of the radical suicide bomber.
In the name of restoring religious unity which they think will restore social order, the opposition are, without even knowing that they are doing it, working hard to awaken a suicide bomber mentality.
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