and so it goes on...

the opposition is loosing ground these days.. now i have been using the words opposition ..reformist.. government... for some people these are confusing because depending on who you are or more so who you align with these words will take different directions... but one things for sure everyones in for reform.. so here after i will only say opposition and government..
today the commonwealth secretary was in maldives.. i haven’t seen an interview of him or his thoughts.. but my guess is that it went pretty smooth but will know soon depending on who starts to quote him..on do (and internet maldives website) there is an article about anni (opposition) contemplating on taking legal action against gov for torture in a british court.. if this becomes a high profile case this is going to effect tourism very badly as one of the biggest market is in europe... and this will have grave consequences to the average maldivian because tourism is our bread.. reminds me of the sanctions on iraq..
its been pretty cloudy and gloomy and so is the peoples mood.. i am trying to figure out how to upload some pictures to this but haven’t had time to do it..what i have been doing to be so busy i dont know....

High! How are you?

nothing much going on.. i guess everyone is too busy with the ramzaan and all.. i am not sure whats going on with the people under house arrest.. my guess is everyone is laying low for a while trying to see where this is going or maybe they are waiting for them to set a trial date or how the gov is going handle this situation...
for some reason there are a lot of crime happening in the capital city.. now crime is again a subjective thing.. this is no crime compared to other major cities.. but for maldivians pick pocketing is a crime.. and mugging someone is a major crime.. when i grew up there was never a mugging and i don’t think there is a word in maldivies dictionary for mugging.. funny... now i guess the gov has to come up with a new word...at least we are enriching our language.. mostly the crime is directly related to the drug epidemic.. it is such a rampant problem that its is out of control now.. i think the gov did very little initially tackle it until it was too late.. and its too late now... creating rehabilitation centers or increasing the number of councilors wont help, my guess would be that.. now is the time to start from the very young generation thought education.. for most part of nineties not even the gov but the people where in denial about the problem.. refusing to talk about it.. the problem of drugs in the islands are getting worse.. lack of a policing service make it worse. unlike the capital the islands have little agencies to look in to these social problems.. i have this feeling that in the next ten years the problem will explode and this will effect the economy in major ways... i think independent people should starting taking statistics and see which methods are working.. maldives is not us or europe its different.. what work in these countries will not work in maldives contradictory to some of the oppositions arguments.. thats the problem with the opposition they look at other counties models and try to bring it to this small island nation..
i bet there is one person in every family in the capital male' who is in to drugs.. this is a scary situation when you consider there are only 300 000 people in the whole country.. i think the problem of drugs is a much worse problem that the government face than the actual reform groups..

wishing well

as predicted gasim and the rest of reform mps have been released.. well lets say transfered to house arrest until trial... and no one but the people of that house can come in to that house.. most probably the phones are blocked and if not it will be tapped....i think their trile will depend on the public mood at the time of them being taken to trile so it is hard for me to speculate on the outcome of the trile.. but i hope that the goverment use this highly publisied arrest to show an example to the rest of the community about the fairness of this.. or else this will be one more episode that will surely be stuck in the memories of the everyday maldivian...
apart from that nothing much has changed.... foreign delegatons from different organizations come and go.. frankly i will not trust no delegation.. in a capitalist world i dont see why any country would do a favour to another country or its people if they are not to gain from it.. it does not make sense.. why would a country spend its tax payers money to help another country..i dont belive that this is possible.. but i do belive in ngos and other non governmental organizations.. but very skeptical about governments.. there were some us deligations and commonweath delegations.. and suprisingly a sudden interest by china... this will be interesting to keep an eye on..
during a new conference the commonwealth delegate gave a positive feed back on the reform agenda proporsed by the government... and i wait to see it implemented..
you know many nights i wonder who actually own this small nation.. of about 300 000 people.. is it the rich business community, korli family, presidents family, all i know is its not a nation of its people for a number of reason and i hope this reform address this..some people asked me today what i wanted to see in this reform... what is that we dont have?? i think more than anything what we want is fairness and the rest will take its couse..

sleepless in maldives

its late night and i could not sleep.. just had haaru (late dinner) with everyone which is great.
there are still reformist activist held and i have a feeling that they wont be released anytime soon.. one of them is gasim the richest man in maldives and the favorite of the opposition. he was arrested during an anti government rally.. people say he went to the rally to disperse the crowd but this turned out to be a blunder... i don’t know why these people don’t know how to play the game of politics... and this is a repetition of annis scene again in a lot of ways.. i still wait for a leader who is intelligent and ready to take on.. gasim should not have even gone out that day.. if you want to get involved in politics you have to learn to play the game of chess.. you should learn your enemy and friends first before you embark on the journey.. i am not justifying what the government did but i think they played the game of politics very well... eventually gasim will be released... but.. my prediction is he will not return to politics for a long time.. his whole business is at stake doesn’t matter how rich he is...what is more important power?? or money???.. sadly in gasims situation you need the money to have that power...i think gasim has been planning on this for a long time this can be seen from his scholarship scheme.. no other business person has funded so many young people to do their studies.... this was a blessing for many maldivians..
on a political level i think this was a preplanned strategy which actually worked.. but if i was gasim i would have waited for some years before jumping in to politics... my guess would be that the opposition must have approached him rather than he approaching the opposition and he prematurely got involved..in politics you don’t go to war when you only have a sword to defend you.. that’s plan stupid.. you don’t get in to politics if you don’t have an exit strategy...
so do i support gasim?? no i don’t as i said in the very first blog that i don’t support any one.. i will let the reader know when such a government, person or a party emerge.. as of now no one has convinced me that they can give a better future to my children.. and the generations to come...
personally i think gasim should explain clearly how he made the money in the first place? long before this... the government and gasim played the game together....and both should be tried in a court of law... in writing this i am not trying to influence nobody, nor trying to spread a certain discourse.. these are just my simple thoughts on a sleepless night

walk of life

today in the parliament 12 mps walked out in protest when the parliament went ahead with the show of hand voting.. in a situation like this these 12 mps carried out a bold move.. but sometimes i often wonder is it better to walk away or to stay and see what you can ingest in to a situation? now, i don’t know the whole process in the wider context as i was not there at the parliament.. but i think our problem is trying to change this from the outisde.. this is no reference to the physical locations of the people but what i mean is most of the reformers tend to push from the outside trying to burst the social matrix constructed around us.... would it not be more easy to rupture it from the inside ?? change i think can occure within and for that change to happen we should change ourself... maybe this is my idealistic dreams... anyways for the parliament to go ahead with the show of hand voting is a blow to its credibility and much needed public relation.. i seriously don’t understand why the government did not go with the secret ballot.. as i am sure they would have won and could have gotten more ammunition.. not by 70 something votes for sure.. but still they would have won..

"And after all the violence and double talk
There's just a song in the trouble and the strife
You do the walk, you do the walk of life"
(WALK OF LIFE Dire straits)

"freez.. this is a hold up.... hands up"

few days back the parliament debated about how to select a speaker... this has been going on and on .. for god sake why don’t we hire a speaker from some other country and move on already.. the whole reform process is stalled because of this.. the government wants to do it by show of hands and the reformists want to do it secretly. how can both parties stall what is good for the people of this country by such a trivial matter.. now i don’t mean to undermine the legitimacy of the process but i think in every process we should make compromises to achieve our goals.. for now the government has the power so for the sake of moving the process why don’t the reformists ride the wave...now you cry that i am for the government.. let me say this.. i do agree with the reformist that the process of showing hand is not fair and this will have its own political consequences... but should we not think of moving forward and confront wider issues. i can almost guarantee that even on a secret ballot the government candidate would win ...this is just a fact and we all know this so why don’t we move forward and sort out the real issues....

Where do i start.. but its a start...

hmmmmm... i don’t know where to really start.. or why i am doing this.. or how i am going to do this.. all i know is i want to do this..
my little country is going though this very interesting time and boy.. i am glad i am part of it.. part of history in the making.. i clearly remember when we never had cell phones,,, or had no idea what internet was... i remember when we had open wells to wash ourselves.. i remember walking though knee high puddles of water to get to school.. i remember when i use to live in this island full of trees and coconut palms... i remember going to the beach ..fishing with my little sister... i remember spending nights and days in the sea...i remember when people use to stop on the street when they hear the prayer calls... i remember when we never could afford milk... i remember when we use to play with fireworks... i remember when we flew kites.. these are all nostalgic memories locked away and kept safe until from time to time i take it out and let it play in my mind giving me this sense of serenity and happiness...
so how did we reach this point.... are these inevitable consequences of globalization and modernism or is this an experiment that has badly gone wrong.... who knows.. maybe this is part of the experiment..
so you ask me, where i stand? i don’t want to be either .. yet there are social factors and realities that pull me to different sides... and as these realities change... i change.. i am not trying to say that this changes my basic philosophy of what is right and wrong or what is human and inhuman.. or what is moral and immoral or fair and unfair.. as humans we have the same ideals that we want to attain.. doesn’t matter what religion, nationality, sex or race you are.... or which side you are on..