Abstract
The Maldives is usually in news due to climate change induced rise in the sea level which threatens to submerge this atoll nation. However, the country is much more interesting than just that. It has witnessed coups and counter-coups, Islamic radicalism has swiftly risen and roots of corruption are very deep. This book by J. J. Robinson is an exquisite effort to spread the knowledge about the veiled socio-political aspects of the Maldives to the international readers. He carried out the major part of his research while working for the Maldivian newspaper Minivan News.
As a dictator, President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom had ruled over the atoll nation for 30 years and was forced out of power through democratic elections in 2008. The election, which Gayoom never thought he would lose, was a part to gain international legitimacy amidst home-grown discontentment against his regime. Earlier, he ordered a crackdown against dissenters and clamped emergency. Both failed to improve situation, so, in order to improve his reputation, he hired the US-based public relations agency Hill + Knowlton Strategies, at the price of US$1.7 million. The agency not only recommended but also implemented much of the pre-2008 democratic reforms (p. 62). The firm urged the president to allow foreign reporters to come and be ready to face criticism (p. 63), but its usefulness came to an end when they recommended that his close confidante, and later President of the Maldives, Abdulla Yameen, be removed from his cabinet (p. 65). In 2008 elections Mohamed ‘Ani’ Nasheed, a human rights activist who had been imprisoned by Gayoom (p. 3) was elected as the president of the country but failed to remain in the office for a long period of time. Gayoom’s loyalists conspired against his administration, eventually forcing him to resign following the 2012 coup d’état and face public humiliation (p. 19).
Writing about the material condition of the Minivan News, author says: ‘Aside from the rented room, Minivan’s total assets included an ancient, erratic and possessed printer and a laptop with a broken shift key that demanded the user engage and disengage caps lock for every capital letter’ (p. 40). Despite such condition, its political contents were such that ‘where Gayoom’s regime regarded the Minivan News with suspicion and distrust, due to the publications and political origins, many in the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) considered it disloyal if not outright traitorous’ writes Robinson (p. 44).
During his stay in the Maldives, Robinson found that the resorts on the beach are also place to discuss and sort out politics of the atoll nation. In most of the cafeterias on the beach, staff had separate tables for MDP supporters and those who supported Gayoom’s regime, and it takes a shrewd middle manager to keep the situation placid (p. 102). Also, Robinson writes, ‘the majority of Maldivian tourism workers were younger and progressive tending more towards support of Nasheed and the MDP, while tycoons had established themselves under Gayoom’s patronage. With hundreds of votes at stake, resorts became campaign tools for the owners at election time and were accused of politically motivated purges’. This was an easy thing to do, as many resorts hosted a ballot box for staff on the island (p. 103). The author has also touched the grey economy, which flourishes underneath the tourism industry. Many migrant workers, especially from Bangladesh are working in this sector on a much lower cost than they were promised. Even their embassy has this knowledge (p. 113). To stop this exploitative practice, in 2011 Nasheed put a moratorium on accepting Bangladeshi workers (p. 114).
Compounding the social and political instability, the sudden rise of religious radicalism in Maldives and the many issues it brings is also a cause for concern. Robinson, therefore, explained the reasons and discussed its effects on the society and politics of the Maldives. Maldivian rulers have often exploited Islamic nationalism, inventing threats and unifying the population under the banner of ‘defending Islam’ from other religions (p. 139). In post-2008 Maldives, spiritual preachers and religious leaders from various parts of the world have been brought in by the Ministry of Islamic Affairs to give sermons of Islam to the citizens including Zakir Naik, a controversial Indian Salafi preacher (p. 126).
Isolation and the intertwining of Islam with national identity have made the majority of Maldivians fearful and defensive towards perceived threats to either (p. 139). Although values are being preached, many non-accepted social norms like fornication are commonplace. The criminalization of extramarital sex undoubtedly contributes to one of the Maldives more surprising statistics: the world’s highest divorce rate. As established by both the United Nations and The Guinness Book of Records (p. 148), the Maldives tops the list at 10.97 divorces a year per 1000 inhabitants, compared to Belarus (4.63) and the United States of America (4.34) in second and third place, respectively (p. 148). Despite the prevalence of out of wedlock sexual activity, it remained a taboo topic and was only considered illegal if you were caught, or fall pregnant (p. 151). Discussion or even mention about homosexuality is also severely attacked. The Minivan News too was under attack when a letter to an editor on the issue of homosexuality was published in it (p. 154).
Due to spread of influence of Islamic fundamentalism, there has been rise in non-scientific explanation to the devastated tsunami of 2004 that rolled over the Maldivian atolls. In the absence of science education, many Maldivians believed the wave was God’s punishment for their irreligiousity (p. 166). The rise of superstition and religious values made many Maldivians vulnerable to imported Wahhabism (p. 167). The first act of religion influenced violence occurred in September 2007, when a bomb exploded in Sultan Park in central Male, injuring a group of 12 tourists comprising of 8 from China, 2 from Britain and 2 from Japan (p. 167). There are also reports about the presence of members of the militant groups in the Maldives (p. 168). Links were identified between a Maldivian national Ahmed Zaki and Lashkar-e-Taiba madrassas in the Kashmir region, and between a ‘Maldivian belonging to a group known as Jamaat al Muslimeen (JTM) and individual participating in an anti-American Islamic extremist online forum called Tibyan Publications’ (p. 168). In other case, while the Maldives claimed it knew nothing about what was going on, Al Jazeera was well informed about the meetings of Afghan Taliban in the Maldives (p. 171). To address or manage the rise of such activities, during his term Nasheed encouraged the traditional culture appealing to innate Maldivian nationalism (p. 172). Unfortunately, he did not succeed much, and in 2012 religion acted as a catalyst for the overthrow of his government (p. 173).
Nasheed’s downfall was triggered due to his confrontation with the members of the judiciary who were loyalist to Gayoom. The Chief Justice of the Criminal Court Abdulla Mohamed, whom Nasheed removed, was swiftly released from detention, after his resignation; and among his first acts of freedom was to issue a warrant for Nasheed’s arrest. (p. 197). Although Nasheed remained inside the Indian High Commission for 11 days to evade arrest, (p. 200) the role of the then Indian High Commissioner to Maldives and the Government of India during the coup is very confusing. Robinson mentions that senior figures in Nasheed’s government, including former chief of defence Ameen Faisal, accused Indian High Commissioner Dnyaneshwar Mulay of having hobnob with Yameen. Faisal alleged ‘I was surprised that instead of contacting us, the government (of the Maldives) Mulay was having a discussion with opposition party leaders Yameen in the Indian High Commission, when the coup was happening’ (p. 219). Ananda Kumarasiri, a 30 year Malaysian career diplomat, used his skills to train the post-coup leader of the Maldives. Indeed, Robinson recounts that when he met with Waheed, Nasheed’s immediate successor after the coup, to carry out an interview the diplomat was helping the president to handle questions (p. 223).
The coup was criticized by almost all countries and international organizations, but his own Commission of National Inquiry report gave President Mohamed Waheed legitimacy, though the foreign ministers of Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group were not entirely convinced to it (p. 240). On the international front, another disaster was ousting of the Grandhi Mallikarjuna Rao (GMR) group from Maldives. Robinson has discussed the background of contract and reasons for its ouster (pp. 246–248).
In the final chapter Robinson talked about the election system and the related frauds in the Maldives. The epilogue updates the ongoing political situation where Amal Clooney was representing Nasheed while Dunya Maumoon hired Cherie Blair in a case presented before the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (p. 297). In October 2015, the United Nations formally recognized Nasheed’s detention as arbitrary, calling for his immediate release and dismissing the government’s insistence that nobody had a right to criticize them on the grounds of ‘national sovereignty’ (p. 297).
With the breadth of its scope ranging from local store politics to the machinations of its political class The Maldives: Islamic Republic, Tropical Autocracy is one of the most comprehensive guides available to the contemporary issues and politics in the Maldives.