What of Obama now that he lost his word-suit?

[This was written more than a year ago.  Dayan Jayatilleka (quoted here) himself has since lost some of his wide-eyedness about the West, happily.  Unhappily, however, the world has not changed much and hence this re-post]

About a year ago, Dayan Jayatilleka, in an interview with the tv station DERANA, waxed eloquent about Barack Obama.  He insisted that Obama was not George W Bush. He said that Obama was respected the world over and had established friendly relations with China, Russia and India. He said (and this is not surprising) that even Fidel Castro said nice things about the US President.

If there was optimism about Obama being a different kind of US President during his election campaign and in his first days in office, it all evaporated during the sessions of the UN General Assembly in New York last week.  Barack Obama demonstrated that there is only one difference between himself and his predecessor when it comes to US foreign policy: words.  Obama has words, Bush did not; Obama is articulate, Bush was incoherent; Obama could cover his nudity with word-cloth, Bush didn’t have a thread to hang himself with. 

Obama chided Iran about being obstinately secretive about its nuclear programme.  The very next moment, the USA team was lobbying nations to stymie an Arab initiative censuring Israel’s continued secrecy about her nuclear programme.  Obama said he was open to discussions but the moment Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the Iranian President uttered some home truths, called for a zero tolerance of nuclear energy for military purposes, Obama’s team turned heel and left the building. 

When Obama appeared on the US political firmament, he seemed fresh and quite un-Washington like.  This is perhaps why Castro said nice things about him (which sentiments Dayan has to echo, naturally).  Time has passed.  The man was given a Man of the Match before coin-toss and he quickly proved that the people who administer the Nobel were indeed in an indecent hurry when they gave him the Peace Prize. Some people make a lot about his ‘withdrawal’ from Iraq, but say nothing of the fact that he’s run out of options and anyway has essentially endorsed his predecessor’s policy of securing access to oil resources and effected control over that country’s economic and political affairs. You can’t make a virtue out of necessity anyway.

Obama’s policy regarding the excesses of US troops, incidence of torture and covering up of evidence not to mention complete and scandalous silence about the court decision effectively sanctioning the ‘off-shoring’ of torture, has seriously compromised his image as a different face of the USA. 

Dayan paints himself as a ‘realist’ and advocates tip-toe language when criticizing powerful nations and personalities.  He thinks that if India is cautious we ought to be too.  I guess he has the right to define his brand of radicalism in ways he thinks are appropriate. I think it is a bit much to look the other way when a thug wants to be seen as benefactor of victim even as he bludgeons the poor unarmed sot with a club.  Then again, Dayan is a person with some experience in diplomatic circles (beginning with his well-known flirtation with the Indians before, during and after the Indo-Lanka Accord fiasco) and I am not.  Dayan is a kiss-the-hand-you-can’t-bite type and so Obama is hook-off as far as he’s concerned.  Let me for a moment shut up and let someone else speak, someone who has more than Obamaesque credentials (meaning, the Nobel Prize – after the toss and after the match!): Harold Pinter. 

This was in 2005 and it is still very valid and if Obama objects he could at least, in the name of decency acknowledge (or refute) Pinter’s claims.  Pinter, accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature said a lot about the USA.  Here are some choice words.

“As every single person here knows, the justification for the invasion of Iraq was that Saddam Hussein possessed a highly dangerous body of weapons of mass destruction, some of which could be fired in 45 minutes, bringing about appalling devastation. We were assured that was true. It was not true. We were told that Iraq had a relationship with Al Quaeda and shared responsibility for the atrocity in New York of September 11th 2001. We were assured that this was true. It was not true. We were told that Iraq threatened the security of the world. We were assured it was true. It was not true.”

What does Barack Obama have to say to this and what Patricia Butenis?

The United States now occupies 702 military installations throughout the world in 132 countries, with the honourable exception of Sweden, of course. We don’t quite know how they got there but they are there all right. The United States possesses 8,000 active and operational nuclear warheads. Two thousand are on hair trigger alert, ready to be launched with 15 minutes warning. It is developing new systems of nuclear force, known as bunker busters. The British, ever cooperative, are intending to replace their own nuclear missile, Trident. Who, I wonder, are they aiming at? Osama bin Laden? You? Me? Joe Dokes? China? Paris? Who knows? What we do know is that this infantile insanity – the possession and threatened use of nuclear weapons - is at the heart of present American political philosophy. We must remind ourselves that the United States is on a permanent military footing and shows no sign of relaxing it.

What does Barack Obama have to say to this and what Patricia Butenis?

Pinter states that in countries the USA has ‘helped’ out of the alleged goodness of heart, hundreds of thousands died (this is excluding Iraq and Afghanistan by the way).  Pinter has some questions:

“Did they (the deaths) take place? And are they in all cases attributable to US foreign policy? The answer is yes they did take place and they are attributable to American foreign policy. But you wouldn’t know it.  It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.”

Pinter was right.  The US was word-smart.  That was in 2005. This is 2010.  We are post-‘Wikileaks’ and finger-doing in Afghanistan, flip-flopping on Guantanamo Bay, shielding tortures and sanctioning torture not mention bailing out crooks back home in the USA. 

Obama wears a word-suit.  Wore.  Past tense.  Not a pretty sight. 

Read more

There are republics I would die for

I got an email yesterday from a friend who calls himself ‘Yakkho’.  It referred to an interview given by the exiled Chinese poet, Liu Hongbing to Lucie Kalvachova in Prague in October 2004.  The title of the write-up was ‘The Republic of Poetry’.  Hongbing says, ‘This city of Prague has always been on the map of my heart. So much history has been created here!’

My friend is a cynic but so informed that I sometimes feel that the well-informed cannot be anything but cynical.  This is what he had to say about Hongbing: ‘Hey i think this guy Hongbing (red soldier!) stole this from my fren in Beijing the pilipino musician Ato Mariano who set up his "Republic of Feeling" there..he was part of our "Detour" poetry circle in Bj, 2007-2009....then again, this is a 2004 screed, i just noticed...’

A few hours later, Yakkho sends another email.  It’s a poem. ‘The Republic of Poetry’ is title poem of the eighth poetry collection by Martin Espada, editor, translator, creative writing teacher and award-wining poet. I give below a couple of stanzas:

In the Republic of Poetry,

poets rent a helicopter

to bombard the national palace

with poems on bookmarks,

and everyone in the courtyard

rushes to grab a poem

fluttering from the sky,

blinded by weeping.

In the Republic of Poetry,

the guard at the airport

will not allow you to leave the country

until you declaim a poem for her

and she says Ah! Beautiful.

The book came out in 2008 so I am not sure if the title and idea were borrowed from Hongbing who, in that interview says, ‘In the world of poetry, there are no national boundaries. You don’t have to have a national passport to travel in poetry from one country to another – you can call it the Republic of Poetry, if you like.’  Yakkho the Cynic doesn’t think much of Hongbing and rubbishes his statement about Prague: ‘Where has "much history" not been created?....maybe London where he's now ensconced…’

Who said what first and where are not that important except for those who have an unholy and perniciously anti-poetic fascination with copyrights. What is important is the sentiment, IF it makes us understand ourselves better, and understand each other better, in a manner so nuanced that we become gentler, more tolerant and humble. 

I like to think of a world or a nation or a community that inhabits a feeling-entity.  If we felt more and thought less, if we were made more of emotion and less of strategy, if there were more poets and less mathematicians (‘mathematics’ as metaphor of course), I like to think the world would be a better, more wholesome, less destructive and far more musical place to live in.  Would Poetry be a province in Feeling, or vice versa, I wonder.  It doesn’t matter.  Such polities would be included in one another, independent AND dependent of/on one another.  Now if only countries, communities, continents, regional blocs, ideological blocs, religious and ethnic blocs could be divested of boundaries in similar manner! 

Life doesn’t resolve or dissolve that easily.  There are no Republics of Feeling or Poetry.  But there is enough poetry.  There are enough words.  There are helicopters powered by the music lovers make as they whisper silences, there are pilots birthed by love that is thicker than hatred, paper made of petals and inked by tears, and hope hidden in raindrop and moonbeam descending, descending and alighting on heart and sensibility.  

I think Yakkho is absolutely correct; history has always been birthed, in being born and will be reborn again and again on every square inch of our earth.  All births are not recorded and not all deaths noted.  This is also true.  It doesn’t mean that people don’t do things, twist fate by its tail, restore mortality to the so-called divine and elevate man to god for being a giant and for being an ant, in the required dimensionality of moment. 

We don’t have eyes.  Not all of us are sighted. Not all are blind, for this too is sometimes pre-requisite for ‘seeing’.  We are not deaf enough, and sometimes are too hard of hearing; both conditions that stop music at the Gate of Consciousness. Our tongues lack certain taste buds and have too much of others. We can’t distinguish flavour from flavour or mis-taste at the wrong moment.  We don’t know words.  We don’t understand silences.  We mis-read and over-say, fracture communication and end up muttering the incomprehensible. 

We are human.  Therefore we are divine.  If we can imagine a Republic of Feeling and a Republic of Poetry, we can also imagine a Republic of Hope, one of Smile, another of Fragrance, a Republic of Sharing, Giving and Humility.  Such republics transcend ‘national’ boundaries, the lines that separate human from human, child from child; prevent adult from acknowledging and indulging the child within that never died.  They make impossible love possible.  That alone is enough.  

[first published in the Daily News, June 10, 2010]

Read more

Last night I took a walk with Rabindranath Tagore

There’s one poem from Rabindranath Tagore’s "Geethanjali" to which I return every now and then. Actually it often comes looking for me, and, as seems to be the case in these things, when a re-reading is long overdue. Tonight this poem arrived again, looking for me when I ought to have been looking for it. A beautiful girl with the softest eyes, seeing my gaze fall on the volume and my hand just about to reach for it, said, "this is not for you, because you are not in it". According to her I am too sinful to deserve such spiritually uplifting concoctions. I told her, "let me show you my favourite" and turned to the seventy ninth poem. Her eyes widened as she responded, "You can’t choose that. I just chose it!"

Perhaps it was Tagore. Perhaps the Geethanjali. Or perhaps it was something simple. Like two people who despite their constant arguments, being on the same wave length at one particular moment. "Wave length" might sound too clinical for my friend’s enlightened taste. Perhaps I should call it "spiritual platform". Or the mundane soil of human sorrow.

In this poem of four verses, there is one that I am particularly fond of.

"When I sit by the roadside, tired and panting, when I spread my bed low in the dust, let me ever feel that the long journey is still before me. Let me not forget for a moment, let me carry the pangs of this sorrow in my dreams and in my wakeful hours."

The other verses carried the same message, same tone and were decorated in the same philosophical colours, but they more readily referenced divinity; too readily for me anyway. The last verse, for example, goes like this: "When my rooms have been decked and the flute sound and the laughter there is loud, let me ever feel that I have not invited thee to my house. Let me not forget for a moment, let me carry the pangs of this sorrow in my dreams and in my wakeful hours." But then again, "god" or "truth"or whatever it is that one seeks, is always one’s own creation and I tend to think that for this reason alone it is in the final analysis a self-examination.

But Tagore is exquisite here, is he not? I had a friend, a young man from Brazil, who was doing a Masters degree in Production Engineering. Not surprisingly, his conversations were full of metaphors borrowed from his field. This man hungered for women like someone in a desert thirsts for water. His success rate was, he admitted, zero. One day he blurted out to all his friends: "Tell me how to optimise! How is it done? Tell me, tutor me, and I will pay you. In dollars." I offered, "Don’t try to ‘optimise’. Think ‘zero’ and then every little thing, every smile, every glance, even every rejection, will be positive." And added, "in these things, like in the case of making revolutions, there is no ready made text book; what works for me, may not work for you."

Zero. We never move. Our exertions bring us back to things we run away from. The ‘long journey’ is never done simply because it is a road that takes you nowhere. Someone once said, "you travel the world in search of the truth and return home to find it".

An argument for inaction? For lethargy? Perhaps not. Searching for self is not an exercise in self-indulgence. "Self" is the most complex and the most pertinent of all elements that a human being has to deal with. It is that which demands most attentive investigation and that which is most stubbornly ignored. "Self" is, I believe, a room with the widest windows that open to the most breathtaking landscapes. It is a room we never want to peep into because we fear its darkness, not realising that our eyes can pierce even the most dense darkness. I believe that it is in that deep penetration into "self" that one discovers the "us" that lives within. I think this is the "long journey" that Tagore talks about.

There was a time, a time of youthfulness, a time when, as The Eagles’ put it, "we thought we could change this world with words like love and freedom", a time when the heart was full of love for all and the mind was intent on doing things on the basis of "all for love". A time when I would respond to my mother’s occasional ticking off about me not coming home or making a home of the houses of my friends with this: "all mothers are mothers to me, all children brothers and sisters". Today, years later, I could say "all children are my children". Instead, I remain silent. I know that only my child is mine. Have I strayed off the street called "One Love"? Have I banished "community" to a country I do not wish to visit? I believe I have not.

Being a father, today, I understand other fathers. Watching my daughter with her mother, I think I understand motherhood better. I understand my father and mother better. My empathies are grounded, to put it in sociological-speak. Real. The long journey, I know now, I do not walk alone. The destination is not mine alone. The pangs of life’s sorrows do not make up too heavy a burden to carry, when there are companions on this journey. The trick, I tend to believe, is to resist "building community" and to concentrate on discovering it within oneself. It is thus that life yields "community" to an individual. Am I right Rabindranath?

The young girl believes I don’t have an ounce of spirituality in me. I don’t want to dispute her and this is not out of compassion. I don’t know anything about the spiritual. My journey’s direction I hope brings me closer to who I am. And there are moments when, during this expedition, I am tired and panting; there are times when I lay my bed low in the dust. At such times, I tell myself, "let me ever feel that the long journey is still before me". Somehow the pangs of my sorrow do not bite as viciously as they usually do.

This girl will walk her path, at her own pace, in her own way. Neither of us are running a race, and certainly not one against one another. We will meet again, I know. There will be no need for words, for argument. A smile, perhaps. Probably laughter. Especially if we have truly discovered that it is ourselves that we refuse to invite to share in the festivities.

[First published in 'The Island', April 27, 2003]

Read more

The Iron Lady of Rambodawatte

In comparative terms it was a sprawling estate.  Sixty acres is a lot, especially if you live in Colombo.  Nandana, who runs a retail shop in Maradana and doubles up as a driver when he hires out his van, put things in context: ‘Some people can’t manage 6 perches, but this lady manages a vegetable garden of  60 acres.’

Ease of management is of course not related to territory-size, but running that farm in a remote corner of the Nuwara Eliya district is certainly no picnic, even though Rambodawatte is located just 3 km off Labukele on the Kandy-Nuwara Eliya Road.  Perhaps a snap shot of difficulty might illuminate.

At the far end of the farm, which is tucked against a forest covered mountain that is home to plot-wrecking wild boar as well as other relatively harmless creatures, there was a sizable section planted with radish.  Ready for harvesting, but destined to be composted. 

‘The price has come down to 2 rupees per kilo.  It costs us 5 rupees (per kilo) to transport it to the main road.’

That simple answer came from a simple, friendly woman who is iron-like in her determination and work ethic.  Shyamali Wickramasinghe works hard.  From dawn to dusk.   

Sixty acres is a lot of land and prices are not always so bad that you have to let your crop rot.  A simplistic calculation would make it easy to see Shyamali as someone who rakes in millions.  Counted out of the equation, however, is the investment.  Labourers have to paid and this costs close to one hundred thousand rupees every week; needless to say carrots, beetroot, leeks, radish, broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce, cabbage etc are not harvested and sold every week.  Seeds and other inputs cost.  Shyamali has to borrow from banks.  She is constantly threatened by crop failure and price fluctuation.  

If it were only that, then it would only require judicious management of finances and options with some form of insurance.  She doesn’t rule the skies though.  She didn’t design the landscape either.  It is a cold district and one frequently covered with mist, but it is often nothing more than a cold desert.  Water has to be conserved.  Water has to be distributed.  Rainfall and the natural pressure offered by gradient help, but pipes burst, taps break and one has to keep constant watch on sprinklers in order to make sure the vegetable beds are watered just right. 

The wars of the 21^st Century will be over water, they say, but land still matters.  Shyamali, who hails from a family of vegetable farmers who live in and around Kudaoya, is supported in her enterprise by her husband Kapila, but there are many occasions when she spends the night alone in the temporary shack they’ve constructed on the farm.  There have been numerous occasions when she has had to deal with shady characters who stake claim to her property on the basis of dubious documents.  They drag her to court and as if that weren’t enough, they pump labourers with alcohol and set them on her. 

They come at her with money, political backing and at times in numbers made brave with drink, knife and mammoty.  She takes them on in courthouse and on the good earth, depending for the most part on the power of righteousness and singular determination not to budge an inch.  And of course the steadfast loyalty of some of her staff, many of whom have problems of their own such as alcohol abuse and/or abusive husbands. 

It is beautiful this place and utterly peaceful too, to both occasional visitor and to resident.  Shyamali loves the place.  And yet, loving involves walking many kilometers every day, checking on the work, making sure everything is alright etc.  Her transportation costs would be considerably lowered if only a small bridge was constructed on the narrow but motorable path she has to take in order to transport her vegetables to the main road.  What she hasn’t she has to learn to do without, though.  As of now, vegetables are transported using quite a circuitous route. 

Uncertainty rules Rambodawatta, but Shyamali is not one to be deterred by such things:  ‘This is what I know, what I like and what I will continue to do.’    

From the shack, as evening falls, the lights of vehicles plying the Kandy – Nuwara Eliya road take the appearance of a ring of fire.  It rained that evening and Shyamali and Kapila were happy.  When the rain began, they said ‘not enough’, and as it rained and rained Kapila said ‘it will be so beautiful tomorrow morning.’   It was.  It is an unyielding landscape though and it takes a special kind of courage, skill and resolve to harvest anything that in volume (at least) is bountiful.  Shyamali does exactly that.  She is made of iron, recognizable in the work and so unrecognized in the smile, good heartedness, cheer and hospitality. 

There’s no electricity from the grid, but when there’s been enough rain, a small turbine offers some light.  It’s mostly hurricane lanterns and candles after dusk. 

[First published in 'The Nation', FINE Section, February 12, 2012} 

    

Read more

On the inclusivity-clause of historiography

Udaya Meddegama once wrote a poem about the Mahawamsa, clearly the most comprehensive account of what happened in this island.  Those who vilify it cannot counter it with any other account written with scholarly rigor that can match it and flounder in a sad process of myth modeling, extensive cross-quoting and other cheap propaganda devices wrapped as historical account. 

They claim it was written by ‘racist Buddhist monks’. The breadth and depth of the tract is such that it would warrant an entire Department or even School (like those in India dedicated to the study of the Mahabharatha and Ramayana), but Sri Lanka lacks historians and people with academic vision.  Vilification is easier.  Such people would be humbled if they read the meticulously researched commentaries of Kuliyapitiye Prananda. 

Meddegama observes: the ‘Sinhala’ race was fathered by the ruffian son of a patricidal and incestuous father whose mother’s sexual fascination was bestiality.  Some start to a ‘racist’ account written by a chauvinist.  The Mahawamsa, then, is an unforgiving narrative. 

History’s players are never one dimensional; the chronicler should not be swayed by great deed to footnote or erase blemish; not in hero and not in usurper.  If history is indeed written by the winners for the glorification of winners, then the Mahawamsa is quite a poor account. 

The above preamble was provoked by the second anniversary of former Army Commander Sarath Fonseka’s arrest and talk of updating the chronicle to include that which came after and especially the struggle to free the nation from terrorism.  History will remember and forget and the particular mix of the two is never predictable.  Key facts, however, can and must be recorded.

Fonseka played an historic role. Fonseka, thereafter, lost it.  He was hero, undoubtedly, and he was villain too. Undoubtedly.  The villainy dilutes heroism but rigorous chronicling is unmoved by such things.

The man’s ambition, inflated self-worth, political naiveté etc., and a now proven inability to operate in unfamiliar terrain cost him dearly.  His mean-spiritedness, treacherous and irresponsible ways don’t exactly make him paintable in heroic colours alone. 

He did not win it all single-handedly, but he was key enough to warrant special mention, as much as the Navy and Air Force Commanders, the Defence Secretary, the political leadership of President Mahinda Rajapaksa and those who stoutly resisted all efforts to derail the drive on the diplomatic front did.  Perhaps less, all things considered, but certainly not more. 

He has immense spoiler-potential as I have argued: ‘He has been flip-flopping so much about the white-flags story that no government tasked with safeguarding a nation’s sovereignty can afford to risk mouth-shooting from Fonseka; not because truth should be suppressed, but because he cannot be trusted to be honest.  He can lie in order to exact revenge for perceived wrongs and has proved he is not above putting vengeance above nation.  And he’s not Private Fonseka, he’s the former Army Commander.  Even a lie from a mouth that big can have disastrous consequence for nation and citizen.’  (Daily Mirror, October 20, 2010).

I also stated the following: ‘All this is irrelevant when placed in the context of the overall framework of the law.  Laws should not be broken or twisted and principles should not be selectively applied even in the best interest of the country because it creates bad precedent.  Regardless of the ‘necessity’ element, there is clear ill-will in the execution of proceedings against Fonseka and it does not matter whether the man intended to slaughter the Rajapaksas and their friends within 24 hours of being elected President (if that had happened of course).’

We are talking history here though, not law.  There were many others who erred and in far more serious ways.  Vinayagamoorthy Muralitharan aka ‘Colonel Karuna’ for example.  There is a time to fight and a time to forgive, forget and move on, but even these things are irrelevant to the spirit of the law.  ‘Karuna’ is officially a ‘good boy’ now; Fonseka is officially a ‘bad boy’.  But history, when it is recorded, must mention both good and bad.  Either way, both warrant mention, for happy and unhappy reasons.  Write them out, or write them partially, and the error will amount to misinforming generations yet unborn.  It may not matter, but it could. That is the danger. 

A story is not story enough when key incident and key player are written out. It must include the soldier who laid down life for country, the LTTE cadre who marked the earth and memory with his or her heroism, the errant combatants, the suicide bomber, the criminals against humanity and those who marshaled forces to win back a nation, civilization and a tomorrow for our children.  In all their colours, with all the good and bad, the unforgettable and forgettable.

   

[First published in 'The Nation', February 12, 2012] 

Read more

‘Democracy’ at gun-point!*

It’s a strange word-twist and hence the need for quotes. Democracy in recent times have turned definition on its head.  It has provided much grist for the lampoonist’s mill.  ‘Be nice to us or else we will bring democracy to your country,’ screamed Uncle Sam, fully armed and standing in-your-face among the carnage that has been the collateral of ‘democratization’ in recent months.  A blogger (NoealamInSL) gives the gist in a post titled ‘Regime change strategy and action plan’:

First provide arms to a selected rebel group.  Wait until civilian killings take place. Give media coverage on civilian casualties.  Pass a UN resolution calling for the protection of civilians. Freeze financial assets (advance payment for war or investment) and impose sanctions (more business for coalition partners and commissions for bringing in business). Destroy cities from air (to avoid own casualties) to 'protect civilians' (killing even more civilians). Transfer money for cost of war.  A better solution to western credit crisis!’

It didn’t happen that way in the Maldives, though (or in Grenada or Haiti).   Mohamed Nasheed won an election in 2008. He didn’t put his corrupt and authoritarian predecessor Maumoon Abdul Gayoom through the mill.  He didn’t go on a hunting expedition. He set about correcting systemic flaws, knowing well that ‘dictatorships don’t die when dictators leave office’.     

Nasheed’s observations on the matter are telling: ‘The wave of revolutions that toppled autocrats in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen last year was certainly cause for hope. But the people of those countries should be aware that, long after the revolutions, powerful networks of regime loyalists can remain behind and can attempt to strangle their nascent democracies.’

Gayoom was ousted but Gayoomism survived, along with ‘a looted treasury, a ballooning budget deficit and a rotten judiciary’.  Nasheed sorted certain things out but proved to be (inevitably?) too slow in getting the cronies out.  He was surrounded first by those accused of corruption, embezzlement and human rights violations, then by the mobs they deployed, some in uniform.

But it also had a judiciary handpicked by the former president, which was now hiding behind a democratic constitution. These powerful judges provided protection for the former president, his family members and political allies, many of whom are accused of corruption, embezzlement and human rights crimes.  He gave them free speech and that freedom was abused to fan the flames of intolerance, culminating in his eviction and the wanton destruction of invaluable artifacts representative of the island nation’s rich cultural heritage, including its long association with Buddhism.

Nasheed was hoofed out of office. At gun point. It was a relatively bloodless coup d'état, but a vile act nevertheless.  Worrisome as these developments are, worse is the unholy and shameless hurry by the United States of America to officially recognize the new government. ‘What now, “democracy”?’ is the question that the US State Department is probably not going to answer.  

Nasheed, as S.H. Moulana has claimed in a pithy comment, is neither an Assad (Syria) or a Gaddafi (Libya).   He liberated Maldivians from the humiliation of depending on the crumbs the rich left on their tables, introduced free medical services, improved public transport and provided better housing for the poor. He was putting a system in place, an institutional arrangement that had the potential of making ‘democracy’ meaningful.  He was tossed out and the tossing out is being cheered by the Grandmasters of Democracy-Speak, no less.  Should we not call it humbuggery?

Gayoom’s only claim to fame is his contribution to the debate on global warming, prompted by the real threat of the Maldives disappearing from the face of the earth in the not too distant future.  It is indeed ironical that Gayoomism has found a new lease of life and been endorsed by the most pernicious contributor to global warming. 

The Maldives have taken a big hit. Vandalism and cronyism have got a boost.  The civilized thing would be to condemn and lament.  Democracy at gun-point is ‘something else’.  Dictionary compilers may have to rewrite a definition for that word; children encountering it for the first time could get confused.   

*Editorial, The Nation, February 12, 2012

Read more