The tourist abuse scandal and shoddy journalism

As a Maldivian living abroad, I try to keep up with all the happenings back home as much as I can. It got a little boring after a few months since nothing has really changed. The political scene is still a giant comedy festival and the recently-concluded Dhivehi League was like watching paint dry. So monotonous. Well, I was expecting another slow news day when I saw it. The oh-so popular video that has been making headlines all over the world. As a result, we Maldivians are now stuck in a very uncompromising, extremely uncomfortable and a very unfamiliar position. We're like a deer caught in headlights.

It was bad enough that the idiots who caused all this trouble were Maldivian, born and bred in Maldives, you know, "Paradise on Earth", "The sunny side of life". I mean, people who live there aren't even supposed to have the capability of such heinous acts, aren't they?

What upset me most was the crappy and utterly BS journalism which followed. And for once, the journalists are not Maldivian. Pieces like this one, published by AFP news, and this one by a poor excuse of a journalist from The Guardian. Yay, let's not blame the foul-mouthed cretins! They were squeaky clean innocent!

If you bothered to follow the links, you may have able to decipher a disturbing pattern; the journalists have made it a meal of highlighting the fact that Maldives is an Islamic country. Eh? Just read some of the comments for the article from my second link. The general consensus is that "The Muslims are at it again!". Much emphasis is also made on the fact that the perpetrators called the Swiss tourists "infidels". Really now, any Maldivian who watched the video would tell you that that was probably the least offensive term used against the unsuspecting couple. The idiots spewed much worse, I assure you!

The worst thing about this fiasco is that, somehow, they've turned this into a religious thing. The perpetrators weren't religious, neither by their appearance nor language. Practicing Muslims would never use such foul language since we're prohibited from doing so, we aren't allowed to speak behind people's back either. They even mocked the Islamic religious rituals, for God's sake! 

But of course, why let the facts get in the way of a good story, eh? It's so much easier to remain as bigots, reveling in the fact that we're threatened by global warming, calling us "Saudi on sea". Some of the comments on The Guardian's article are so laden with ignorance that I wonder how they manage to walk and breath at the same time. What a sad, pathetic bunch of losers. Here's a suggestion; stop talking about things you've no clue about. You sound ignorant enough already.

The highs and a pesky low

Today, people flocked over to the east end of Male' to witness the first ever sunrise at Aneh Dhivehiraajje. No, I'm not going to get all emotional and type something full of poetry "straight from the heart". That's mainly because I'm not a very poetic sort of person and my attempts to write poetry often include trying to find words that rhyme and ending up with something that doesn't make any sense. Like this verse of a poem I wrote when I was around nine:

Grandmother Willow,
She loves to hug the pillow,
and she looked down below

Enough blabbering. I didn't go to witness the sun rise because I've seen it a million times before and it always looked the same. Also, I had collapsed onto bed out of sheer exhaustion and, according to my friend who phoned me at that time, I spoke absolute nonsense and he came up with the conclusion that I wasn't in the right mental state to do anything due to severe sleep deprivation. Which is a shame as he's one of those who have their heads stuck up Maumoon's behind and was expecting a victory speech from me.

Anyway, I was walking along a very pro-Maumoon neighbourhood today and witnessed two people trying to vigorously remove posters of him from their walls. They caught me staring and gave me the 'what are you looking at?' look. I pretended to scratch the tip of my nose in an attempt to conceal a smirk and walked on, keeping my head bowed until I'd got myself out of that area. It was unusually quite during the late morning wasn't it? Probably because most people were in bed having stayed up all night, or that the whole thing hasn't quite sunk in yet.

The purpose of this post is not about basking in the glory of a sweet victory or gloating over it. In fact, it doesn't have any clear-cut purpose, so I would like to advise all of you, whether you voted for Maumoon or Anni or for the third candidate who never campaigned, i.e Mr Baathil Vote, to act like adults. People like me who voted for a change should stop rubbing it in the faces of the Maumoon supporters, whom by the way, should quit throwing tantrums. I mean, 30 years! For how long could you possibly stand him? Whoops, there I go again!

I hate Anni! I hate him! I don't wanna stay here anymore!!

See, this is the reason why you've to be at least 18 in order to be eligible for voting.

There's something else I'd like to mention; the darn mark. I predicted in my previous post that the new method wouldn't be one which we would enjoy and I turned out be be right, didn't I? Here, have a look:
My index finger looks dead! It reminds me of the irreversible injury Dumbledore sustained on his hand when he tried to put on a cursed ring. All thanks to our whiny journalists who're so incompetent that they couldn't come up with better topics than the issue of a mark. Yesterday my cousins were making a little too much noise, so I raised the finger to my lips to say, "Shh" and the smallest one freaked out. According to her, I shouldn't have voted in black. She thinks voting means applying colours on our fingers, bless her. In my defense, it turned black because of unavoidable contact with water and sunlight.
I've also heard of the incredible lengths people have gone to in order to remove this. Like using lemons, as cologne proved to be unhelpful this time round, or even strong hazardous solvents! My suggestion is concentrated sulphuric acid. It'll definitely remove the mark, although side effects include your skin melting to the bone and the acid entering your bloodstream causing damage to the optic nerves.

Election fun

I received rather unusual text messages last Wednesday. They were all along the line, "How did the voting go?" Like me, most of my friends voted for the first time ever, so I suppose their somewhat irrational excitement is understandable.

I would describe the event as enlightening, but not enjoyable. It's hard to enjoy yourself when you've to stand in queue on a rainy day for over an hour amidst hordes of strangers. They were supposed to be people I was familiar with of course, but I managed to locate only 3 or 4 familiar faces.
Oh, and while I was walking home after submitting my vote, I saw a most peculiar site; a house was covered from top to bottom with posters of Maumoon, while the house next door had a similar look with the slight difference that they went for posters of Anni. I can imagine the neighbourhood arguments.



Anyway, I was amongst the many Maldivians who observed the post-election events with interest. Naturally, now that each one of the candidates have campaigned and tried their best to convince the population that they're the more suitable one amongst the two who made it to the next round to be president of this country, its blame game time! Most of the accusations they make about each other are supposedly valid, although sometimes they can go a little over the top and a teeny weeny bit paranoid. Best not talk about them. They make me wonder whether we're all actually part of a comedy sitcom. Come to think of it! The show will be probably called Maldives, and the studio audience: rest of the world. In fact, they'll be laughing now as Abdullah Kamaaludheen, who's portrayed as a Ninja (and incidentally has unusually bad physique for a Ninja), jumps over the wall fenced around his home and enters the ID card section in the middle of the night by breaking various powerful security features and locks. I'm guessing that the "powerful security features" was in the shape of an elderly security guard who may or may not have been awake while the crime was being committed.



Speaking of paranoia, I think mentioning the bunch who over-analyze everything is worthwhile. Those of you who claimed that the purple mark applied on your finger faded by rain, give me a break! I had a good laugh when a journalist complained about this during one press conference that was aired on TV. I abluted four times that day alone after submitting my vote, washed my hands with soap before and after meals and the thing was still intact when I went to bed that night! Because of these moaners new methods are being investigated and considered and whenever I wonder what the next one may be, I come up with disturbing scenarios. For an example, what if the elections commission decide to print a waterproof dot on our foreheads?



This may give rise to rather awkward situations:
Hindhu: Sees a Maldivian walking along the street. What's that on his forehead? Could that be..? Yes it is! I can't believe it! A Maldivian Hindhu!
(Runs over to the Maldivian guy and prostates at his feet). "Namasthey."
Maldivian guy: (Surprised) What are you doing? Wha-?(Points towards forehead) "Oh this? No, this isn't for religious purposes. And it's not made of cow dung, unlike yours. No, this is waterproof, and evidence that I voted during the second round of our presidential elections. This actually won't wear off until the next round of elections five years later! Remarkable eh?"

They may even come up with a more painful method. Ever heard of cows having their ears tagged at farms?

I voted. Have you?

I've also wondered where this 'Aneh Dhivehiraajje' is. I mean, I would like to know the location of our new country before I vote. I'd prefer somewhere warm and I'm sure most Maldivians would share this opinion. Imagine if we ended up in the Arctic Circle! Then voting for Anni would be utterly pointless.

"Welcome to Maldives."

Now that would really suck!

Edit: It has been confirmed that we'll have to stick our thumb in some sort of water-resistant ink. That'll make it look as though we're all suffering from a bad case of frostbite.
Oh, and apparently we don't have to move anywhere else to reach Aneh Dhivehiraajje. Best vote for a change then.