August 25, 2023

The essence of campaign

To win a campaign in an ignorant society the approach is to make this a festival because festivity attracts a lot of people. When there is a crowd more people gather into the crowd and generate what psychologists call the mob mentality. This is not a rational mentality. They flock together to get a feeling of belonging. In a community devoid of other ways of feeling a sense of belonging they group together to enjoy that sense of being. So the voters too vote in this case just to be in the winning group and feeling the glow of being “useful” when in fact they have been fooled. Most people just like to be in the winning team, or to be in the popular group in school for instance, to give pep to their weak egos. This is the attitude that drives the mob to be together and the mobster to be doing everything to keep this flock together by those external glitter of colour and music and loud rhetoric they throw around to attract a confused people. 


The marketing and PR heavy weights know this from what tactics they have been using for the past several decades or even generations of this capitalist era. From the days when they sold goods and services from door to door for the benefits their goods gave to society, to now where the sale being plied is to satisfy the ego. We know this from shop sales and other gimmicks that salespeople use; when something is available seemingly at a low price we feel it’s a bargain and we rush there and we buy - often mindlessly. It’s only later that we realize that what we had bought was not any cheaper or even of any use. But then our ego comes to the rescue again; we then don’t want to feel deceived so we try to rationalize within ourselves of the not so foolishness of our action. But it’s common knowledge that businesses use people’s emotions rather than their rationality to market their goods nowadays, and that goes for the sale of candidates in a political campaign also. 

 

This indeed is the election tactic. We are drawn to the hype more than to the rationality of good governance. So the colours and the signs and banners and the music and mementoes give the voter the perceived confidence to give their vote or even to sell their vote to the candidate within this context of a public ignorant of the dynamics of governance and who fail to realise that they have been taken for a ride - yet again. 

 

As regards governance capability, let’s look at the candidates. What are the qualities of governors of a nation? What is desired is truthfulness, reliability, time-tested quality of steadfastness and faithfulness to one’s creed and spiritual belief. And the ability to work assiduously with other human being without unresolvable conflict. Thus, out of those in the running who has this quality, is the question to be asked. That is what the educated voter must know and decide on. That this person we elect will be just and truthful and fair. 

 

About the resources available for governance, the nation’s resources are available to anyone who occupies that post of governor. Once elected, it should not be about the size of the party but the sincerity of service one is able to provide. The small independent pair also can govern, if not better than the pair that was coddled by the mob, and who put up all those banners and colours all over the island. In fact the big party is more straddled with burdens, in the case of a win, because they now have to pay back that “pound of flesh” to all those who helped truss the candidate. To avoid revolt, the party now has to dish out the presents as pay-back for the help given by the mob and that means positions in another corruptible government that will compel the take-up of incompetent people into lucrative money-guzzling posts of the new government. But for the small pair that won (if possible from this first barrage of foolishness) there will be the whole nation’s creativity to pick from, and govern for the true betterment of society. Not for its failure yet again. 

 

This is the anomaly the rational voter faces in politically ignorant independent nations  It is in. our “third world” societies that this kind of foolishness can happen with foolish pride to “mobilize” our communities to the poll.  But to govern, this mob can’t be allowed to take the posts of governors. 

 

So, independents are better suited to peaceful governance without all the added baggage of party confusion. This realization must dawn on us by now in this democracy. Otherwise we are foolishly exercising hypocrisy. How can we just use the label of democracy to govern in dictatorial ways. This is absolute deception. And yes the nation has been kept deceptively ignorant of democracy from the word go in 2008; for the agents of change even at that time knew that it would be easier to grab power in an ignorant society than in an enlightened one. And that is what Maldives grapples with to this day. 

 

So voters that support the few independents in the ballot this time around, shouldn’t be enfeebled by the show of glitter around those so-called big parties. What we need is the confidence of good governance that must come from educated voters. And in Maldives we have many in this category, who might sit more silent than they should be, and even though the mob entices the rest to ignorant mob behaviour. Surely, the dust must settle and if we are not ignorant, we will realize that in our haste, we have given yet another wasteful five years to a deceitful lot. 


Please don't be swayed by ignorance. Be led by your higher thoughts of nationhood and Islamic sensibility for a new age Maldives to breathe its first breath of goodness. 



May 21, 2023

It's time for independents to grace the occasion!

Those of us in our senior years have seen both sides of our country’s political life in our maturity and it’s valid to say that Maldives needs a major paradigm shift in its governance approach. While we have espoused and endorsed the values of democracy on paper, we don’t see it in our offices, on our streets and most importantly, in the halls of our nation’s power. It all seems a charade played out in wilful ignorance to keep the hapless public still steeped in ignorance of this concept called democracy.

For the past 15 years of this so-called democracy in Maldives, we have witnessed heinous crimes perpetrated in the name of democracy; Western or otherwise. We have ransacked our nation into debt and poverty by looting our exchequer of whatever liquidity it had and our haloed governor positions being usurped by nefarious forces of the dark.

My dear citizens of this beautiful paradise on earth, we can save this our home for the future only by moving away from the ingrained ways of corruption we have so insidiously adopted. And yes, make no mistake; our salvage can’t be re engineered by the minds that created this heinous strife in the first place. It needs new minds and new approaches. Please, please let me implore our independent minds to rise up and save our nation from this yoke of legitimised kleptocracy functioning in our land in the name of democracy. This charade of political parties and their nebulous coalitions can’t save us. It’s like they are merely rearranging the same furniture in the living room every five years, to make us believe it is now different.

It’s the independents who have the power to change this nation. New faces and new ways to govern must be crafted to fit our local sensibilities. Revolutionary approaches bring lasting changes (please refer to the pages of the book: A nation in Peril: Blighted by Failed Governance, ENDEVOR-Maldives  publication, 2022. Kindle version also available) . We surely need to change the curtains in the room. The democracy we have, while valid indeed in construct, we don’t have to pay absolute homage to an alien construct crafted to the needs of another culture. Do we have to be like the West by hook or by crook? Not really! And we should also not allow our vanity to fool us. Let me also, while lauding the idea of global cooperation, say that globalisation has no meaning when we are all fitted into a straight-jacket. Just like unity is strength, variety still continues to be the spice of life.

I thus venture to say please, my dear comrades in our common community, let's look at the common challenges ahead of us and attempt coming to common terms (Al- Imran 64 tells us just that!). It’s time to come together to allay the evil behemoth of the “Silent Whisperer” to bring about a truly new Maldives that will re-embrace and celebrate the warmth and resilience of our two thousand or more years of common history.

April 27, 2023

We need a new mindset

Albert Einstein is known to have famously said that  problems cannot be solved with the same mind set that created them. The truth in this is not hard to see. Problems are created when the homeostasis of life is disrupted. And it requires a mind to conjure up the event that made it happen. If that momentary imbalance becomes sustained over time then we have a problem. This happens in our lives all the time as we attempt to change a given situation we have to our advantage. Sometimes this is for personal gain and sometimes for a larger mandate. Most times these are attempts for personal gain for this is the primeval human desire

 

In politics too this is so evident everywhere and why not so even in our Maldives. After all we too have arrived to follow the global bandwagon, haven't we?  It seems that to gain personal political advantage we have to offer something radical to what the other regime may have been doing when in fact it's not what we promise to do but what we stand for that is more important. What we stand for is often not explained because it is not easy to conceive, describe and market a whole attitude but it is so much easier to pander to the emotions of a constituency by giving them what they seem to urgently want. And this comes in the form of material things that people can touch and feel and perceive with their five senses. 


Money, in whatever form, is the easiest and this is what is promised or doled out fastest. Tax cuts, business opportunities, loans, lucrative jobs, etc. Then comes the next level at the community or island level; harbors, roads, sewerage, running water, flats etc. Now, in all these cases we must realise that the sustainability factor for the receiver for a contented life thereon is very low. At best it's just a breather to settle a temporary glitch in his or her life. We run out of the money, businesses fail, loans drag us into debt and flats leave us sad and alone and with the absence of community. These results leave us worse off and more helpless than ever before. And what of the community level stuff? These need constant care, and when, overtime, these degrade and breakdown amd nobody comes to do the repairs, we complain and blame those who gave these to us for their cheap quality or the deceit and corruption that was mixed with such shady transactions. 


But then we quickly forget these and we ask for more from those who stand for election the next time. The public is kept in this flux regime after regime; fooled every time. Sad to say we never realise it because our ego shows us the way to doubt and blame; tells us it's not our problem but the craftiness of those shady politicians. In one breath we are right because politicians are always crafty and many a time downright unscrupulous. But in another breath it would be wise to realize that we are also very gullible or our ego makes us so. Either way we are to blame. When the constitution says power comes from the people we don't really believe it with our heart. These words are just perfect for wily politicians and crafty lawyers but such a deep concept doesn't seem to ring a bell in our very naive political public mind. Naturally, because Maldives have for centuries been a kingdom, our leaders have always had a distaste for the public’s involvement in national governance. Even in our post independence period since the late 60s the enlightening civics classes in our schools that lingered for a few years were soon removed from the curriculum and our enthusiasm for the political dimension squelched. Any university education in this major of political science was also  visibly discouraged. More encouraged were the neutral preparations of doctors and nurses engineers and accountants. All a harmless bunch who will not be any threat to the ruling elite. 


Lets ask. Why don’t the politicians have any other long term moral and unselfish agenda? Why do they get into politics? Why do they abase themselves to go to their constituencies to beg for the vote and promise to do whatever the public demands when they get elected. Often most of those who stand have no social record of good they have done for society in their past. Are we hoodwinked everytime they make promises? How stupid can we be! I have had friends who have told me they were going into politics because that is the most lucrative. Many may not voice this but do we truly believe that they run so hard and sweaty just get to the top and do good for us with love and compassion in their hearts? Let's not be fooled. They don't want to change the system that gives them the advantage. They do want the checks and balances system but they don't want to close the loopholes from where they can creep through to be “legitimately” corruptive. They hide behind the rules and say it's according to the law when in fact the party gangs together to pass lucrative laws that will benefit the party clan. And they go their merry corruptive ways with impunity. 

Let’s wake up and make our country moral again. Only in morality lies truthfulness and sustainability of humaneness. Tell me i'm a starry-eyed idealist. But without some idealism there is not going to be any human progress? To be a nation that has some identity (not for ego boost but for moral boost) and celebrate our diversity in a global village. We don't want every city of ours to be an americom (Tom Freedman’s short for American Community) and have the whole world in a straight jacket. Don’t each nation have a celebrated diversity. While we can have the commonality of moral rectitude, we can be at the same time as diverse in our local ways as our God-given colors or shapes and sizes are diverse. Why do we have to conform and subordinate our ways to the ways of development or modernization as someone else defined. Do we blindly espouse the moral degradation also that is a part of this model and that which we are witnessing before our very eyes? Or do we choose to celebrate our difference? Are we ashamed of our religious and social culture? What makes another's way more superior? Is money the factor that makes us better or an inner dimension of goodness and humbleness that makes us more reverent? Isn't it this reverence that elevates us to the human beings we are supposed to be? 

Sadly our present politics debase us into voiceless objects. We say we have a democratic constitution and democratic means to govern when in fact we are prisoners of our own conscience; that conscience that still dictates where we are -  to be subordinate to our leaders when in fact we should treat our leaders as first among equals. That can only happen when we can truly begin to respect each other. It is when we don't have the urge as leaders to hide their bodies away from the public in darkened vehicles, their souls behind expensive sunglasses and angry rhetoric but feel humble to walk unashamed on wobbly or flooded streets just like the poor man and in the public market place just as our beloved Prophet did.

Yes we need different mindsets to change our nation. Youth of our nation. Please learn new ways to lead and please don't follow the ways of the politicians we have had in the past and even now who attempt to usurp the reigns of power and leave us stalled for yet another 5 years. 


August 6, 2019

To Believe


Everyone in this world seeks to believe in something. It is a primaeval urge to discover the purpose of our being. Subconsciously or consciously we yearn to know who we are or where we came from and why we are here. Strangely without even realizing this to be so, this seems to be the first questions we ask even as we first meet a stranger. What is your name? Where are you from? Why should it matter where he or she is from? Why can't we just begin talking? No, it is to see if that person had something in common with us and in so doing for us to search for what will make for a good conversation. I wouldn't want to pick up a conversation on rocket science when I happen to meet a person who is a day labourer in a grocery store. Don't get me wrong. I'm not discriminating. Yes, indeed that person may have an interest in rocket science. But that would be one in a thousand, and that much probability considerations I will have to give room for if am to not be sounding arrogant or foolish. And so it is that we ask where are you from, and what do you do, and when or why did you come to this place? All these are questions we ask as a reference to our desire to know these same queries of ourselves.

This means we have an innate desire to know these concerns about ourselves too. Deeper then is the desire to find and believe something about ourselves. We ask questions to verify and validate our assumptions. Do we fit into this way of thinking? All through our lives, we keep on seeking the truth about ourselves. Some find it and take that path which seems to be the one laid out for us and others retaliate even as they are on the borderline of finding it. Perhaps these are the questions we continue to ask for validation until we are satisfied. Some are easily satisfied and others go on questioning ad-nauseum and still not find that comfort of acceptance. Some go through their whole life-time not finding it. Some accept on blind faith and some on an inkling of rationality and yet others with some inner acceptance that the notion they came upon from this search is somehow acceptable. This tells us that the myriad path to finding the object of our belief is varied indeed. Evanescent for some and wholly real for others. Yet the reality remains of the undeniable fact that we all seek this desire to believe in something.

It is this belief that energises us ultimately to find the joy in life for as the seekers of the past put it. Joy is manifest when one finds his purpose and puts it in the service of mankind. That finding or assuredness is what gives us the feeling of being guided and our hands held always. This is the confidence we all seek to actualize our life dreams. It's no surprise then that we all seek to find the self-confidence to do our things in life to its best. We go to school, do apprenticeships, read books on how to do things, watch youtube from Ted talks to Yan can cook; all about seeking the confidence to do something that we want to do. To learn from others of past wisdom and awareness to get a head start in the collecting of goods that will be meaningful to us on our journey to wherever we are going.

Surely this profound creation can't have just sprouted up as a cosmic accident. All these wonders in our universe working in perfect unison to make for the life we lead on this planet earth can't be on it's own, given that we full well know that conflict is the way of our world and no two people can work together for an extended period of time without getting on each other's nerves even as every cell and organ in our body works 99.99 per cent of the time in complete unison; and that the 0.01 per cent of discord that can happen is more often than not from our own foolish doing - as we seek our so-called pleasure from the ways that upset the cosmic balance. The seasons that change with cosmic precision or the blade of grass that grows with all its microscopic metabolic organelles within it working in perfect order and precision to give us that beautiful lawn where we spend many a joyous moment. The multitudes of plants and animals that weave the web of life to make for our mind-boggling ecosystem and our livable environment just happens? Surely, all these can't be accidents or the continuing result of one? The cause must be that destination we so fervently seek and want to be one with. That lap of comfort that we seek from the time we left the lap of our mother to yet again be in that lap of our creator.

That is why I believe. And perhaps many more do so in this same vein. I can only conjecture. I am not unique and neither are you either. We are all one - having emerged from that oneness and to be returned to that oneness. What is to struggle against the churning waves but to drown. To be seeking a uniqueness that is not ours is perhaps the source of arrogance and thus conflict. That is what my belief says we must seek to control or put way behind on the furthermost of our back burners. Only then can we, as equal beings, seek to have peace on earth.

April 7, 2019

World Health Day 2019: getting health care to the other half


Today is the global health day. Each year, April 7 is when the world celebrates its Health Day. Every year the World Health Organisation draws our attention to a weakness in our health systems as a wake up call towards health. This year it’s that nagging issue of the still dire lack of health care coverage for much of the world. Half the world's population even in this day and age lack the resources to do so. Not because they can’t but because their health systems have not been planned to do so.

Forty years ago in Alma Ata in Kazakhstan, WHO and UNICEF got together at a historic meeting to introduce Primary Health Care to the world as an approach for attaining Health for All by the year 2000. It was about affordable and culturally acceptable appropriate technology spearheading the access to health care into a movement. And it did wonders to demystify medical care and provide an alternative that was a less costly, yet effective care that revolutionised the movement for health all over the world.

Maldives was a clear beneficiary of this and our present national health situation could be unequivocally attributed to the dedicated application of the principles of primary health care in their essence. The community health workers and their dedicated effort on prevention rather than cure pushed down an outrageous national IMR of 150 per 1000 in 1975 to just about 30 per 1000 in the next 20 years in a context of no doctor present. These PHC’s unsung heroes gave their life for this cause and a nation benefited. No more childhood diseases, no scary diarrheas, no leprosy or malaria and even TB was driven to a level that was no more a public health problem.

Today however the NCDs have taken over and instead of the health centres of yore we now have gleaming hospitals to take care of the sick. It is time for us to give another lease to the idea of prevention. The young people now succumbing to cancers and heart diseases and diabetes can’t be addressed by treating these when they show up as disease but before they have a chance to show themselves as diseases. And that is through prevention. 

But this can only happen when we ride our motorcycles a bit less each day, desist from eating all that junk food and crushing out those nasty cigarette packs that fool the youth generation after generation. I tell them it’s not cool to smoke and not exercise and gorge on these fast foods. But one voice is not enough; we need a resurgent voice in unison and attendant rules and regulations that are enforced; we need schools and homes that nurture healthy habits and a community that pulls together for the perpetuation of thee good habits. All this requires effort at the community level. Simple yet effective prevention and advocacy that is the essence of primary health care.

Yet again it’s time for PHC to be revived and reapplied. It’s truly a timeless concept and kudos to WHO for bringing this into view again. Yet,  blessed as we are with universal coverage in Maldives, we need to be mindful of not being wasteful in using this blessing and supplement it with the good habits that will make our body smile and say “if you look after me for the first 50 years, I will look after you for the next 50”.

March 31, 2019

Why a political party? Can’t we do without it?


This is the season for jumping ship again as the majlis elections season throws up its festivities. I wrote about this ways back in this blog. But I guess this has to be revisited. Why a Political Party in a democratic process in the first place?  It is for including diverse views of society. After all democracy is all about discussion and consultation and compromise as we all know. If we didn't have parties we wouldn’t have the minorities and life’s dissenting views and social sensibilities included into the discussions as inclusively as we want these to be. Having such discussions widen the net of social concerns beyond just the concerns of the rich and powerful. It gives voice to the minorities, the disenfranchised and to the voiceless of the masses. When banded together they have their voice in a party. This about implementing the idea of unity is strength; that of brining a divided society together. 

But let’s also look at where parties have true relevance! What comes quickly into mind is inclusiveness of views, and that Parties have greatest relevance for nations that have egalitarian and sectarian divides; those with a diversity of sensibilities. Large nations that are melting pots of many cultures and ethnic diversity and even ideologies and social sensibilities need a way to have their voice at the table. And so here the party finds its true relevance. But in nations that are homogenous across culture, language, religion, ethnic origins, social sensibilities, and geographical settings don’t have to divide itself into parties just because this model of Western representative liberal democracy has in it their process of implementing it.

When we look closely at the features of our local parties we have nothing to celebrate such as a specific aspect of diversity or social sensibility. Our parties are, it is sad to say, a band of people being led by the rich and powerful, seeking pride of position or financial gain from winning the race to the top. Just reflect on the the parties we have. I don’t witness any party with a rallying ideology that draws people to it because they value that social edict or national goal or an ideology to guide life by. These are more akin to gangs members who will stay with the monied leader as long as they have the money and power to dispense. The moment the leader falls they would disperse to find another  godfather. So senseless has been the birth of democracy in our nation. Just think about it! Just imagine if these leaders, by some quirk of nature don’t cease to be. What will happen to the Party? Will any of these Parties that we have today continue to function in the strength that it is doing now? It’s not difficult to imagine the result. It will fall apart and disintegrate; unless the Party leadership that is in the shadows of the leader revives and rebrands it with an attractive ideology. That charisma, or the money, or the social power that the ex-leader had would not in most instances be available as a rallying song for members.  Bu with an existing ideology, those who did support that ideology would perhaps stay on. That would be the true way  Parties forge into the future.

But then do we, in Maldives, have such polemic ideologies that impel us to lead such advocacies? The concerns of environment, liberal or conservative agendas, business models or the types of prevailing government models we want, liberal socialist or communist, religious affiliations or ethnic sensibilities are strong ideals people are attracted to. If we care to employ them as our thrust, then parties will have meaning and a purpose for people to rally to. But in Maldives where are those pressing demands that need attention? If there were, we would have been clamouring for it already. Not rallying round the rich and padded in the hope of catching a morsel they throw at us. This is shameful some would say. Yet others would argue that the very basic needs that we need satisfied is not available to us; so why not for this moment “accept the fish that they throw at us; and later think of learning to fish”. That is also understandable. But in a nation that is booming in business and the attendant income, do we have to be jumping around to grab the notes that are thrown at us rather than striving to do an honest job or start a business to earn some honest money to have those three square meals, respectable clothing and safe shelter? Not sell our soul to the devil in these shameless behaviours. Do we have any respectfulness we want to model to our children? Or do we really want our children also to be just rowdies like us?

But I also think in a different line. Maybe we have not introduced democracy in its right image - as a way of giving voice to a voiceless public. For them to become aware that a nation is the complement of all the people in it; that the nation exists for its people not for its leaders. In the new independent setting the world moves now (in contrast to the despotic or totalitarian contexts it used to before and even from our colonial times) the difference must be celebrated. And that is in the awareness that the people have been liberated from the shackles of bondage and they don’t need to be bonded yet again by their own local Masters. It is for the people to realise this and give four or five year terms to their servant leaders to manage the land in the best way for the people to feel safe and settled and happy.

But we don’t see this happening. As the saying goes “ the oppressed knows only the ways of the oppressor. So when the oppressed come to power they use the same tools they know to govern - that of the oppressor”. Perhaps that is what we see in our nation too. The same oppressive ways being promoted. The same rallying round the rich and the powerful. It is the replay of the tribal culture we wanted to leave behind. The rich and the powerful love the tribal culture and the concept of a cult because that is how they get their hype their high or their purpose fulfilled. And unless the public knows the real purpose of democracy (that they are the ones to call the shots) the powerful will always dominate.

Our minds that have been moulded into this subservient model of character won’t just go away unless we are truly and mindfully and lovingly nurtured out of it. This of course can’t happen because those in power will not allow it. We have not had the urgency and the pain of a birth into democracy as in many of the Western countries and some in our regions too — they fought civil wars and endured great pain, social strife, loss of loved ones, and enduring fear to get to the taste of democracy. That too maybe waning now even in the West, because many generations have passed to wash away those memories. In contrast, for us in Maldives, we were given our democracy on a silver platter without us lifting a finger to earn it. It was like a gift given to us not because the colonial master had to but because they wanted to. The British empire was dismantling their hold in the world anyway for reasons of necessity. And so we too got our share of “freedom”; but then, to be bonded yet again --- to the neocolonialism of our own local masters.

So we were not introduced to this liberational model of democracy but to a bonded one. We feel we are free but we are as much in chains as we have ever been; because our minds don't comprehend the essence of democracy  When I ask anyone of many who are the ordinary people in Maldive as to what is democracy, their response is a confused one. “We have the freedom to do what we want”. It’s as if living the ‘NIke line “just do it”. This is not democracy to do whatever we want. Young people know the line that Spiderman’s uncle uttered as he died. “With power comes great responsibility”. We know this intellectually but we have not put it still into our hearts that with the power of freedom that democracy bestows, we need an equal amount or even more of responsibility invested to maintain that democracy. And who is it that needs to think responsibly and  act responsibly to maintain their house in order but us the citizens of Maldives? It is us the people of our nation. It is not an outside force that will occupy us now forcefully and visibly. It is our own rich and powerful who will. For wealth and power is sought by people not to for safekeeping in a bank locker. But to exercise it. And that exercise will be on a hapless and unaware public.

This is the scene that is playing out in our country. We the people refuse to take responsibility for our freedom. Perhaps we don’t value it. And as all gifts we get that didn’t require our effort to earn, we just let these go to rust or decay or just get tired of it. That is why we don’t think twice about selling our votes or just forget and let the atrocities created by the previous government go by because perhaps it’s in this situation that more mischief can be played by the incoming local leaders too and the nation to be milked yet again. Should this go on? Do we let this happen without even mentioning with sadness and regret? Or should such utterances be the noises we make in our cursory get together in a coffee shop or in a homely dinner table conversation? I also wonder if our polity is aware that selling votes is a bad thing?  Perhaps they don’t. Perhaps they feel it’s their right to do so. After all, this is the best chance in five years that they can have the benefit of a national redistribution of wealth. Why worry if the method is nefarious. We don’t even perhaps know if it is.

Then there is the policy of doling out government money to parties to function. In a presidential form of government parties don’t get money to spend for their party promotion and campaigns. This is what is practiced in a parliamentary democracy. So we are also in a confused and mixed up democratic method; and it’s making hay time because the public don't even know about it.  But the fact that money is being given by the government to the parties,  the prevailing thought for those who would like a part of the pie is why not have as many more parties as we can muster? Why not register another party for getting this money? And the public viewpoint must also be that this money is given for distribution. So why not give allegiance to those other parties who are getting established so that we can get some money from it. It seems a scam of a way to inveigle money from those needing the support. Thus, in the light of this perception of our public mind, this jumping ship mentality is not quite unfounded given our ignorance of the democratic method.

Most dangerous than all these money dishing out is the senseless political division we observe also in our little nation. Every party divides our community into further separation and separation doesn’t bring harmony as we all know. Separation foments conflict. That is what the colonial masters did in their occupation of our lands. They divided and ruled. This is what I mean by we employing the same means as the oppressor. We are oppressing our own people by dividing our nation into senseless divisions. Even as the colonial masters are laughing at us for our folly, they are also invading our nation with their neo-colonialism of culture. We are even blind to this as our minds are focused in our frenzy to grab that fistful of money by rallying around our rich and powerful. And to be like out colonial masters in our ways too, We are blind to the fact that our society is being eaten alive from within our communities by the insidious osmosis of alien values in the name of globalisation and the wonders of a connected world we know as the “social media”.  Aren’t we just going the way of the “parable of the boiling frog” where he died being boiled in the can even without his own realisation that this was happening?