Solid walls

Solid walls often don't give way! But yes, an earthquake is another story. 

In Maldives, our day is consumed by the political impasse we face. As in the few Friday prayers past, we are all hoping earnestly and beseeching the Creator of hope for a solution to our national quagmire.

To be able to make a difference there has to a difference in our thinking. As the famous saying goes, those who created the problems cannot be asked to solve the problems they created. This squarely relates to our Maldivian political situation. Everyone seems to be aligned with one party or another. This must be the only country in the world where the public is most politically engaged. (a recent study also attested to this). This is good and it can also be bad for there is no middle thinking for eking out compromises. Another issue also concerns the nature of our parties. We all know these are really not parties but groups of hopefuls (for whatever purpose) aligned behind human beings who they seem to revere. Some call such grouping cults, others call them gangs, and yet others may call them alliances - yet all for some nefarious end. True parties have ideals that signal the basic life needs of society. And in the situation of cults and gangs our mind is swept away primarily, and many a time even absolutely by the allure of the leading personality, leaving the real issues of the everyday citizen behind as secondary. The grapple for the pole position seems the primary goal -- and that has to be filled by these luminous personalities. Thus our egos become hugely involved in this process of following the leader in subservience  (and we call this democracy?!). And as we all know, our ego never wants to lose. So it whispers to us to keep on staunchly aligned with these big personalities, for it is the only way our egos survive.

Only when we can become aware of this decadent and regressive binding force our own egos dictate on us, can we become liberated enough to think independently of the real issues that plague our nation. Until such time it will be just a tug o-war that the stronger in stinging words or in so-called legitimized authority will win. Rationality and deserving will be neatly kept out of this process.

We need a coalition of those who are not aligned to these individuals for real forward movement to happen, even though it may now seem an impossibility. National flag carrying in the nightly demonstrations signal some such leaning towards cohesion, but the underlying party dominance cannot be easily allayed --especially in the face of the vituperous rhetoric that is released. What many may still believe however is that there is something about calmness and humility and silence that moves the heart. And there is an absence of this in our midst. Newton's law is inherent here. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. A truly non-aligned coalition is the change of mindset our nation needs. Remember it's our mind that is the cause of our joy, sorrows, hardships and agonies, and so follows our envy anger and jealousy.

And yes, we have hope. We have the tools with us to make this change but we need to align our will to want to use those tools. They are right at our doorstep, but as it is said, we don't see the diamond under our feet but search for it elsewhere first. Yet finally we always come back to our origin. And so must also our nation come back to our roots. No one away from our shores can be the solver of our problems.

We need to get out from behind our dark sunglasses where our egos want us to hide and allow ourselves to peer into the soul of our brother and come to terms. There only the solution lies. We need to let some warmth and softness prevail even against the seeming odds of adversity. Lessons from our Prophet will energize and inspire us (if only we care to look there) to know that with great power is also the necessity to exercise restraint, humility and dialogue.

Solid walls have a way of not giving way.