Ramzaan Mubaarak!

Dear Readers, 


May this Holy month of Ramzaan bring into our lives, peace and tranquility. May this month be one that will help our Maldivian community to reflect on the futility of a politically divided nation and begin a process of true reflection on the folly of political parties in a cohesive community like ours  - a nation bonded by a common religion, ethnicity, language and culture. The Holy Quraan exhorts the virtues of oneness and the folly of division. It also exhorts us to that magnanimous practice of consultation in performing our daily duties (which we have adopted as the guiding paradigm of process in our Citizen's Majlis), the very essence of democracy. But we witness daily, the chaos of discontentment, anger and aversion on the streets of Male and several islands. The rifts we have precipitated in our close-knit society with the import of this method for the practice of democracy should signal to us the need for a rethink of the process. We have the solutions in Islam, but seem to be looking for a solution from afar while we have it at our doorstep. 


May Allah inspire us during this Blessed month (and beyond), to bring us back to our senses and instill the warmth of love and sharing among our brothers and sisters in Islam in this beautiful nation of ours!

Pleasure to joy: happiness is the final goal (Continued from yesterday)

In an argument for another paradigm shift, it is worthwhile to look the principles behind the GNH and the GDP paradigms to see how these relate to the survival related realities of today. The GNP is the child of the industrial revolution where the measure of output was the litmus test of productivity and development. And so our whole life was based on that principle of want and gain and greed. The more we had, the better we seemed we were, and so we work to get still more. And so life continued -- to have our schools also nurturing us to be successful in life; to get out of school and get a job to make money and be better off and thus better than the other person. So the 3Rs of the modern day education system (reading, writing and ‘rithmatic) became the leading edge of our class room lessons. This was good for the industrializing world, and has been the benchmark now for the whole world that is running after the same concept of development in the post-colonial age. The values that went with this system of education was also the plastic attitudes of the personality ethic that guided us to be good with our customers rather than with our community. The getting out school and getting a job was the goal here. 

The GNH in contrast, is about love and social harmony. The new schooling thus is recommended to change from 3Rs to 4Hs – or perhaps add on the 4Hs. The Hs stand for head, heart, hands, and home. The nurturing of the head here is no more for just as a repertoire of banked information, but one that will use this information for creativity and innovation, the hand is for learning to do things with our own hands, and learning life skills that will make us survive on earth even without too much money or hired help, the heart is for nurturing love and caring and compassion, and the home is for placing all the above in the context of the practice of everyday life. The schools of tomorrow need this approach for the society of tomorrow to be more caring and compassionate and thus learn to be happy and content and conflict free.

The search for a definition of development away from the present growth-dependent ideas will need a complete de-linking of our mind to the multiple possibilities on how happiness and wellbeing can be achieved. In particular, it will not be possible to re-conceptualize equity without unraveling the diversity of prosperity. Linking the desire for equity to economic growth has been the conceptual cornerstone of the development age, whereas now, according to new development thinkers, the linking of equity must be to community and culture-based notions of wellbeing in this post-developmental age.   But, dismantling the culture of consumerism will require major efforts to curb the callings of the ego -- curtailment in advertizing to curb or stall the greed generation process, or the establishment of a shorter work-week that will break the cycle of work and spend, and liberating that most non-renewable of resources – time, for family and friends and sheer enjoyment.

Pleasure to joy: happiness is the final goal

The way things are going in Maldives with respect to its development path brings many a thought to mind. While on the global developmental front, there are more than stirrings on the folly of materialism, when the witnessing of its ravages is at your own doorstep, more than just mere thoughts creep in. We have to begin groping for an alternative – all the better when its with the help of similar musings that are becoming pervasive.

Gross National Product (GDP) is the broad indictor that measures economic development. However, it is now generally understood that this is not a good measure of social equity. Given that economic development is the direction all nations are aspiring towards, and now seen as one of major contributors to various insidious ills such as global warming and resulting climate change, the future in a life-as-usual world will not secure a sustainable future for our coming generations. The economic behemoth is bound to founder in the not so distant future if our mindless production and growth policies continue unabated. And human health will suffer. And give all the global conferences that have mooted the subject don’t seem to give us any confidence that the haves of this world will relent one bit to that risks that they create for the have-nots by slowing down the bull.

That economic wealth and materialistic progress will not give us happiness is patently known. Our life is full of examples that attest to this. Stress of modern living drives up the prevalence of diabetes, cardio-vascular diseases, cancers and asthma, and various other morbidities of newly named and nameless kinds abound. New emerging infections take toll of our populations in untreatable diseases, death and fear. Politically and culturally induced conflicts kill and maim on the one side, even as we promote disease protection and prevention through magic bullets and other technological innovations on the other. Yet, we continue to amass wealth in quantities that we don’t even use. In the victim that we are, the overambitious ego drives us to want ever more and more just so it can survive. We are the prisoner. Ironically, the economic development paradigm that is supposed to liberate us, keeps us a prisoner of the mind instead. With more than our wealth we can use in our lifetime and with none of it available for us to take it with us when we do depart, it just seems an experience in futility. Even purely from an economic point of view, a range of international surveys show that beyond an annual income level of US$ 15,000 per head, life satisfaction barely changes between countries with quite different levels of GDP. Thus there appears to be a clear point beyond which extra income does not deliver extra wellbeing.

So how can we stop this seemingly inexorable drive towards the precipice of life’s destruction? The only way is to adopt a shift of paradigm for development. The idea of gross national happiness (GNH) is one such possibility. Cynics and pessimists and die-hard consumerists will always disagree, even when the waters will threaten to consume us in a watery grave. But we need to start thinking of possibilities out of this morass if we want our progeny to survive on this earth. (to be continued in tomorrow’s blog inshaa-Allah)

They may say I’m a dreamer!

They may say I’m a dreamer,

But I’m not the only one,

I hope some day you’ll join us,

And the world will be as one!

A verse from the Beatles from the ‘60s may bring warmth and nostalgia to those of my generation. But this is no less valid in this day of Generation Next; many of my young friends may also be humming these tunes under their breath even today and reflecting such emotions in their blogs. We all want peace ultimately, and we look for this in all kinds of ways that unfortunately, sometimes bring us the result in reverse. The situation in our country Maldives is a case in point. Perhaps our primeval juices are pumped when our desires of another kind are kindled in us by the goings on in the present ambiance. The materialism and competition that is pervasive in our society is no doubt blinding us to the sentiments expressed in this beautiful verse that the winsome four uttered so many decades ago. It just goes to show that the circle of life goes on and on – just like fashion or history that repeats through alternate generations.

Perhaps in our dream we can conjure up a more harmonious Maldives of the future. What do we want our Maldives to be perhaps 10 years from now?  --Just enough time for our present adult youth to have kids and feel a sense of protectiveness to their children’s future. Such scenario building can help us to feel deeply charged and to bring our thoughts and sentiments together to create the new future in our minds. Let’s think about it. It’s time we witness the impasse on the ground at our home-fronts and backyards to answer that longing in our hearts!

When we do wake up from our dream, we will then have something tangible and creative to work on. 

Democracy calls for players, not spectators!

When I posted recently asking readers to let’s begin a dialogue on the issues I present on my blog so that we could hope to generate some suggestions as solutions for creating a harmonious society in Maldives, a respondent quipped, "Sattar, social harmony in Maldives? Keep on dreaming!". This was a sad response indeed, for it indicated the grave state of cynicism our nation has dipped into. He is perhaps not alone in this sentiment but maybe it is a reflection of the collective chaos that is undermining the very fabric of our society. The endless and raucous street protests that seem to never end that frustrate parents because they cannot put their children to bed or have safe streets to walk them to school, the tired security forces who have to contend with the ongoing anger day in and day out and be patient to the demands and abuse of protesters, and a national executive that has to grapple with the confusion and allegations of a political fiasco that brought them to power, the truth of which is still to be unraveled, are elements of our present social and political system that need serious consideration by a responsible public.

Prolonged protests are a sign that there is pervasive discontentment with the framework of our present governance. The democratic process we all ushered in has certainly not brought in the dividends – some say as yet - we hoped for. At lest 90 percent of Maldivians want peace and harmony; not anger and turmoil. Investigation by a sober sector of our society, as to why this is so, is urgently needed, and the powers that be need to allow the space for such assessments to happen. It cannot let the sentiments of the masses be hijacked by the desires of a minority who may wish such chaos to persist for whatever windfalls they may reap from the results of societal disruption.

Unfortunately, our polity also seems ignorant of the fact that we are the players rather than mere spectators in a system we called in as democracy. By siding with parties that have no guiding philosophies or moral principles to back them, we are merely following pied-piper-like leaders who may trail us down to our own drowning. The situation is that of letting our vanity and greed sway us, through untenable promises or enticing largesse they offer, being the luring tune that makes us follow. It should not be that way. We are human being into whom God had inspired the power of thought and reflection. Being such vicegerents of this earth how can we be behaving in such decadent ways in what seem to be cutting the proverbial nose to spite the face.

The debacle at home can only be addressed not by being carried away with the masses of protests and inflamed feelings against each other -- that can only bring further chaos and a hardening of our selfish motives -- but by taking this time left for the next election to understand our individual role in a democracy and thoughtfully deciding on the next leaders that will help put this nation right. By general logic, wrong doers of the past cannot suddenly become good doers for the future especially with the glittering spoils of a nation at hand’s reach of such people in positions of authority. We need to bring in humility, fear and love of God into our hearts and seek to understand that we are not spectators in the spectacle of life. In the frenzy of our mob-based emotions we may indeed be forgetting that we are destroying the nation of peace that our forefathers created and that the world knew just about 10 years ago as one of the most peaceful corners of the world. Our leaders cannot waste a moment of their power and authority without being responsible for the chaos they generate by misplaced priorities, tardiness or inaction. 

Blowing one’s own trumpet

My young friend is a good sounding board on the attitudes of youth in Maldives. In today’s discussion he told me with delight that that many of them including himself admired luxury. Latest phones, laptops, ipads, itablets, designer clothes, perfumes, and even the features of the latest cars. Perhaps it’s not wrong to say, we admire luxury to some extent, we all do, but if the intensity of it is not kept in check, that admiration can lead to coveting and just wanting for the sake of wanting which never fulfils our craving. When needs and wants are confused, the seed of selfishness is planted.

Selfishness and individualism begin in childhood. While individualism is important to understand our roles and responsibilities in our society and to achieve individual excellence that can contribute to societal improvement, individualism when carried to levels of vanity and self importance, the collective attitude can make for a cynical society, where we become overly critical of the other person’s views to the point of even rejecting what someone else has to say because we truly believe that what we have to say is the truth. Consequently we become bad listeners with short attention spans who in the context of a conversation fidget in restlessness with an overpowering desire always to quickly shift over to our own story.

From an inter-personal point of view, no one really likes to be in such company where someone keeps harping about his/her own successes. But what is sad is that while we may not like the individual with this quality, subconsciously we too behave the same way when the opportunity to open our mouths arises – we too go on talking about ourselves without choosing to listen more than we speak. When such weaknesses in youth are not pointed out and sympathetically addressed by those with more experience and wisdom, these cynical and disruptive attitudes can become hardened as youth grow into adulthood and become the collective norm in our society. The signal that this is becoming so in our society - picked from my young friend’s sounding to me – is evident, and is a mix of many reasons. We should all reflect on this creatively to unravel the causes behind this pervasive attitude. To my mind, one reason may relate to doting parents who pamper their children without the requisite discipline needed to build a child's character (why a parent behaves that way also has its reasons that will have to be revealed and addressed). Another reason may be the lack of contact with grandparents who now live away from the nuclear family settings that new couples in Maldives have chosen to adopt in the pursuit of modern ways of living that our western world practices and which we take to as being modern and fashionable. Parents may not be aware that keeping grandparents at such distance is really a forfeiting of the immense lessons of life that grandparents have to offer their young grand-children. It is really a breaking of the bond that nature has devised for us to keep inter-generational knowledge intact.

So, while our youth’s (even adults, for such youth have become the parents of today) desire to be selfish is understandable, and young people cannot be pushed to take the blame for wanting the latest gadgets, be unhealthily competitive and wanting to show off and feel being better than their peers. The ego is at its deceptive work here, and because, somewhere in the past, it has been nurtured through the neglect of building more responsible character in our children. Without addressing a suppression of the ego, our future may well be chaotic societies. This is a nationwide issue for us in Maldives that our leaders need to understand and begin building our primary school systems and family values that will breed more responsible future generations of Maldivians.

On being non-judgmental

A young friend of mine told me the other day that our democracy in Maldives is defined by the freedom for anyone to say anything to anyone anytime.

I thought this was a very good opportunity to discuss with him, and through this blog on this negative and irksome human quality of passing judgment on each other. One of the most important tests of the maturity of an individual is the ability to control this urge to judge others. Of course a judge in a court-of-law will have to make judgments no doubt, or intellectual discourses of critical thinking would entail making judgment. But these are formalized processes that require analysis and synthesis arising out of processes that require meting out justice or forging innovations to our walks of life, as the case may be. These cases are about formative or summative thinking - not a nattering in our spare time about people in our lives. Judgment is also a natural step in taking daily decisions and we make many such decisions during the course of a day. Even to know what to eat for lunch is a judgment call to choose from all what's available on a menu or in our mind. That is fine because that doesn't involve another person on whom you opine.

But when someone else is involved as in how we saw someone did something or said something or happened to appear to us, unsolicited comments or advice doesn't merely fall on deaf ears but hurts and irritates. We know how it feels when we are commented upon and judged by others. So why should we do this to others? It is in fact a transgression of personal space, the protection of which is an individual right in a civilized society and so goes in a democracy that is exercised in a civilized manner. Our habit of constant judging or snarky remarks is more than liable to be taken as impertinence or something that can draw a response to mind our own business. Incidentally, the golden rule comes in very handy here to help us keep check of our own such breaches of conduct. Don’t do to others what you wouldn't like others to do to you!!

Learning to live a non-judgmental lifestyle can be a very hard thing - especially in a society where everyone goes by a tradition of not respecting each others private space or where gossip is accepted as entertainment. Whether done directly or indirectly, gossip is about passing judgment on others – most often in the negative sense. And even though some can laugh off the sting through a good dose of detachment, most times for most of us, these hurt and leave scars in the memory. Tit-for-tats may then lead to prolonged emotional distance and discord.

Nurturing a harmonious society begins with being non-judgmental. It is only then that we can open our minds to listen to another with deep attention, to listen and learn from tweaking out the wisdom in someone else's words, and allowing it to enrich us. It is then that we can begin to move forward on this path to social harmony. Just like each one of us feeling we always have the right opinions and answers, why should we not think that others may also have good ideas? Ultimately it is our ego that ties us to being selfish and divisive and not wanting to listen to others because the ego can survive only in divisive and competitive social conditions where it must win and others lose.

Being non-judgmental and acquiring a detached frame of mind can suppress such offensives of the ego. This is one sure test of a skill for a responsible individual in viable democracy.