Shameful Majlis

As a Maldivian citizen, today's pathetic showing in the Majlis I witnessed was the real dumps filthier than that of Thilafushi. The spate of degrading behavior that the Maldives populace saw in glaring public was shameful indeed. You, our parliamentarians are our ambassadors to the legislative process and certainly we don't want such boorish behavior from those we expect better.

Talking and arguing and even some aggressiveness bordering on the physical maybe expected given the heat of debate. But spitting and water fights certainly don't belong there. What examples are you showing to the youth of today? Your legislation has no intrinsic respect when we know what pathetic minds conceive it. It is only the respect you show for each other on the floor of the Majlis that will engender our respect for you and make us feel you are working for our welfare and not just yours alone.

Sadly, you have flaunted all the rules in the book that tell us you are worth your presence in those revered seats. It just goes also to show that we --a hapless public-- are being fooled time and time again by wily, wicked and venal individuals that have no interest in our welfare. Furthermore, we are mortified and humiliated by the corrupt dealings that you all seem to be either perpetrating and engaging in or condoning. A nation cannot go deeper into shame. And yes, not one that professes a 100 percent Muslim identity. No doubt that the wicked Shaithan has you all by the scruffs of your neck, for all you think about seems to be the glitter of this world and nothing of the Hereafter. We all come to this world naked, and we will depart naked. No millions of dollars will save you; you have to leave just the way you came. So please turn away from the great deceiver and submit to Allah SWA. Salvation lies only with Him. Our children and grandchildren need a better Maldives than what you seem to be crafting.

Our urban dump

On my early morning walk today i saw a guard in front of a shop doing his morning cleaning rituals onto the Majeedhee-magu pavement. He was gurgling out the nightly accumulates of his throat and noisily spitting out and blowing his nose onto the drain and pavement. As I approached him, I couldn't contain the urge to ask him a few questions. Why all this on to the street? Don't you have a toilet? He looked at me blankly perhaps not understanding a word I said. Observing the blank look was sufficient for me for I wasn't looking for answers from him really. But I felt remorse at what our city of Male was turning into; it was his toilet verily in the absence of a toilet provided by the shop-owner.

This is not an isolated case. I have observed other guards even relieving themselves of the urinal variety onto the opposite side of their pavement in this space they feel is legitimate. I know many of our guest workers come from countries that are culturally different from us and some such practices are normal or commonplace even though the ultimate scheme of urban development their public officials also would not want such practices to happen. But for me this is atrocious in our small capital which should in fact be a little garden and not difficult to do except for the carelessness of public officials to the importance of these little value driven behavior but who give superior importance to capital projects that bring visual changes to our urban landscape. No one seems to care about how our behavior is being drastically changed and would be so difficult to rectify when our attitudes are allowed to change this way.

I see the sanitary difference of this physical space we call our city of Male over several decades and I dare say it is degrading lamentably. I even observe now, even though infrequently, amber colored fluid in bottles lying in the premises of our urban street drains. I cannot vouch for what the content is for I do not open these and attempt to smell these to verify. But i can only feel my hunch is valid. At this rate i wonder how long it would be before we feel the waft of the fetid odors of human excrement emanating from our drains! One can take this escalating concern as a human rights issue in regards to our guest workers for those of us who employ them must be responsible enough to give them the needed amenities to live here a life of some dignity. When our public space is degrading we only point fingers at our guest workers who are here because we brought them here and thus we are in fact more responsible for the plight of our city. Not to be outdone, even our own people are accomplice to the epidemic of spitting we see on the street. And another epidemic – of smoking!!

Yes public officials must enforce the tasks they have taken up; their salaries and benefits being fed with public money but it must also be our personal responsibility as Maldivians to reflect on what is happening to our nation in the wake of this modern development path we seem to be so unrelentingly pursuing in the degrading face of human dignity for ourselves and for our employees and our guests to this country. We surely don't like to invite them to a dump. It’s a shame on us. Where is our wonderful Islam which says cleanliness is an integral part of Eman. Would we consider ourselves the embodiment of Eman? Can we be aware of the terrible bind our ego has us trapped in? We forget our own Religion Islam and its sublime edicts in the face of the glitter this world shows us. Like it or not - Iblees has us wrapped around his little finger.

Quality time

The family is the building block of society, and over time immemorial, nurturing of children in preparation of another responsible generation has been priority. However, in a globalizing world with many distractions for parents and children alike, the consistency and intensity of family effort has varied or waned and it now seems adrift away with the tide for children to learn life values and the ideals of integrity from peers or from the internet. And this has its verified dangers. 

We always hear that nurturing happens when quality time is spent with the object of our nurturing. Whether it is to nurture an attitude or skill within us or nurture our children with good values and humane feelings, we need to spend time communicating with ourselves or our children the knowledge and feelings that magnify the attitude we want to hone.

But of course, spending time is a general term and many of us feel that just being present with our children is enough to make them feel cared for. Present thinking doesn’t go with this norm. It is now a universal awareness in these circles that nurturing requires spending quality time. This is different to just being with the child or us reading about something. It requires engagement in conscious thought or conversation. The need is to have the communication loop completed and continued for some extended time. It is not enough for a parent to be at home when the child is around, but needs to be engaged with the child in active communication and for the child to be aware that the parent is showing active concern. A cursory ask of how school was today, or a query on how was the game today, may not be enough especially when the parent asks in an act of boring routine.

Quality time engages the heart more than the mind. That is why going out for a walk with your children and doing the things they enjoy will kindle and bind your relationship and these moments become engraved in their memory as moments they will cherish as adults. These are the morsels they carry in their life to give them inspiration and the connection with us in love or admiration for the role model we show. The result will be a better community we leave behind. How many parents spend meal times talking to the phone rather than to the child? How many hours are spent on our computer or our eyes glued to the TV while the kids spend their time with the toys we had given them -- as if the guilt of our neglect will be allayed by the expensive toys we give them and then expect, like a miracle, our children become the characterful human beings we want them to be? No dear parents, they need our attention. We need to sacrifice more of our time to them before they grow up and begin to say they don't need us anymore. Yes, there will be no use crying over spilt milk. Please listen to the song “cat's in the cradle”. It may bring tears to many regretful eyes.

These and many other new habits in our daily life distance us from our children who will doubtlessly be the torchbearers of tomorrow. How many of us care for a better tomorrow for our children? If so we need to reflect on what we are doing today to prepare for that tomorrow.

Going to entropy is natural

“Please stop”, I screamed as I came to a halt half way down the curb-crossing that would lead me to the  next spate of the pavement that lines Boduthakurufaanu magu with its many breaks at each block of the atoll fihaara zone in Maafannu. In defense of my safety, I put my hand down on the handlebar of the now halted motor cycle that came zipping towards me to make the turn into the lane even as I was half way along this crossing. Of course, given my grey hair and being a generation or more older than the bike rider, I expected him to momentarily halt and give me the way to cover the next four feet or so of the distance left for me to step on to the next spate of the pavement and then ride away in the space behind me. But to my surprise, the rider who was perhaps approaching middle age, glared at me with knotted eyebrows, pursed his lips in anger or defiance and slid through the narrow space in front of me demonstrating to me vividly that HE had the right of way, not me. For the next moment I stood there quite perplexed for all the road sense that I have got through my many years of driving was that the pedestrian be given preference especially when the person is more than half way down along the crossing and the vehicle turning arriving later.

This case is one of many instances where the chaotic conditions of Male streets have become a hazard to both pedestrians and drivers. The issue here is not just one of driver intolerance but a lack of law enforcement. It is much too difficult and time consuming – often generational – to rectify dwindling social values of a society. Especially more cumbersome it is when the complement of that society is changing constantly as is happening the fast urbanizing Male. We are no more a homogenous Maldivian society living in the comfort of familiar surroundings but one subject to the daily influx of change. People, traffic, terrain, all subject to changes that we need getting adjusted to. But the social dimension of inter-personal space and how we protect and value this is not something enforceable through edict. It has to be a constant prodding towards incremental improvements by the inputs from family, schools and community leaders – political, religious and business. We all want a society that is caring and sharing. Perhaps we have forgotten-- in this get-rich-quick-by-any-means global culture -- that every good thing is got with some toil, some hardship, some endurance of a temporary burden. And this ultimate prize of a life context where we can bring up our children as such to be caring citizens of the future depends on the degree of effort we put in. As the law of thermodynamics says: everything goes to entropy. Chaos thus is the least energy state and so being uncaring than caring, throwing trash anywhere we want than disposing it in a bin kept for that purpose, burning mixed garbage, than separating and composting, or being selfish rather than being kind and helpful are such social examples of things going to entropy.

But that is exactly why we have governments and social structures to help us put that positive energy by ways of resources and resourcefulness to curb such degrading behavior so that we don’t regress to ways that are unbefitting to civilized behavior. What does development mean ultimately? This is a very basic question we all must ask ourselves as we seek a caring and cohesive social future. Will big buildings and other imposing physical edifices make us developed? This materialistic paradigm has shown that civilizations fall as the edifices of these outside forms loom to the sky because the edifices of our soul congruently fall to the lowest of depths. Yes, ultimately, what gets us to Jannah is our good deed we impart to our fellow brothers and sisters and to Allah’s creation as a whole, not through the numbers of or heights of the towers we build. Our society can be a sustainably happy entity only when we nurture the future generation with love and compassion and some hardship that goes to build character. When parents and teachers and community leaders show the strength of their morality in the practice of good leadership to make these ends happen.

Two great words that melt the heart

A community is judged for its compassion by the value it gives to inter-personal respect. And no two words or phrases signify this better than "please" and "thank you". Both indicate a valuing by us of the other human being as someone who deserves our respect. When this is not voiced it shows a lack of consideration to the other person.

Sadly again I have to bring up this lack in the burgeoning societies in the world, and that includes our beloved Maldives too. Alas, this paradise is sadly devoid of this display of mutual self-respect. Many a time when I walk into a shop and pay for the goods I purchase, the young person at the check-out counter almost never reciprocates appreciation. A smile or a “thank you” seem distant thoughts as they direct the attention at the next customer even as the change is dropped into the customer’s hand. There is not a thank you in lieu or even a smile. This visit leaves me with feeling that by my visit was just a favour I had done to them rather than they being grateful for my patronage. That word grateful may seem a bit harsh to several readers in the new-age think, for why should they be grateful for what we buy? After all it was an exchange and benefit to both sides; the customer paid for it and the shop dispensed it. It was a fair deal, says their ego. The soul within, meanwhile, doesn't want to battle with his body because it wants peace at whatever cost, and lets the internal argument rest. In the final scheme of things in this Dhunya, the ego wins most of the time because the ego’s prodding and enticement to be as disruptive to the soul is its mandate and so this factor is plugged into the covert test we are all subject to in this world of form.

But all who have dealt with these golden words or phrases know the advantage we have to move closer to the person we interact with. Here our soul wins. But for these to be articulated with finesse and abandon, one needs to remove much of the pride we harbor in our hearts and let in humility as our driving force. Yes, these words are precious and yet we keep them out of our daily lexicon depriving ourselves of the compound benefits of spiritual elevation we receive here and now, and for so much more in the Hereafter.

It's not only at the curb-side shops and department stores, but at airlines offices, government front office counters, doctor’s clinics and hospitals. This spectacle is played out daily, continuously.

Perhaps we have gone too long a stint without much priority to value-education rather than information-banking in our schools and parents too, in their eagerness to make the most of this world, struggle and not too infrequently by immoral means, to amass the wealth we can't use; unaware of the observant presence of our kids who imbibe every bit of this immorality that will stud their life character too. This, even when we know that at long last we can't have any more than just the footprint of our final slumber in a few cubic feet of ground.

A ubiquity of "Please" and "Thank-you" in our society in our daily life interactions with everyone we meet, can begin a revival of lost values. With the mutual self-respect these beget, we can do wonders to society to bring to bind the common culture that is the essence of our homogeneity, or as others may want to call it, unity in our diversity. Used frequently at home, in schools, at the playground and at the workplace, these two words will etch in the formative minds of our children and youth, the truth of our oneness and bring forth the compassion and the trust that will make society prosperous yet humble.

Walking precariously

Yesterday, as I walked along Male's cluttered pavement as I usually do every day and as usual having to snake my way around curb-parked motor-cycles and idle youth parked on these chatting with other idle friends and puffing on that ubiquitous cigarette all along my pathway, a good young soul who may have noticed my anxiety searching for a foothold on the curb along my way, looked at me and pointed his finger ahead as if to show me the easy way. "There is an open space over there" he called to me, showing me the entrance to the STO showroom. I thanked him, even though STO was not my destination today; I was just attempting to get to the other curb. 

Actually it dawned on me at that moment that perhaps many young people now don't even know that these pavements are for walking. This new generation, because of the easy access to the motor-cycle and so never having to do any walking except inside buildings and to and from these edifices to their motor-cycles, have forgotten that legs were given for walking; and so why should there be pavements for walking when there are motor bikes and cars to travel in - even from one city block to the other in this "big" city called Male? I knew that this young man was indeed trying to help in all good stead but what I wanted was to find some space to cross from one street-curb to the other to continue walking unimpeded.

But unimpeded cannot be a word used for Male streets! If there is any thing that is certain on Male's streets, it's the string of on-the-way obstacles a pedestrian has to overcome. The pot holes from removed cement pavement blocks that have not been replaced, their un-evenness that makes for not too infrequent results in crushed toes or twisted ankles of the cursory walker, the unending line of parked motor cycles that will put any bike show-room to shame, the leaking gutters and air-conditioner effluent that pitter-patter on pedestrian heads, the encroaching shops that slowly but surely now begin to occupy enough of the pavement with fruits and vegetables and spices and hardware items that compels the wary pedestrian to tiptoe along this narrow swathe of space lest they step on the displayed items and get penalised for walking. 

These two-foot wide walk-paths and the iron-work railings at Male’s main street junctions are also the conversation and recreational space for expatriate labour who I sadly confess have no other place in this congested Male to park their rears when their daily chores are done. There the sit perched on the railings immersed in the joy of sipping an energy drink or smoking the ever present cigarette and chattering on their mobile phone, and of course shielding their carefree gaze behind pitch dark sunglasses, as they sit at their vantage.. Then there are the cigarette smokers - I would wager this to be every other young person in Male; oh what a ball the cigarette companies must be having deceiving a whole nation!  - They wield their lit-up cancer sticks between the fingers of their wildly swaying hands and puff away as they swagger along Male's narrow pathways spilling a dose of their second-hand smoke to everyone else along the way, confidently oblivious of what fire or health hazard they might cause to the humble walker who they unfortunately don't even notice in their youthful pumped up egotistic state.

Then emerge too out of nowhere the longer-haired bikers who never seem to have a speed limit to care about making the humble walker cower for dear life each time one of these race by. Each moment seems one of grateful survival and thus a moment to thank Allah for allowing yet another chance at life. Among this lot are also the show-offs who imagine the narrow labyrinthine web of Male streets to be a formula-one race-track. Their skilled swerving and wriggling between pedestrians and fellow traffic and their expert avoidance of speed bumps and uneven spots on the undulating surface of Male streets that has languished un-repaired now for perhaps the past 40 years or so is a sight that strike terror into the heart of the wary walker.

Then there are the oglers who many a time run into the wary walker. These people stare at everything except the path ahead.  We are often told to look where we are going. Not so on Male streets. Eyes are always on things other than the street ahead. Pedestrians ogle at shop windows and many other attractive things that pass by, including the daily demonstrations and attendant oratory expertise that is a skill that by now Maldivians excel by far in comparison with other nations. Strangely however, the evening news has never reported a case of anyone running into a lamp-post or fatally onto the path of a reckless dark-shaded speedster. Even if there were, my take would be that such events just don't qualify to be news.

Then there are the fearless bikers who also magically check their facebook and shoot text messages while still driving. Then there are the dark-sunglass donned parents who race along with their sunglass-donning toddlers and don't mind these kids being exposed to the risks posed  by the unleaded fumes accumulating in the throng of vehicles that is the new norm of traffic behaviour on Male streets, which has become the concourse for at least 60000 motor-cycles - and counting, given that now it is not just Sheesha that is hogging the bike market any longer.

Then there are the spitters. Locals and expat labour all spit as if to an unending orchestra. Once upon a time, an occasional spitter would carefully deliver the blob into the side drain. Not so now; it is directed all over - front, right and left. These then rub off on to soles of shoes which carry the morbidity these harbour into the homes and onto the hands of babies and toddlers and children who spend much time on their hands and feet in contact with the seemingly clean tiled floors but now  continuously infected with these invisible stuff. As for the walker, those who may be so unfortunate as to be going up-wind behind a spitter, is directed to be especially cautious of the spray that can be the sad result when an episode of spitting occurs. When cautioned to please be careful when spitting upwind, they look at you strangely or just give a blank look; … no there are some who attempt to apologise also.

Yet for all this, I walk, because I know walking is the best way to go through life in good health. Yes, even with all the obstacles on Males streets, perhaps it is still worth it. But I would surely plead for an improvement in our civic state, and wish our degrading social condition be given even a tenth of the attention our economics is being given by the powers that be. 

You see, ultimately, what we carry away with us on the second leg of our cosmic journey is not the economic gains we accumulate in this worldly sojourn; it's the social gain. The goodness we create in this world for our brothers and sisters at large. That is the thing Allah will look at when we are measured for our THAQWA, --- the goodness of character that is the ultimate measure of success in this world and the hereafter.

Now that the Blessed month of Ramzaan is almost over, let me wish you all a very happy Eid-ul-Fitr; Eid Mubaarak to you all!

Toxic cloud

Ominously it approaches Male from the west now that the monsoon winds have changed that way. 

Thilafushi in Maldives is an environmental disaster in itself. The fumes from Thilafushi’s open burning of Male’s daily stock of garbage produces a hideous mix of toxic gases that rise in a visible plume 24 hours of the day and spreads it’s poison all around – the Galu-Falhu on its west and Villingili island to the east. A cocktail of mixed refuse is transported and dumped into this little shallow lagoon called Thilafalhu just a crow’s flight to the west of Male. For the past 40 years or so this shallow spot in the lagoon has been the sea-fill for all of Male’s municipal litter. Now with all this filth buried into its bowels, this shallow has been transformed into ‘Thilafushi’ – an island, by now of veritable size, containing warehouses, oil depots, office buildings, and most notably of all, the garbage dump of Male City, our little Capital. Daily, tons of this unsorted municipal waste of 130000 people is transported in huge barges to this spot in the serene turquoise waters of this island paradise. But the scene on Thilafushi is far from that of a paradise; it’s the stark opposite.  

On these days of soothing westerly zephyrs the ominous haze quickly floats the one mile or so distance and envelopes Male in an invisible ambience only noticeable by the unusual stench that pervades Male on and off ever so infrequently. Perhaps it’s nothing to worry about some say. Just imagine the thousands of chemicals inhaled wilfully and directly by perhaps a clear 50 percent of Male’s inhabitants who sport cigarettes dangling from their lips. So why worry of the occasional wafts from Thilafushi? The difference of course is that this is an environmental outcome affecting not just those unconcerned about their health as the smokers are, but those who are concerned and yet can do nothing about it except to curse the approaching plume.  

One can now add to this the ballooning condition of air pollution in Male city where motor vehicle traffic now abounds to throttling proportions and the resulting jams are the norm that forces both riders and pedestrians to continuously inhale mega doses of unleaded petrol fumes.

The Health Ministry’s marking of the world no-tobacco day also happened in a day of frenzy and then its message died with a whimper. The smokers continue to puff away like chimneys relishing the cheap prices the cigarette companies levy and irresponsible government policies allow. Yes, in not knowing or being oblivious to these prevailing facts, Maldives maybe bracing for a non-communicable diseases epidemic of epic proportions not too far down in the future.

When will our policy makers do something about the open dumping and burning on Thilafushi? Surely, the city council or the housing ministry – as the case maybe – can devise a garbage-segregation at the house-hold level policy that can solve this issue of open burning of plastics at Thilafushi? Male will then have a true windfall of a ‘cleaner’ plume from Thilafushi, even if nothing else is done. But of course the culprit of the dioxins must be collected and put to recycling.  I am sure we can take a page from what the tourist resorts are doing about this. And of course, in a country that is so effete in its soil-content, but where many are into vegetable farming and now also foraying into the pleasures of home-gardening, could we not make gold from garbage by commercially composting this one third or so of collected garbage? We will create jobs and reduce our import of biodiversity-damaging compost from outside our shores. For the know-how on composting, there are sprouting local examples also. But given our aversion to listening to home-grown solutions, I guess “a prophet is never heard in his own country” adage applies too well here. Alas, for us it has always been alien solutions that seem to attract us!  

And that goes for our other habits also. As such, in regards to our second case here, when will we as a public wake up to the tricks of the cigarette companies to keep us who are in poorer countries hooked and clearly directed towards the disease and slow death these products augur?