Become a refugee or give up citizenship

Commenting on my post of 6.8.2007 on 'Political temperature is rising', an anonymous reader gave an out-of-the-box solution to solve our nation's problems. Acknowledging the nation's problems, difficulties and possibility of natural disaster the writer went on to say this:

"What i would suggest is that we all agree, come to a conclusion and we let go of Maldives for Sale. We should distribute the returns among everyone equally and let each person decide to chose there future destination country. Earning around $4-5 million per head can be the best thing that would happen to the history on man kind on earth. That day we can truly say we were proud to be Maldivians."

I must admit that this idea never occurred to me before, although I have felt that it may be good to relocate people to another country, on a voluntary basis.

Looking at the state of our country, no one can deny that we have problems. The majority of our people are living in poverty while our elites prosper. The distribution of wealth is grossly unequal and the income gap between the rich and poor is increasing. Our justice system falls in favour of the rich and powerful. The majority of our youth are addicted to drugs. Our young are finding it difficult to look after their aging parents. So for sure, we have plenty of problems.

In order to make my decision, I shall reflect on my own life. I am from Havaruthinadhoo and when I was very young as a collective punishment for the impoverished and neglected south that ceded to Suvadive rule, former prime minister Ibrahim Nasir decided that the entire population of my island should be evacuated. The people of my island were given 24 hours to leave the island. The people of my island and I became refugees overnight in our own country.

I have always believed that in order to punish some people who were involved in a conflict, such an action on entire population was unjust and brutal. Shortly after going to another island I was brought to Male' where I grew up. I started a career with the government as a clerk.

As a civil servant, I was asked to come to Singapore and work in MNSL. Since my passion is to serve, I did my best in the role that I was assigned in very trying circumstances. After 20 years it was time to elevate the elites from Male' to our positions. I have explained about the capitalist's creative destruction in my last post.

Ruthless capitalists are only interested to stay in power and make money at any cost. My service with MNSL was brought to an abrupt end without any notice. Two other staff who worked under me were dispatched from Singapore to Male' on a 24 hour notice. They had absolutely no fault. There was no other reason deserving to change the two dedicated staff, other than that they had to be replaced by the elites.

These were life shattering experiences for me, the latter coming at a very difficult time in my life.

Now coming back to the original question, would I be prepared to sell my citizenship as one among the rest in order to sell Maldives to the highest bidder?

Even against my background, the answer is not easy for I would be in anguish to let go of Maldives. The fault doesn't lie with the country but we need to be practical. Therefore, I would readily do it to go with the majority so that everyone can have a better life.

I would go for that solution to avoid even one person being killed and mysteriously thrown into the sea.

I would gladly do it to save our younger generation from the scourge of drugs, a menace that is spreading unabated, as unscrupulous drug pushers have the upper hand and we as a society have failed to stop them.

My decision is not based on greed for money. To me, peace and unity of the people are more important than money- I'm not saying that I don't need the money, I do but just that they are not the most important in my life.

I don't believe I would be acting against the nation's interests since we do face an environmental threat in addition to the problems that we continue to create, whether it is in the name of democracy or anything else.