Wake up Maldives!

On the day when the Maldivian ambassador to UN told the United Nation’s General Assembly that climate change and rising sea levels were our country's biggest enemy, Indian south east monsoon wreaked havoc on parts of India, Bangladesh and Nepal.

According to a BBC report the rising flood has affected so far:

India: 12 million people stranded, mostly in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Assam.
Bangladesh: Seven million people marooned.
Nepal: Thousands of people displaced in the south.

Millions of people have lost their homes, their crops inundated by the floods and they have no food to eat. Helicopters dropped food to some two million people in 2,200 villages in eastern Uttar Pradesh, India.

India's monsoonal weather is an annual phenomena that brings natural disasters such as major floods, droughts, cyclones and this has killed or displaced millions. India's long-term climatic stability is further threatened by global warming.

Maldives is on the leeward side of India and is very fortunate not to suffer the disastrous consequences that our neighbours face every year. But we should avoid complacency and do whatever we can do to protect our small community scattered over small islands barely above sea level in the Indian Ocean.

While it is necessary, much more needs to be done urgently beyond our pleas for world action to stop rising temperatures that is contributing to the global warming.

Such efforts for our small communities to relocate or rebuild are thwarted by the organized chaos in the country's political system. After more than 38 years of presidential system of government, politicians have forced our nation to go through an absurd exercise.

Instead of addressing the issues of the current system, the people are asked to decide on the presidential system or the parliamentary form of government.

Few people know the difference between the two systems, even fewer genuinely want to know the difference, and most don't care what it is as long as the current system is changed.

Isn't it time for some introspection? For the leaders of this nation feared to sink by rising waves to ask themselves, 'What is the purpose of what we are doing when our survival is at stake?