Change driven by crisis

Change occurs in Maldives largely driven by crisis. This is evident when we look at political succession, public housing in Male', and the various land reclamation work that is carried out throughout the country in spite of the fact that many pristine islands remain uninhabited. Today the capital island Male' has its population living shoulder to shoulder, yet our community as a whole fails to show empathy or express sufficient outrage when injustices and abuses happen to one of us. The thread running about Dr. Niyaf on MaldivesHealth demonstrates this point in the health care which needs the services of dedicated professionals to provide the best care.

Change can take many forms and include many environments. You hear this term frequently in the corporate world and there are so many change-management programs that are used in corporations and in countries. Maldives is going through a process of change, an attempt to install the framework of good governance, separation of powers and enhancing individual freedoms.

Typically the objective of any change is to maximize the collective benefits for all people involved in the change and minimize the risk of failure of implementing the change. Change is not implemented on this basis in Maldives. For example, it has taken more than three years to revise a constitution that is nearing completion now. If the purpose of the revision is to work out a just constitution, then every effort should be made to live up to it. As things stand now, parliament itself has become a public spectacle of archaic procedures, mindless jargon, amusement and even ridicule.

We need to recognise the individual talent in Maldives to reverse this trend and provide social justice and good value to every citizen. Our biggest threat comes from proponents of radical Islam and they have found a group of our young vulnerable for indoctrination. These forces need to be defeated by our community reaching out to every vulnerable individual with intensive counselling so that extremist elements can be stopped on their track.