Maldives is emerging as a market for hatred

The waves of global violence and mass murder that we see and read about with increasing frequency has firmly entrenched its roots in Maldives. We have seen a home-made bomb go off in Sultan Park and to our dismay, we are increasingly witnessing gang warfare and even mob killings in what we used to call peaceful communities.

How did our people turn out to be blood-thirsty killers?

First, our politicians, our parliament and the members of the special majlis are all busy in political wrangling leaving the country to slip down into social anarchy. Robbers are running rampant in stealing while rival gangs are engaged in murderous violence making it appear that this is a country that does not have a police force entrusted to protect its citizens? For a moment, you gasp to think whether that this is the same beautiful country described as paradise for the sun seeking rich and famous, also featured among the first to sink due to sea level rise and climatic change of global warming. Religious hard-liners are creating pockets of religious chaos with flourishing extremism and fanaticism leading some youngsters being indoctrinated into terror. If the killing spree continues unabated, you shudder to think that suicide bombers may follow soon, as Pakistan whose chaos has appeared on our shores has reported its first female suicide bomber. Around 20 percent of our nation's residents under the age of 15 are using banned substances, according to the National Narcotics Control Bureau. Wayward youngsters who comprise more than 40 percent of the population of 300,000, with nothing meaningful to look forward to are increasingly turning to drugs. The problem of drugs continues to flourish despite a growing tourism industry which has made the 100 per cent Muslim Maldives, the richest nation in South Asia. Per capita income is 2,674 US dollars.

If getting rich should solve more social problems because we have the means to do so, we certainly don't see this happening yet. Maldives now has a sub-culture of drugs mostly young people who need our compassion and treatment but instead they are stigmatised and labelled as 'parteys' or 'druggies', words that are used to demean them. For some strange reason, we are out to destroy our own people. It is said that 80 per cent of recovering addicts relapse after rehabilitation. This drug abuse and addiction could destroy a large segment of our young generation, their families and our communities with unimaginable consequences.

As usual when a tragic incident like the mob killing occurs, Members of our Parliament in hastily convened meetings fall over each other to express their concern and frustration over the increasing violence on the streets of Male’. Beyond that, such expressions broadcast for public consumption turns out to be idle chatter for nothing constructive ever happens to make the streets safer or to reduce the violence. Over the years it has progressively worsened from street brawls, to fights using sticks and sharp objects to sword fights out to kill each other.

Increasing hard-line views on how we should practise Islam and our intolerance of accepting the rights of non-Muslims to their faiths , and the absence of an ideology that guarantees fundamental rights and saves us from the tyranny of a government has left us a bitterly divided community. We have lost our ability to empathise and our humanity only recognises the greed for money. We are a nation that operates at boiling point and since we do not know how to peacefully co-exist, our threshold for violence remains very low. But our delirious politicians will not face the problems of this community. They do not have the wherewithal to make the tough choices and put the community back on a peaceful path.