Our ineffectual police

23:52, 26th September 2008, Friday 

I was visiting a friend tonight, picking up some movies, and listening to music. We were interrupted by loud voices of two people, who were demanding to open a house just across the lane. This place in front was a day room often rented for temporary use. Mostly resort workers and people visiting from other islands rent this place for short stays. Judging from the way these people spoke, the slurring voice that is often characteristic of addicts, it would be safe to say that they were "Parteys".

These two were demanding to get in the room. Inside was a bangladheshi man frightened for his life, refusing to open the door, and speaking through the window.

This conversation went on for five minutes, after which these two started banging on the door, trying to break in, which we later found to be badly damaged. 

We decided to call the police, as the situation was getting worse. 

Calling 119. 

Rings for a minute, and call ends. Nobody had answered the phone. 

Trying for the second time. 

Ringing for 30 seconds, at which point a girl answers in a sleepy, moody, and uninterested voice. 

Friend : Hello 

A girl responding in a lazy lethargic voice. 

Police girl : Hello 

Friend : There’s shouting in-front of the house, we can hear people trying to break in , and they are threatening to rob the place. We can hear loud banging on the door, and screams from inside. 

Police girl : Where is this? Where are you calling from ?

Friend : (house), lily magu 

Police girl : Which district ? 

Friend (confused – doesn’t she know lily magu?) : Galolhu 

Police girl : What's your name ? 

Friend (tense) : Is it very important ? Why should I tell my name? 

Police girl : What if the police arrives and nobody is there? Should we hunt for them all over male', it would be difficult to identify them 

Friend : I can only hear them, I cannot see them, its happening in front of my house and I'm inside! 

Police girl (unresponsive and uninterested) : You're not even witnessing this right, so how can you be so sure ? 

Friend (perplexed) : Yeah, but I can hear them. I thought it was my responsibility to call and inform. But, if you are not interested, never mind. 

Police girl ( sigh ) : Ok. ok . Let me look into it. 

Friend : Alright! Bye 

We left the place after 20 minutes, and the police, dedicated to protecting and serving the public, had not arrived. The owner of the room was fixing the door, which was damaged. It seems the "Parteys" had left without success.

Internet and political discourse

Americans are celebrating OneWebDay today, and the theme for this year is online participation in democracy. Our little fledgling democracy in the Indian Ocean has benefited in numerous ways from the marvel that is the Internet. Blogs, online newspapers, video sharing sites, social networks and others have enabled wider participation in the political discourse of this country. Even though, broadband penetration remains at a measly 4%, the fundamental societal changes that have come in place are immense. Our historically opaque government has responded to these changes by giving away a lot of content online. Yet, there are ways that we could improve our government and the political system. Adopting Open Government Data principles is a way forward to increase transparency. Such principles could enable informed discourse in the public sphere, reduce apathy and alienation, and improve accountability.

Nothing to see here

There is this great line in Transmetropolitan Issue #5 - "You learn about a culture from its television”. Whenever I feel extremely down, I find reassurance in Transmetropolitan from a nugget like this. For me, this is the season of feeling down, paralysed and incapacitated. In addition to the hunger, and sleep depravation, there is this feeling of annoyance with the whole of society that swells inside me. This preoccupation of people with consumption. This complete character turn around that happens every year. The way people behave gets slightly exaggerated, and simplified, like a Monet painting, society broken down to it's bare essentials - a few bold strokes.

It is a cruel sight. We lose our subtle coping tactics, we let go during those moments when we would have suppressed our thoughts, we forget the sleight of hand we use to mask our irrationality, and are too worn down to remember the little gestures of optimism, and the faint glimmer of hope is cast away. The whole of society seemingly loses its collective sanity for thirty days, not that it was very sane to begin with. Every perspective is tilted slightly out of frame. What people desire during the day is preoccupation in some silly game, and during the night, it is gluttony. Our cognitive surplus, as Clay Shirky calls it, rotting away on UNO, Monopoly and most of all Television. Not that I would criticise games, it has its benefits. The point being that the people takes playtime to ridiculous levels during the season. It is not that I cannot cope with sudden changes. I could enjoy a good social festival as much as anyone else would, but this is not what bothers me. To better explain let me try, through reference to television.

Local television programming is unbearable to watch during most of the year. But that's nothing compared to the hysteria that goes on public display during ramazan. There is a lot that one can learn about this society from the programming on TVM. The first thing one would notice is the extreme swings between religious programs and silly hindi dance scenes reinvented with sexual undertones by Maldivians for a tenth of the budget. This constant alternation between Id (dance) and SuperEgo (religious fatwa) would make any Ego (self) indecisive. Perhaps that is why Maldivians are in a constant struggle against themselves to make rational choices. Instead of critical thinking, the television stations broadcast a variety of thought control programs, so that we would censor and monitor ourselves. Perhaps, some would consider this values, while I see that as religious indoctrination. The silliest thing is, in this time of political change, instead of fostering the value of certain civic virtues, we have several reactionary figures like Yousay mocking democracy itself. I am not criticising criticism itself, but why is it that we have so few who understands that to maintain a republic we need to cultivate a certain amount of civic virtues. These television figures who haven’t a clue to, why certain civic virtues are necessary, gets to ridicule debate and difference in ideas. It is as if there is a constant tension pulling us back toward a past when we were dictated, as to how we should behave, instead of learning and adapting to the new, and in my view better present. Instead of learning how to debate, how to exchange ideas and we constantly fed this sloth that the past when we were inactive, and conformist was better.

The other thing that one would notice is the monotonous voice and the ambivalent attitude of the hosts on television. Words come out of their mouths like the dribbling saliva from the mouth of a mental patient. Their hollow zombie eyes, their artificial smiles, make me cringe. Perhaps, it is not them, but the story selection that creates this monotony. Nothing too controversial, nothing out of the ordinary, none too violent, none too explicit, a watered down version of the world, as if to protect us from reality itself. I can do without the paternalism.

The Other Maldives

The man toils above the frame of cement and steel, his skin scarred by the scorching sun and body by the flints, the dust, and gravel. The machines, their continuous, endless grind – seemingly a metaphor for their exploited labour. Endlessly swirling, consuming, devouring. The construction, as it's been developed, becomes a living organism, that feeds on the broken body, and grows into a womb, to breed more toilers. More workers fed into the system of excess. Society has become an iron cage - a prison, where one does not see the other, merely feels a presence of the next-door cellmate. Like a hollow muffled sound through a thick oak door. It is a society, well regulated by an internal unsound logic, which frames and partitions a structure of intolerance, and subordination to itself. The cage holds violent creativity, and the human spirit, chained and tethered. The person, who on looks this bizarre spectacle, has no memory or feeling or desire of himself or others, not of the past or future. He is simply passive, unable to voice his own humanity; perhaps he has no voice, only the whine of an animal, ambivalent to the conditions that surround him.

Perhaps, this is the reality of the Other Maldives; 70,000 labourers, who exist invisible to us. Whom, we cannot, or will not empathise with - because they foreign and strange, or simply considered - dirty. Because, we would rather ignore the situation as long as we are satisfied, contempt with the current conditions. Nevertheless, that contempt is ephemeral and conditional, because the city ever growing would devour us in the end. We are marginal, as they are, on the fringes of the system of exploitation, where the fruits of our creative life are bled into the bank accounts of a few.

A few weeks ago, I volunteered to distribute some flyers for a promotion done by our company. The target of the promotion was foreign expatriate workers, and we had to visit their workplaces, where they ate, slept etc. I was truly shocked to see the places where they resided. At one place, we witnessed about fifty people cramped into a small building. It was unhygienic and the place smelled of the most pungent smell one could imagine. These could not be called barracks of any sort, they were just two pieces of wood stretching along the wall for the length of the room, a top row and bottom row, on both sides of the room, with a single walk way in the middle. People were cramped together, sleeping next to each other, in a way that reminded me of a concentration camp. I am convinced that better hygienic and clean residences could be provided without affecting the bottom line of these construction companies. In addition, these issues should concern the human rights organisations of Maldives. Nevertheless, they remain silent.

The exploitation, the unfair, inhumane treatment has to stop. But for it stop we have to see through the walls of the prison that binds us. This will not be easy, because we, they, us, and them, are bound and woven inextricably, in to the system of exploitation. It is as if there is no redemption, except to understand and feel the sorrow of lost souls, toiling on the carapace of modernity, invisible to our eyes that are fixated on the future. 

Salty spray

Windy and sunny, with shiny bursts of white cotton clouds. Mild and enjoyable sea. The breeze, although salty and heavy at times, makes the trip back to Male very pleasant. The trip to Hulhumale was very different from the trip back. Ramazan makes it hard to get out of bed. I’m almost always in a daze, during the trips.

Person in the seat next to me is sleeping; some are yawning and stretching themselves, overcome with weariness. It's very common to find people in heated arguments these days. I think I hear a few of those in the back.

Almost sundown now. I'm sure these people could not wait to get their hands on some food. This should be a very tiring journey for them. New labour law should’ve had a provision for working during Ramazan, something along the lines of a complete one month holiday.