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Name change idea leads
Minister of Justice to banned website
In this second article (27 Sept) on the subject, Ahmed Zahir said he never intended to imply such a meaning, and he mentioned that no-one from Haveeru told him that his article conveyed such a message. This is no surprise! An editor in Maldives is unlikely to question the intentions of a minister. Anyone raising questions about Zahir's 'noble idea' of changing Malé's name to Maumoonabad, would be labelled as 'anti-government'. Many Maldivians who read Zahir's first article, agree with my interpretation. He said his idea 'might not be acceptable to some people, because the truth is difficult to accept'. It is obvious Zahir was seriously promoting the idea of a name change for the capital. However, in his second article Zahir apologised for conveying such a meaning. He also said the idea of a name change was a silly one. Then he again praised Gayyoom's contribution to the Malé and HulhuMalé reclamation projects. Readers would have thought Gayyoom had been doing the hard physical labour himself, single-handedly dragging buckets of sand from the deep sea up onto the jagged reefs. For Zahir, it's as if anything Gayyoom does, is purely out of the goodness of his heart! The minister seems to believe that the daily movements of our beloved president, from the time he lifts his eyelids in the morning, are some sort of charitable donation to his country. Aren't Maldivian taxpayers footing the bill for Gayyoom's 'charity'? Alif also tried to explain how he used the word 'Maumoonabad'. He mentioned that the word 'abad' was used as in Hindi to give another meaning: 'as an island/city Maumoon built, as an island of his'. I am not an expert in Hindi, but in countries where Hindi or Urudu is spoken, when the word 'abad' is used at the end of a name, it becomes proper noun, the name of something. For instance in India and Pakistan there are cities such as Hyderabad and Islamabad. Maldivians are familiar with these names, and this is one reason the justice minister used the term 'Maumoonabad' as a proper noun in his first column on 30 August. The justice minister accused me of being unrealistic and biased in my criticism of his idea. He also accused me of being unprofessional and taking the issue personally. 'It is not an aspect of democracy to defame people and become personal,' he wrote. 'It is not a convention of freedom. It is not good dignified behaviour. It is not a custom of those who claim to be conducting a jihad for freedom. The war of words also has standards. If a person moves outside those guidelines, then that person has gone outside the boundaries of this war. Yes. That person is out!' The article I wrote criticising the minister's silly idea, contained factual information. There is not a single lie or fabricated word. It was written in good faith, especially considering the current situation in the Maldives. My criticism was mindful of conventional and democratic guidelines, and I have spoken the truth without expecting favours like a position in the next cabinet. In his second column, the justice minister also defended the use of his pen name, Alif. 'If the writer knew 'Alif' as the private person (not the justice minister), would the writer have made such an accusation?' the minister asked. 'I am not using a pen name to hide my identity, but because readers of this column need to focus on the substance of what is written (not who wrote it)'. But Maldives and Malé are so small there will be hardly anyone who does not know Alif is the justice minister, and many Maldivians are far less practised than the minister in the art of pretence. Honesty still comes naturally to them. The minister ended his second column by condemning me for not revealing my name and suggesting that I'm afraid. That suggestion is 100% correct! If my identity was revealed, I would be long gone, like the people who were recently shot in the head in Maumoonfushi, sorry Maafushi, prison. I can assure the minister I'm not a criminal by any reasonable standards, but if I was taken to one of your Ministry of Justice courts, I know you would use any means to convict me. Your brutal regime manufactures criminals as it pleases. There is one legal matter the minister failed to consider in his second column, namely his reading of an article from this banned website. In 2000 maldivesculture.com was blocked by Dhiraagu telecom, a monopoly owned jointly by the Maldive government and British Cable&Wireless, after official concern that it was a real and present digital danger to the peace and stability of 1200 beautiful sandy islands. Apart from a few glorious days during a server upgrade many months ago, it has remained banned ever since. Thus it seems the minister may have committed an offence... but forgive me, that is impossible in law-abiding Maldives where rising to the upper echelon takes one above the commoners' world of censorship and arbitrary arrest. |
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Maldives Culture is an independent internet magazine of Maldive cultural issues.
Editors and translators: Michael O'Shea and Fareesha Abdulla, Australia
We invite contributions from Maldivians and others interested in Maldives.
Contributions and comments - mc_editors@hotmail.com
