Here is an interesting public announcement put out by the "Mahkamathul Aman Aammu" or the Office for Public Safety on 11 July 1959. This request by Ibrahim Nasir essentially calls for Maldivian men aged 15 and above, brave enough to do anything required of him and ready to sacrifice themselves in the name of the country and religion in the fight against the rebellion in the South, to come forward and submit their names and addresses.

Sort of amusing isn't it?

I would like to request Television Maldives (and do urge them most earnestly!) to obtain permission and translate "Cosmos: A personal voyage" - the award-winning TV documentary series by Carl Sagan. It maybe a bit old by now but the scientific facts and explanations and the presentation of the series make it a remarkable and timeless production that truly is a candle in the dark. It would, or rather should, spark wonder in any young/old curious mind eager to learn and help achieve a better understanding of this crazy world we find ourselves in...

If TVM can find the time to translate and broadcast the utterly unscientific, pseudo-philosophical ramblings of Harun Yahya, then surely can it afford to do the same for some science proper?

I've watched for the past several years while the expatriate worker population in the Male' grew steadily as the "rich" Maldivians increasingly give up various jobs (going lazy?) and replaced it with imported labour from nearby countries. We have 100-US$-per-month foreign workers to dig up and pave roads, to clean up and maintain the sewerage system, to construct and maintain our buildings, to clean up the mess at home and office, to work as waiters and cooks at food outlets etc. The list goes on and it's not restricted to any particular sort of work or speciality. Heck, even the President's Office employs expats to clean up and water the plants that surround the building. No wonder we now have over 35,000 expatriate workers living amongst the 100,000 Maldivian heads in the 2 square kilometre island of Male'!

Sadly, the presence of such large numbers of expat works in our small communities has lead to a worrying situation on ground. One needs to look no further than the latest news headlines:
- Attacks against expatriates almost a daily occurrence
- Chained Bangladeshi man found inside Male house (see photo)
- Another shackled Bangladeshi expatriate found inside Male’ house
- Ten Maldivians arrested in Adhaaran resort after fight breaks out between locals, Bangladeshi man
- Bangladeshi murdered and mutilated 2 3
- Expatriate security guard in Villi-Male’ ATM booth attacked
- Teacher caught red-handed molesting 8-year-old
- Expatriate worker beat up after being suspected of raping island girl (in Dhivehi)

We (supposedly) once were a tolerant country, welcoming all sorts of people and treated them with due respect. But things have changed and for the worse. Notions of equality and humanity has been devalued to such an extent that xenophobia seems almost universal in the country and racism is building up like never before. As such, mistreatment of and disrespect for expats is a truth many are well aware of. People often treat the many unskilled/semi-skilled workers as "subhuman". I might be tempted to go as far as summarising the prevalent attitude as being a combination of viewing workers as non-tiring machines, incapable and devoid of emotion and feelings and their lives worth no more than a pet cat! They are given accommodation in tiny enclosures made of tin roofing and little ventilation with more workers packed into such places than sardines in a box. They are harassed on the streets and harassed at work. Too many a time do you see workers beg and cry themselves wet over salaries unpaid. Sometimes months would go by without the employer paying the workers their full wage (if at all!) - which the workers often send to their starving families back in their home country. Few regulations keep employers in check - facilitating them to overwork their employers through day and night and give little consideration to the health and safety of the employees. What more, when their "official" work ends, the workers are often made run personal errands and chores for their employer - they really are slaves to the whims and desires of their "master". I was shocked to find the word "owner" used in the popular local newspaper Haveeru, in reference to the employer of the recently murdered Bangladesh worker in Kulhudhuffushi! (Owner? Isn't that slave mentality??)

Such attitudes towards expat workers are often "justified" on the excuse that they come from societies that treat them even worse. They are deemed as too stupid and too gullible to understand the "modern life" Maldivians enjoy. This attitude is further strengthened thanks to miscommunication arising from expat workers not being able to speak neither Dhivehi nor English. But none, absolutely none, of these warrant sanctioning any of the ill-conditions and abuses expat workers are subjected to. I agree that expat workers do ill and do commit crimes. No one would or should deny that. But even that is not an excuse to not extend them some decency and treat them as humans with equal rights!?

I still remember the time I first saw the planet Saturn, with it's glamorous-mysterious rings, on a borrowed low-end refracting telescope. I had spent hours tuning and adjusting for better focus while scouring the sky for that normally elusive close-up of one of the most sought after beauties that the heavens hold. I stood awestruck as the dot-in-the-sky got magnified enough times for my eyes to feast upon. The huge planet floated there in deep dark space peacefully minding its own business - just as it had been since Galileo set his sights on it. The planet was within the grasp of a single eyeful on the telescope yet knowing that it was hundreds of times larger than the Earth (Saturn's volume is over 700 times larger than that of Earth) made the experience all the more surreal!

The whole event changed something deep within me. Looking at Saturn from my telescope on that quiet, dark night made me feel like I was looking at myself on the surface of the Earth from afar. It made me realize how SMALL and INSIGNIFICANT I was! The universe was bigger than me - it was even bigger than the 2 km² island of Male' that I had lived all my life. Heck, it was much bigger than the distance to the furthest place I had travelled. There were an unimaginable number of planets and stars existing for a time much much longer than my (statistically) expected 75 years on Earth. There I was, a mere blip both in space and in time. Till that moment, I had been an arrogant human being just like most others, walking tall and claiming the universe as being almost subservient to my random wishes. The apparent meaninglessness of being a random replicator that infected the surface of a random planet in a random galaxy, in a universe that could boast to contain millions upon billions of stars and planets, is just too overwhelming to be said. Yet, in that moment of understanding, hints of something very elegant, with purpose and more beautiful a meaning than I had supposed shone through brightly.

I would encourage everyone to dish out for a telescope and start gazing at some of the wonders that are out there. If you can't afford one quite yet, then do read up a little about the universe and our solar system and grab a copy of a sky map to help you identify the stars in the sky so you know which is which. The stars would soon loose their role as mere dots of light or hanging lamps on the black canopy of the night sky and become real, tangible objects - as real, as meaningful and often grander than the planet we walk on.

I wish there was an observatory in the Maldives for the public - an amateur one at the least. I surely would build one myself if I had the funds. It would do so much, I believe, to instil a sense of wonder and a much needed appreciation of science (as compared to technology!) in the country and hopefully make people a bit more aware of just how "significant" they really are. Sigh...

PS: Google has added a brilliant new feature to their already awesome Google Earth software - maps of the SKY! Traverse the visible universe on your computer

I skim through Maldivian news now and then and try sink in the madness going about these days but none, absolutely none, has left me as unsettled and enraged as the news regarding the recent ruling on the case of a 12 year old girl being sexually assaulted by a group of 4 axe-wielding men.

I just cannot imagine how a sane, responsible individual tasked with enforcing law, protecting the weak and upholding moral values in the capacity of a judge arrives at the conclusion: (that) a TWELVE YEAR OLD girl had CONSENSUAL sex with FOUR MEN who BROKE into her room by BREAKING a window with an AXE and proceeding to help themselves to the orifices on a helpless girl most probably scared shitless towards being deaf, mute and dumb and thus conclude that the men were INNOCENT of rape. What is perhaps even more frustrating is that the reasons cited for the ruling are pure nonsense that’d drive any rational, sensible person to the edges of sanity. One of the more disturbing reasons stated by the judge is that the girl had reached puberty - a statement that carries implicit consequences that she is to be considered adult and thus responsible for what happens. This argument, which supposedly is drawn from Islamic Sharia, declares a girl as adult when she reaches puberty irrespective of her age. The other reasons stated by the judge are no less fallacious – all of them more or less state that the girl did not object at any time during or after the event. Fortunately though, rape and abuse have been pretty well studied (elsewhere in the more educated, civilised world) and there are well documented typical reactions as shock, denial and shame that explain and may well be the real reason behind the girl’s actions.

What more, I found the english version of the (original) dhivehi news at Haveeru what seems to be an intentional deception in that it carefully avoided mentioning the details of the event - is this a purely a conspiracy conjecture or is this a just accusation? This is particularly worrying after all Haveeru claims honest reporting these days. The report at Minivan News fared better I guess...

Anyway, this ruling marks another sad day in our history... and life goes on.

Two new large ice sheets have formed in Antarctica and a magic rug has covered over the growing hole in the southern hemisphere yesterday after a global attempt to save the earth.

Not having gone on the official Live Earth concert roster, the show held in Maldives became one of the over 7000 shows worldwide held under the title "Friends of Live Earth". Most phenomenal and surprising was that the show managed to really ante up the public's awareness on global climatic and environmental problems. Even Asseyk Al-Vistas President Maumoon Abdul Gayyoom was jealous of this serious incursion into his turf, after all, as all we Maldivians know he had patented the global warming concept back when he delivered his atom-splitting speech at the UN.

Err, that is me trying to be sarcastic and possibly humorous at the same time... at which I failed happily.

Anyway, Live Earth sounds fantastic but I'm very skeptical of this whole affair and more so when it comes to it being done in the Maldives. While I do admire and support some of the efforts around the world towards investigating man-made disturbances to the climate, finding solutions and taking proactive action towards damage reduction, I just can't help but observe that most of the so-called environment related programmes conducted in Maldives seem a bit superficial. Such programmes seem to be a bit too much of doing something for the fame and name. I'm probably being an arse and maybe laying a bit of insult to the hard work done by the people who organised the Live Earth show in Male' but I really doubt there was any honest intention to participate in the event to root for its cause and goals. I wonder whether there was any intention of increasing public awareness and/or to contribute in any substantial manner with regard to "saving the earth". If you did attend this show or watched it on TVM, do YOU know WHY the show was held and what its goals were? As seems customary in the Maldives, the Live Earth show may have been yet-another-excuse for a having bit of fun and a blessing to excise some easy money to fund it all.

Anyway, the 07/07/07 Live Earth concerts were supposed to mark the beginning of the Live Earth campaign with more to come in the future. I hope there is interest in doing something more than just shows...

The male dominance in Male' was at no time more apparent to me than the first few hours I walked around the streets of Male' after returning from UK this time. Everywhere I looked, the field of vision was guaranteed to be 95% dominated by mammals with XY chromosomes. More interestingly, everywhere I looked, male non-Maldivians occupied about 30% of those in an eyeful.

Be it the early morning, the evening or late night, the streets are littered mostly with testosterones on motorcycles or behind the wheels of a Maldive-pimped up second/third hand cars. And be it the early morning, the evening or late night, anyone sitting down on a wall, a public bench or using legs for locomotion is likely to be some expatriate male worker sporting a tough moustache and lovingly holding hands with a fellow male colleague. Well, that maybe a bit of an exaggeration but you get my drift..

I'm not sure about the latest statistics but if I recall correctly, the numbers would give a ovaries-to-testicles ratio of 2/3!