While getting my daily dose of blog updates from MvBlogs, I stumbled across an entry by primary0 titled "Vision 2020: Get out of Maldives!". Most people would be too lazy to go to his site and actually read what he's said, so let me summarize: new data claims that by 2100, the sea level would rise even further than previously expected.

We could go on living happily, were it that the data suggested mere millimeters or maybe even few more centimeters but unfortunately, that is not the case. The reports claim rises of anywhere from 3m to 20m. RealClimate.org has this article summarizing four papers that were published recently in the popular "Science" journal. These papers has stirred up a lot of discussions on the issue of global warming and sea level rise. Global warming has been an issue on table for ages. Heck, our beloved President is revered on government TV and Radio for his 1987 UN General Assembly speech in which he brought up the global warming and the resulting sea levels rise issue as a matter of concern to a country - especially as a low-lying island nation. (Yes, wise man he is. *respect* *cough* *cough*).

What got to me after reading the results from these latest research is that all of them predict sea level rise rates of 3mm to 10mm per year. Image that. That is a lot. By 2050, there'd have been an increase of 50cm!! That would immerse a lot of the Maldives under water. According to the Environment Research Center, the island elevations in Maldives varies from 0m to 2.4m. The 2.4 meters is the highest level and is found on the island of Vilingili, Addu. I couldn't find more specific island elevation data, however, I did find this report at UNEP that estimates that 80% of Maldives is 1m or less! This could indeed mean that a few of our beloved islands could slowly start to vanish off the map - starting with the alluring sand banks or "finolhu". Maybe with island elevation data available, we could even draw up a time-to-vanish schedule for all the islands

Sea level rise isn't to deter us though. There has to be *some* solution to this right? RIGHT? Yes, I thought so too. I recalled that the Dutch are in the same boat as us. Holland is a country with quite a lot of low lying land, with some parts going as low as 7m BELOW the sea level! The Dutch are a smart bunch and they have already started preparing for negative effects of sea level rise. Their plans knocked me out of my seat. Well, not really but it is fascinating nonetheless. They've already built houses, 37 to be exact, that rise with the water - up to 5 meters! The houses don't care what level the water is at - they simply float on water. Have a look at this article - it features pictures! Apparently, they plan to build "cities" with 21,000 of such "amphibious" houses at a cost of 250,000 to 300,000 Euros per 120 square meters. Hmm. I wonder how much it costs for the "production" of the same land in Hulhumale'. I couldn't find any cost/expenditure information about this on the net. Any government site got this published? The HDC site certainly has zilch on anything financial...

Another interesting project that is not so related to global warning but goes along well with the concept of floating cities is Freedom Ship. It is essentially a ship that would house 18,000 living units with commercial services and other life?s amenities all thrown in. Maybe we Maldivians should build such ships (or arks - of Noah's Ark fame) to prolong our existence till the Ice Age wears off. The last ice age took 100,000 years though - quite a lot of time to live in arks.

The floating cities remind me of an "experiment" I carried out about 3 years ago. I had the idea of building a floating platform - not a new idea I know - but I wanted to build it anyway. The idea was nicked from a quite famous man and his self built island, known as Spiral Island. If it succeeded, it could've been made an exotic restaurant or even a holiday getaway. If it failed, it would become my home - a floating home for myself (Please refrain from laughing for as long as you can). I got together a bunch of friends to join in and we collected empty "Oki" cooking oil containers - those large ones. We also got a large wooden (container) crater from the Customs area. We dragged all of it to Vilingili and built ourselves a raft. It worked - within our "experimental parameters". We got bored by the end of the day and dumped the setup on a mostly secluded part of the beach and forgot about the entire thing. It was agreed it was feasible and a solid framework with enough containers would be a cheap and effective method to achieve what we were after. Seriously.

Anyway, back to global warming and sea level rise. Somebody please pass on my request to the President on starting a project to build floating homes/islands, for all our beloved people. The project can be called "Extinction Survival Program". It will be a project along the lines of Hulhumale' but only a lot more grand and sophisticated. Of course it will be something to take away more funds from the budget but it is guaranteed to provide safety for everyone (Fine print: all those who can afford to buy units. Even finer print: all those who are mega rich and privileged ). Psst. I volunteer to lead the project!

Oh you all know what "radheef" is right? (Psst. In case you didn't know, Radheef is the Dhivehi dictionary.)

I had (err unlawfully?) ripped off the data from the Radheef released by the National Centre for Linguistics and Historical Research when the software came out a couple of years ago. It was those times that I was into the MaldivianUnderground project - and quite soon I had programmed an online radheef interface to do lookups. There have been various versions of the online radheef since then: one on MaldivianUnderground that relied on Dhivehi entry in latin, another on Bichoo.net that sported a Flash front-end and yet another somewhere that used what I call "dynamic font rendering" to show the output in Dhivehi - which is neat as it shows up whether the computer has Dhivehi fonts installed or not. However, all of these radheef apps no longer exist, thanks to the disappearance of each of the projects that the radheef was released under, and so I decided to slap up yet another radheef!

The new radheef now resides at its own domain name at http://www.radheef.com/. A cool feature maybe the ability to link to words definitions directly via the use of special URLs like this.

The radheef will be kept alive this time hopefully. Give it a spin. It will be useful if you work with Dhivehi and, like me, have questionable command over Dhivehi vocabulary. Please note that it is at an "experimental" stage at the moment and might not work smoothly on all browsers/operating systems. I'd appreciate if you let know if that is the case - do mention the browser name/version and your operating system name/version.


Techie stuff:
This latest version of my online radheef uses AJAX technology - to suit the current ajax application craze. The new radheef also relies on Unicode Dhivehi and you should be able to enter and read the Dhivehi used on the radheef as long as you have a recent browser with Unicode support. Further options to enable you to use the radheef without having Dhivehi fonts installed would be made available later. The radheef does require that you have JavaScript enabled but that shouldn't be a problem to most, after all almost all browsers these days come with JavaScript and unless you have turned it off manually, the radheef should work fine.

I should note that the Unicode text entry is a bit dodgy at the moment. The text entry relies on Unicode fonts coupled with a custom written keyboard handler (in JavaScript) to map the normal keycodes into Unicode. I shall be releasing the JavaScript keyboard handler script under GPL soon. The script is again something that I had written a couple of years ago but has now been rewritten to accommodate the browser advances and changes. I have tested the handler to work fine under IE 6, Firefox 1.5, K-Meleon 0.9.1, Safari and Opera 9.

I am missing home today. Home as in Maldives - the people, the sun, the blue sky, the humid air, the lagoons, the sea, the beaches and wind...

A friend of mine sent me this video ad of Maldives titled "A little bit of Maldives". Apparently it is currently being shown on BBC and used for tourism promotion in the European markets. The video is a little bit over-the-edge, with shots mostly of the sculpted landscapings from the resorts and paints a dolled-up image of the country. Despite that, it still is good to watch the sunny beaches and idealize the homeland. The images trigger warm feelings of nostalgia. Plus, the ad carries a catchy tune which does a good job of lingering around in the crevices in the head, ready to pop up in mid thought - especially on these winter mornings.



Enjoy!

There was a comment by someone on one of my recent posts titled "Future of the Maldives: blurry?". The person mentioned the now famous magic number "27", which is used handsomely by the political opposition to refer to the time in office held so far by our beloved President Gayyoom. Now, this 27 year thing everyone shoots off so easily really pisses me off. I would challenge anyone who does this and for good reason too.

Truth of the matter is, it is not only under current ruler that we have suffered. Moreover, it would be unfair to blame the current state of our society entirely upon one person however easy it is. I admit, the boss has to take most of the responsibility, however the blame falls on each of us too. Every citizen is to be criticized for letting it run this far. I recently snapped at a government employee with a high status job. Like everyone these days, he was whining about how pathetic our society has become and how this is to be blamed on one person. I firmly, with gritted teeth, told him to shut up and look to himself. As a member of the older generation he has failed to take stand in his time and in doing so helped pass a society escalating towards self-annihilation. As a member respected in society he has failed to use his influence to better the lives of the people. As a person educated and with resources, he has failed to do his duty to the country and to the rest of us less fortunate. How dare he go whining on and on? This situation wouldn't have come about if it was snipped in the bud before it got out of control. But then, that is bringing in the ?if"s which is quite pointless now...

Maldivian people were under a larger suppressive force under the dictatorship of Nasir. To name one, the Thinadhoo incident where innocent unarmed civilians were SHOT, where children and pregnant women were FORCED to flee to the cold lagoon at dawn are part of more serious atrocities committed then. I have listened to recounts of the event by surviving Thinadhoo people of the time and each time I cannot believe this is an event that took place on such a scale and in such recent times. I have no choice but to listen to them in utter amazement and share their anger that lingers on. Such events in our history have silently been swept under the carpet, to be forgotten. Moreover, thanks to the "richness" of our literature and "effectiveness" of our educational and media institutions, few of the younger generation are aware of these dark times even in our recent history. (If anyone of you have personally experienced this or have close family who did, do feel free to share the experience with the rest of us. I for one, would be interested in hearing more about it.)

Maldives really sickens me at times. Our ancestry begins with pirates, prostitutes and criminals who either settled here or were banished here. Our history has been forged - dark times and the cruelty of people and rulers hidden and locked away in the unmanifest, for heaven forbid that our history have anything but heroics and bravery. Fantasy and magic have been introduced to full the void. The list goes on...

So please, do away with the twenty-seven. Let us all work toward the Utopian Idealistic Society we all dream of.

I am concerned about the state of our country. Concerned about where Maldives is heading towards. We are walking in unchartered territory - politically and socially. I doubt anyone has a clue of the future that may bear any resemblance to the actual outcome of all this.

It is not only the final outcome that we have to be wary of. We also have to be careful of the price we have to pay, the losses and the suffering we may have to endure, as we proceed through this current sea of change. To make matter worse, much of the changes seem to be brought in a haste being propelled by a insistent agitated community who really have no idea on what needs to be done and how it needs to be done. The ramifications of the changes being instigated may cause more harm than any of us expect. But then again, this is what it is all about. Isn't it? Taking chances... Leaping from the stagnant state we've hibernated in... Or maybe not? Certainly not!

While we all quietly hibernated and kept our lips sealed so as to not speak of the discontentment, the country had slowly distilled into polarities. Divided into the poor and rich, educated and ignorant, hardworking and lazy, powerful and weak - with the gap now large enough for the moons of Jupiter to be squeezed in. However, the struggle for betterment has now started to amplify. In the now abundant campaigns to appeal and silently subjugate masses to do their bidding, between the wonders of technology spitting out propaganda of the rich and the elite, there comes a cry of help - a cry for real freedom. Freedom from poverty. Freedom from oppression and suppression. For equality. To be treated with respect and honour. For a decent meal. For education and knowledge. Cries for opportunity to climb out of the rut much of the Maldives live day in and day out.

Sadly, it is the bellows of the rich, the powerful, the violent and the obscenely loud that are heard most. It is what is being catered for. It is the less meaningful, less effective, less beneficial transformations/changes that is being given the spotlight. This may be only my view. However, conversations with almost anyone seem to hint of the unspoken cries I mentioned. In chats with closer friends, the despair is no longer caged and they cry - wailing with the same desire to be unleashed from the mental and social prison we've all been herded in and treated unfairly and unjustly.

For now, the future of Maldives is in question and will probably continue to lie in the unmanifest for quite sometime to come.

I'm still in Raa Atoll. This is something I wrote after observing and listening to the tales of my trip mates...

***

I smile at her. She smiles back, already being overwhelmed by the same loneliness that propels me. She reaches up, prays and grabs a handful of hope ? the kind that deludes her to think that I would be the one that quenches her thirst for a companion. The one that accepts what she has to offer, that loves her for what she is. The one who sees how really deft she is. These I know, from secrets she has disclosed to all evening.

I lie to her. Lie quite easily, for I am no longer bound by what would have killed me dead in the tracks otherwise. I am being sneaky. Desires have gained possession of me. Desires that arise unknown to my conscious. These needs seem to stem from something more animal, something more inherent to the human than my conscience moulded by society.

I tell her things. She feels her magnetic charms working. I tell her of the wonderful things she has on offer. I articulate with handsome portions of praise and compliments. Suddenly, the conversation becomes flooded with expressions of love and desire. I tell her of the rarity of me kneeling down to a woman and licking feet. I tell her how I savor the delicious tang of her feet. I tell her how beautiful she looks, how wonderful she feels, how her aroma has got me imprisoned in something beautiful.

I sense something wild building up inside. We both feel it. We are aware of its increasing intensity. We are aware of the immediacy - of the eventuality, that this whole drama is escalating towards. We just sped past any countering rationality, way past the concerns for warnings from the wise crowds of humanity. We?ve landed in a fluidic space where just the two of us subsist. We?ve reached nirvana - a world of fantasy where actions need no justification.

Moments later, she is lying on this bare bed, she herself in all her nakedness. Her petite, brown, scrawny body sprawled under the dimmed lights above. The air stank of the spent energy of sexual gymnastics. Then, from some where deep in the still struggling sagacity of my mind there comes a warning. The warning is bleary. The warning appears meaningless. I refuse to take heed - the warning is wasted. I drift back from this momentary internal struggle to the present in all agility and swiftness. I lay entwined with her female body - both expended - and drift off into deep slumber.

***

Haha. This is wicked! It's my third day in Ungoofaaru of Maalhosmadulu Dhekunuburi (better known as Raa Atoll). I'm away from the honking of vehicles and grinding of construction machines of Male'. I'm free in the wild. Free in the abundance of nature.

Work is light and I get a lot of time for myself. I've completed the requirements analysis, developed a concept and I am now onto layout designs and systems setup. The prototype of the website would be up soon. I hope.

The day begins with energy. The bright sun,the blue ocean and the green and orange hues of palm trees really keeps me upbeat. The people here are relaxed and don't seem to have much to do. Amazingly, they've got two establishments offering Cable TV! There is also a CyberCafe here offering internet via dialup. (Speaking of internet, the GPRS connection wasn't worth the time or the effort!) The night sees the island go quieter, with the sounds of waves and swaying of trees becoming more prominent. The sky is dark and unpolluted and I can enjoy star gazing - I wish I brought the telescope. Venus is bright as ever and Mars makes the red dot unmissable. Scorpio and Libra constellations are visible directly overhead from 8pm to 10pm.

I took a stroll around the island yesterday, snapping some pictures to keep the sights stored for later. Here are a few…