President Maumoon Abdul Gayyoom of
Maldives and his supporters accuse Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP)
and all pro-reform Maldivians of chasing a dream of wealth and
riches and life in the Presidential palace, even though he has shown
that he cannot bear to live his life in an ordinary house or even a
palace (Muliaage) by building a super palace fit for a millionaire
with all the worldly comforts and riches while 40% of our population
is living below poverty.
(Pic: The 'Gayoom' multi million
dollar Palace)
Gayyoom, in his public speeches
regularly uses phrases of the Quran to advise and warn the public to
not go after the riches of this world saying its temporary and aim
for life Hereafter, while he does the opposite with his rich life
style wasting millions from our money. To support his (and his
cronies) rich lifestyle the government has built an extremely large
Palace in Male’, Special resort style Hide-away Palace in an island,
a Million dollar Yacht and many countless building for his friends
of various levels, while the majority of population lives without
even the basic services.
(Pic:
Big Brother looks on at his subjects from the beach)
Mr. Gayyoom accuses MDP and all
pro-reform Maldivians that they all are anti-Islamic and trying to
spread practices from other religions while his policy is to
prohibit any Islamic thought and practices that may threaten his
power, even if it means imprisoning religious scholars who call for
reform. Fareed is a good example of that. He is a decent man with a
better religious education than Gayyoom, jealously has forced
Gayyoom to lock up Fareed.
He also seems determined to erase any
religious lifestyle we have by neglecting youth which is drifting
from their culture and values making them confused and lost. They do
not have access to better education or employment opportunities
either. The youth then resort to drugs and delinquency. They only
seem to be finding meaning with the help of drug dealers and not
fancy School and College Buildings. In the meantime the public keep
wondering whether it would be such a hard job catching these drug
traders from such a tiny place (often less than a mile) like Male’
and other Maldivian Islands.
As part of his image that he projects
to the public, Mr. Gayyoom comes across as a compassionate and a
kind person but he is more sinister than he seems. By pardoning
sentences of drug traffickers, traders, robbers (in a bid to keep
the public scared and unstable) while tightening his grip on
prisoners of conscience and going ahead with imprisoning the
educated and the intellectual of the society who dare to criticize
his misguided and poorly thought out policies; confirming lack of
ability to decide like a normal person who needs to be pardoned and
with home you need to get tough in this situation.
Mr. Gayyoom accuses MDP and all
pro-reform Maldivians that they are hungry for power while he has
shown that he will never hesitate to do anything to cling to power,
even if it means using fear, torture, intimidation techniques and
even murder. Proving he is mad for power.
With all this, Mr. Gayyoom has proved
that unlimited and prolonged power in any person could be very
dangerous to him or herself and to the whole society and it could
make even a decent person another Hitler or a Saddam. All of us need
to learn from this and handle power with utmost caution making sure
we give it up before it start to corrupt us and join that rare kind
of universally loved species called Nelson Mandela.
As a Maldivian citizen, I wait for a
day when we will remember our leaders with fondness and love. The
last we had is Mohamed Thakurufaanu, (M.T ) and Dhon Bandaarain, (D.B
who even turned down the offer to be a king several times but
finally accepted when he saw the need). We and our parents’
generation have failed to produce such leaders. Perhaps the 20th
and 21st century leaders we have do not understand the
century they are in and the success factors to be such a leader in
this century. Anyone who wants to join the ranks of M.T and D.B, be
our guest.
Dear Mr President Gayyoom; Try leading by
example. You still have four year to leave a legacy and reverse the
people’s negative opinions of you. Use it wisely. We want you to
succeed being a better human being.
