Making sense of Maldives politics: Lessons from Sewage Systems
July 22nd, 2010 § Leave a Comment
I’ll tell you a true story about a fellow Maldivian’s first encounter with a modern toilet but I guess you won’t be too interested in toilets unless it has something to do with politics. A word of caution though, if you’re easily disgusted with toilets (or politics for that matter) I strongly urge you NOT to read this.
The theory
It seems that a nation’s toilet history can tell a lot about its political ideology. This guy says it does. Slavoj Zizek rambles about everything under the sun but what’s interesting is his application of psychoanalysis (based on another’s work) to understand culture and ideology, particularly, his take on comparative toilet systems.
When comparing the French, Anglo-Saxon and German toilet systems, Zizek says that in the French toilet design the hole is at the back so when the excrement falls it vanishes quickly, in the Anglo-Saxon design the excrement floats in the water before it disappears, and in the German model the excrement falls on a flat surface where the contents can be examined before it is flushed through the front.
By Zizek’s reckoning, the French ideology is Leftist, the Anglo-Saxon’s ‘wait and see’ attitude is Moderate Liberalism, and the German interrogative attitude is of the ‘contemplative’ or ‘poetic’ variety making them Conservative.
Zizek then says that every culture believes that their toilet system makes more sense than others and “as soon as you flush you are right in the middle of ideology.”!
The interest
Curiously, there’s so much interest in the Maldivian sewage and sanitation that even the ADB has documented its evolution in the country. In fact, toilet systems are so important in the Maldivian context that the new Maldives Constitution (pdf) is probably the only one in the world that specifically refers to a sewage system.
Under article 23(f) of the lengthy 129-page constitution, the government is mandated to establish “a sewage system of a reasonably adequate standard on every inhabited island”: It’s quite serious actually. It is an “economic and social right” of every citizen.
According to ADB, within the last 60 years or so, Male’ went through 4 types of sewage systems: (1) open defecation, (2) ‘four-gear toilets’, (3) ‘Spaghetti network’, and then ended up with (4) a ‘formal network’.
Apart from the poor ADB officials not appreciating some of the Maldivian humor that went into those terms , ADB’s simple 4-stage model provides a good history of sewage system in Male, a model that perhaps applies to every inhabited island in the Maldives.
Going back to Zizek’s ideology question, does this mean the Maldives, was a sultanate for a long time (open defecation?), then speeded things up a bit with independence (four gears toilet?) and quickly shifted gears into some form of dictatorship (spaghetti network?), and finally ended up with a multi-party democracy (formal network?)?
I don’t know. But where are we heading now? Are we still shackled to the ‘spaghetti network’? Or are we evolving to a new ecologically sound and viable system like the traditional one (carbon-neutrality)? I really don’t know. (Do you?)
This brings me to the story of my friend, who knew nothing but the ‘open defecation’ system all his life until late in his teens he came face-to-face with a modern toilet. Although the story is embarrassing, he now recounts this one with a sense of reflection as much as with intent to entertain friends.
The encounter
On a week long trip with a group of friends to a more ‘developed’ island he got his first sight of a modern seated toilet and felt immediately uncomfortable because he didn’t know how to use it. So he kept delaying his ‘big business’ for as long as he could while he was being fed plenty — plentiful food is customary Maldivian hospitality. So he delayed using the dreaded toilet for as long as he could, but he was gradually going senseless holding the urge.
On the day of departure before the long sea journey back home, he just couldn’t hold it any longer so he had no choice but to sit down and use the toilet. And so he did his business. But right after that when started to think more clearly, he immediately got worried. He felt a rising panic because he didn’t know how to get rid of the contents deposited in the bowl.
You will not believe what his first instinct was, but he says, he wanted to scoop the contents into a bucket and bury it outside! But luckily for him, there was no bucket or anything to take it with.
Then he figured that it had something to do with pushing the excrement into the back chamber. He looked around and the first thing he saw was the Muslim shower next to the toilet.
He took the shower in one hand and started spraying into the toilet hoping that the added pressure would work somehow. But there just wasn’t enough force. So his next instinct was to force the contents into the chamber using the shower itself!
He started pumping it vigorously in and out hoping that this new force will make everything disappear saving him from the embarrassment that he thought he was in. Then matters got even worse.
It was departure time and everyone started looking for him. They heard him in the toilet and started to knock on the door. He panicked more.
I don’t know if his next move was instinctive or not. But what he did was, he put his free hand into the bowl. He started to break whatever touched his hand into smaller pieces. Then he began to push them all with his palm into the back chamber, while he still worked the shower in and out. But crisis didn’t seem to end.
It still would not go. It simply wouldn’t go, and his friends kept knocking on the door.
But by now, with no other option left, and losing hope, he began to pray for some miracle to happen as he kept pushing everything with all he had.
Then suddenly, his prayers were answered. In the scuffle he somehow hit the lever, and by God, in an instant he understood it. He understood the whole thing. Just like that. He understood how the system worked!
The punch
Before the punch line came, everyone will always start shouting and screaming at him, “Why the HELL didn’t you step outside and ask someone? You could’ve asked!”
And why didn’t he?
He would simply reply that it just didn’t cross his mind in the middle of it all.
I don’t know. Despite all the laughter and the good kick you get just by listening to him talk, I always get an uneasy feeling towards the end.
I think everyone on the outside does.
I think they wished he did know. At least, we all wished he had hit that lever a little sooner. (Didn’t you?)
And his punch line?
He couldn’t get the smell off his hands for days and days.
**********
Additional reading: The 4-stage model
For those interested in making MORE sense of Maldivies politics here’s a summary of the ADB’s 4-stage model.
Open defecation: “The country’s kilometric beaches offered the most natural place to relieve one’s self (or “burying mines”…), without making any lasting [environmental] damage [or] exploitation for almost 2000 years.” (The Maldivian word for beach is ‘gondu’ and ‘athiri’ which carries some negative connotations.)
Four gears toilet: Habits changed “on a mega-scale in the 1970s, when the “four gears toilet” was introduced… using an iron bar or strong wooden stick, a hole was dug following the action of how one “changes gears” when driving a vehicle. The resulting hole became the defecation area and was usually near the shallow wells that supplied water to households.
Spaghetti network: “In the late 1980s… people realized how unhygienic practices can lead to groundwater pollution, and directly affect their health. Unfortunately, the government did not have the funds nor the expertise to lay a proper sewer network so people simply laid sewer pipes from their property to the sea…. The result was a “spaghetti network” that … became clogged. Floods became common.”
‘Formal’ network: The “…groundwater aquifer started to break down as sewage seeped in from the top while salt water penetrated the sides and bottom. The deterioration continued until 1988 when a formal sewer network was installed to help slow down the aquifer’s total collapse.”
New diplomacies
July 14th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
We all know about sports diplomacies which started with ping-pong diplomacy and now goes well with anything from soccer, cricket, golf, World Cup or even chessboard diplomacy. And then there are the media diplomacies that began with phone diplomacy and now the new internet diplomacy with offshoots like sms, facebook and twitter diplomacy.
Even Berlusconi has a new diplomacy which he calls ‘peek-a-boo’ diplomacy. If you don’t know what that is, it refers to surprising someone (preferably in a diplomatic setting) followed by conversation that includes highly sexist remarks.
Here are some new diplomacies…
Additions to kitchen, dinner or culinary diplomacies
Obama’s burger or hot-dog diplomacy refers to taking high level officials in expensive suits to fast food restaurants. If needed, have an extra drink and it becomes beer diplomacy. (aka cheeseburger, or hell burger diplomacy. Not to mix with pisco diplomacy or poppy diplomacy)
Dumpukht diplomacy and mango diplomacy are possible ways of reducing tension between India and Pakistan. Odd, but the equivalent variety for Israel and Palestine is spice diplomacy.
Important note! Oil spill diplomacy has nothing to do with preparation of food for diplomacy. It goes with other diplomacies of epic proportions such as seismic diplomacy. Also the use of Buddha bar and divine diplomacy should be avoided at all costs but it’s okay to adopt strategies that use utensils like two-pronged diplomacy.
Moving to the bedroom….
Bedside diplomacy is not for couples but involves performing diplomatic acts while ailing in bed.
Ram diplomacy, solo diplomacy or back door diplomacy are not things you do in bed, nor is sofa diplomacy doing something you do in bed, on a sofa. The first refers to a God (that’s why the ‘R’ is in cap), the second refers to freelancing your diplomatic skills (which is frowned upon), the third – well you know the idea, and the fourth is something to do with ‘couchsurfing’ which is quite obvious – as the name implies, it’s connecting travellers with locals!
What you wear is important. Loud shirt diplomacy is a form of dressing for South Pacific forums that Australians have perfected. Shoe diplomacy or its more complex variety shoe-leather diplomacy is something the Americans have perfected in the Middle-East (see video of how this happens).
Diplomacies that sound cute
Fluffy diplomacy is the kind of diplomacy you’d do with pom-poms in your hands. Panda diplomacy is anything the Chinese does to woo another country with pandas in their hands. RoboCat diplomacy happens when the Japanese hands over any kind of robot as a gift.
Dolphin diplomacy does not however involve hands or humans, it’s just dolphins being diplomats.
The kind designed to make diplomats think
Does gangland diplomacy and playground diplomacy have anything in common? Or what’s the difference between missile diplomacy and pelt diplomacy?
What does flexible diplomacy or workable diplomacy really mean? We already know you’re only flexible during and after that national day reception and unworkable the next morning.
Hypothetically speaking if you’re inactive and ineffective, does active and effective diplomacy only apply to your counterparts? Does follow-up diplomacy mean that you have to clear that stack of unfinished work on your desk before your term ends? Or why do people talk about negative diplomacy when all you’re trying to be is positive?
But why in the name of God is there a politically incorrect diplomacy when all you’ve learnt is to be politically correct every time? And why is there such a thing called Shoot-Yourself-in-the-Foot Diplomacy when the whole point is not to use guns?
But if you’re feeling too sorry for yourself by now you can always cry out loudly – poor diplomacy! – a scream heard in Bangladesh when someone realizes that “diplomats are not diplomatic enough” when they’re not performing their duties.
Finding lazzath at home
May 9th, 2010 § 4 Comments
I was back home a few weeks ago and on the second day I thought I should do my slow one hour jog around Male’ to see the capital of what foreigners call paradise slowly wake up after dawn.
My jog always begins near the Republican Square, the tip of the northern face of the island. As I walked towards the Square I glanced at a banner jutting out of the trees of the Islamic Centre. It advertised the newly initiated weekend series of Islamic sermons of the evangelical sort. The Dhivehi words on the banner declared something about Paradise being filled with lazzath and comfort.
I began jogging across the Square towards the main jetty with the large national flag hoisted on my right, flanked by the headquarters of the central bank and the police, and leaving behind me the Islamic affairs ministry and what seemed to have become the integrated headquarters of the defense forces.
Past the jetty, as I picked up my pace, and nearing the strip of road where the pavement suddenly disappears in front of the President’s Office, I came face to face with a morning jogger who had a long beard and wore three-quarter track-pants. I smiled. He was smiling but I was unsure if he was smiling at me.
Male
Further down the road, past the artificial sail of the Chinese-donated Foreign Ministry building and right before the Hulhumale Ferry Terminal I saw the Maldivian diplomat who stood beside the then president in that black and white photo of the Maldives quietly signing its independence from the British. We smiled as he walked past me. His smile is always genuine. I remembered the first time he smiled at me when I was a child. Since then I am never quite sure if his smiles were out of recognition or it’s the familiar smile that everyone gets.
As I turned the corner near the ad-hoc carnival that cropped up at north-eastern corner of Male’, and continued to jog the eastern stretch surrounding the Artificial Beach, I noticed that there were more women than men doing the power-walk. The women had hardly changed their jogging attires except most of them now wore an additional black cloth covering their heads.
Somewhere between the Artificial Beach and the Tsunami Monument, I suddenly realized that my first boss just jogged past me. I thought I might not be able to have another opportunity to say hello so I quickly doubled back and smiled, and said hello. We exchanged a few words while we jogged, and then I said good-bye and turned around and sprinted back towards the Monument with Male’s surf softly roaring and the morning sun rising higher to my left.
On my right I saw an old school mate carrying a small baby on his shoulder. We instantly smiled smiles of recognition. For a while after that I tried to recollect his name and wondered if he was doing the same.
The roar of the surf faded and the noise of the people in and around the Swimming Tract began to grow louder. Past the tract I slowed down almost abruptly realizing that I had reached the mid-point of my jog when I again came face to face with the bearded man from the north side of the island. I began to slow-walk now, looking at the boats safely behind the Japanese-donated seawall.
A man with glimmering white hair who looked familiar walked past me. Then I remembered the gentleman. I was more used to seeing him in his graceful military attire with colorful decorations.
Soon I reached the military barracks near the south-west harbour of Male’. I laughed at the thought of these barracks being renamed the less-integrated headquarters of the defence forces. Suddenly, I was startled by the barks of an army drill sergeant inside the barracks matching his troops to his roars of ‘lefts’ and ‘rights’. I walked faster.
Along the harbour front towards the Villingili Ferry Terminal I noticed the harbour had more pick-up trucks than boats. As I approached the Terminal, from a distance, I saw that Englishman who had stayed with my family on a few occasions long ago. I wanted to say hello but he disappeared into the terminal before I could reach him. I made a mental note to catch up with him if I can before I leave.
I always liked the relative calmness of the western seafront right after the Indian-donated hospital. As I walked that stretch of road listening to the sea, the quietness was mildly invaded by some old men sitting lazily but fully engaged in a heated argument. I walked past them. I couldn’t help chuckle as I overheard them say something about the importance of camels.
Then I walked along the north-western corner of the island beginning the end of my walk heading back towards the main jetty. Again, a man carrying a small baby, this time it’s someone I do not know. There is always dead silence in that corner of Male’ when the port is asleep. The trucks were parked along the face of the port, their wheels lined up as if they were standing in attention patiently waiting for the day’s parade.
While I was walking past the Fish Market with the morning sun on my face something caught my attention. I frowned at the sight.
Dragging yellow-fins in half containers
The fishermen were dragging their catch noisily along the street in modified buckets made of half- or quarter-cuts of blue plastic containers. I was rather bewildered at seeing them drag their fish in such a laborious way. Why can’t they come up with a way to wheel their catch across the short distance to the market? One of those hand trucks or something similar would do, even if anything mechanized or hand carts have now become impractical.
At first I was a little irritated by the noise and mildly annoyed at the sight of people doing things in a way that do not make sense to me. But then I quickly corrected myself as I realized that I’m being too critical about something I do not know anything about. I automatically started to comfort myself with that old mantra there being a reason why people do the things they do, the way they do it.
In any case my jog ended as I had now reached the banner under which the morning began. At that moment my gaze locked on the red words on the banner as it became less clearer in the new daylight. Lazzath aa araamun furingenvaa Suvaruge. Lazzath? But what is lazzath? How is Paradise filled with lazzath? What the hell does lazzath mean! The feeling of irritation and annoyance returned.
I wanted to know if everyone was as ignorant as I. The next few days I asked whoever I met if they can tell me what lazzath meant. No one seemed to have a clue as to the exact definition. A few even thought that it was borderline blasphemy to ask such a question. But most of them made genuine attempts to guess the meaning.
One of them said that it must be something to do with the extraordinary comfort and happiness experienced in Paradise. Another thought it had something to do with the cool temperature there. (Male’ was experiencing a heat wave during that week). And a younger member of family thought it is highly likely that lazzath refers to the virgins in Paradise.
After every guess each of them laughed and quickly suggested that I look it up in the dictionary, instead of asking around, if I genuinely wanted to know the correct meaning.
Publicizing the comforts
I didn’t bother. Neither they nor I have that dictionary.
Two days after the jog I ran into a friend behind the President’s Office. While we were talking, from a distance, I saw the Englishman again this time briskly walking in shirt and tie in the mid-day sun. As I watched him disappear into the building across the road I tried to recollect the last time we met. I couldn’t recall when it was or what we talked about but I remembered that somehow had always been catching up with him every few years or so ever since I’ve known him as a child. He seems to have always lived around this region.
Next week on my way back while I stopped over in Colombo for a few days I kept repeating the same question about lazzath. Someone older explained it very simply. She said that the word lazzath embodied all the beautiful feelings experienced in Paradise like sweetness, deliciousness, ease and goodness of it all.
Back in Kuala Lumpur, as I lay floating on the water cooling down after a swim looking up at the gathering dusk, I thought about my recent jog around Male’. I still don’t get that word even after I finally heard its meaning. Then I wondered why so many people from paradise choose to dream and live in comforts found in other worlds and have quit looking for lazzath at home.
Remote elections in Maldive Islands abroad
March 27th, 2010 § 2 Comments
A comment on Ediplomacy Conference blog got me thinking about the number of Maldivians living abroad.
The 2008 first multiparty presidential elections was opened for the first time to the Maldivian electorate overseas. Maldivians generally travel abroad for all types of training and education, all sorts of medical treatment, and for economic and sociopolitical reasons… No, not due to climate change as recent news would have you believe . 20,000 Maldivians have not packed up and moved to coastal cities (?!) in Sri Lanka because the country is sinking. We’re actually quite bogged down by our own economic, social and political problems so we haven’t seriously started environmental migration to other countries.
The overseas voter turnout in the 2008 elections (below) gives a good gauge of the concentration of Maldivians in cities abroad. Maldivians also voted in the May 2009 parliamentary elections but the turn out was much lower. (271 people turned up in Kuala Lumpur for the parliamentary elections (this figure from Haveeru.com), and for the other cities, I can’t find the data for that election on the web).
In the ruff-off presidential elections, out of a total population of about 300,000 (2006), 181,000 Maldivians voted. About 2% of those votes came from overseas.
| Initial Round | Run-off | |
| Colombo | 1,111 | 1,180 |
| Trivandrum | 1,030 | 1,122 |
| Kuala Lumpur | 952 | 1,144 |
| Singapore | 181 | 218 |
| London | not conducted | 157 |
| Overseas voters | 3,274 | 3,821 |
| Total voters | 177,802 | 181,204 |
| % of overseas voters | 1.8% | 2.1% |
Now, 2% is not an insignificant number in the Maldives, where except for a few population centers like Male’, people are sparsely scattered around far-flung islands. An island with a population as little as 100 is considered inhabited.
Out of the 194 inhabited islands, 131 islands (68%) have less than 1,000 people, and of these 131 islands, 72 (more than half) have less than 500 people. Only 7 of the inhabited islands have more than 3000 people.
What is intriguing is that this makes a country like Malaysia – with the third largest Maldivian population abroad of more than 3500* nationals – one of those states that already hosts a sizable Maldives island within itself!
*A guesstimate. About 2500 students/residents, and traveling average of, say, 1000 people– likely much higher these days. All other data here from 2006 census, census analysis and Elections Commission website).
What’s electronic about e-diplomacy?
March 22nd, 2010 § 1 Comment
Just to clear my mind on the issue of defining ‘electronic diplomacy’. What is diplomacy and what is electronic about e-diplomacy?
Berridge and James define diplomacy as “the conduct of relations between sovereign states through the medium of officials based at home or abroad”. It is “the principle means by which states communicate with each other, enabling them to have regular and complex relations. It is the communications system of the international society” (Berridge and James, 2003).
William Assanvo defines e-diplomacy as “a new diplomacy resulting from the association of ICTs and other electronic tools to conduct diplomatic activities (diplomatic information, communication, representation, negotiation, etc.).” He says that “In the term ‘e-Diplomacy’, the key element is not electronic but diplomacy. E-Diplomacy remains Diplomacy not electronics.”
If diplomacy is the ‘communications system of the international society’, then e-diplomacy is the new tool of that communication system. Using electronic tools in diplomacy serves two functions: It is a vehicle that enhances communication between states (diplomacy: i.e. diplomatic representation and negotiation), and it is also a vehicle that carries a nation’s foreign policy message across, both within and outside its physical boarders (foreign policy: i.e. public diplomacy, consular diplomacy and all the other buzz words).
The ‘diplomacy’ in e-diplomacy assumes that the tool should serve a state’s national interests. It is naïve to assume that states will not (or should not) carve out boundaries on the Internet whenever and wherever it suits the country. While China will seemingly attempt to control the web arguably as part of its cyberwarfare, the U.S. will seemingly commit to internet freedom as part of its efforts to promote human rights. In some instances, states themselves may not visibly pursue these interests, but legal issues create those boundaries. For instance, copyright laws and the possibility of civil liability suits now make some web content inaccessible to those outside a country’s borders.
It is easy to confuse the concept of internet freedom with e-diplomacy. The web is a fantastic tool to promote citizen participation and pluralism, but it is idealist to think that the web is a platform that equally serves all foreign policy goals. Like it has been done in physical space, the web too is one foreign policy space where each state attempts to engage with the ‘international society’ and exercise control over that space, either by promoting web freedom or web censorship in only areas where it suits them.
In this sense, there is nothing ‘electronic’ about e-diplomacy.
Musing on ‘e-diplomacy’
March 9th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
In the next several weeks, I’ll be working with the blogger team preparing for the E-Diplomacy Conference in Malta, from 3-4 June 2010.
The conference, organized by DiploFoundation, aims to cover all aspects of the impact of the Internet on diplomacy. The team will be posting occasional blogs about the topic, and linking pre-conference and conference participants to resources and similar discussions.
I’ll be focusing on two themes identified in the preliminary field map for the conference: The use of the Internet in consular affairs and crisis management, and eDiplomacy for small states.
I’ll be involved in the preparation for the E-Diplomacy Conference in Malta, from 3-4 June 2010. The conference, organized by DiploFoundation, aims to cover all aspects of the impact of the Internet on diplomacy.
I’m tasked with organizing the ‘e-consular’ space on the conference website. I’ll be posting occasional blogs, linking pre-conference and conference participants to resources on the use of ICT/Internet in consular activities, and to similar discussions on the web.
My attention is particularly drawn to two preliminary themes identified in the field map for the conference.
- Use of the Internet in consular affairs and crisis management (Theme 9)
- Best practices in the field of e-consul affairs (online visa applications, up-to-date country news)
- Publicizing risks and warnings to citizens abroad
- Crisis management – faster news dissemination on Web 2.0, easier communications in times of disaster, disaster relief coordination
- E-diplomacy for small states (Theme 13)
- Can e-diplomacy help overcome the financial and human limitations of diplomatic services of small states?
- Can virtual conferencing and tele-presence help small states to increase their ‘diplomatic footprint’?
Existing online
March 6th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
It’s funny how we don’t really feel like we exist unless we exist online. I’m having those feelings again.
On this blog, I’ll be tracking what I’m working on and some of the things on my mind.
