#DhivehiMeehaa

Democracy!! Are we following it? -Maeed Mohamed Zahir- Countless years of struggle has achieved new changes! New experiences! New Visions! New Hopes! A new picture!! Struggle has achieved a so-called democracy in the small island nation of Maldives, which we call home. We have achieved a so-called press freedom, the right to speak freely, the very right to express our opinions, the basic right of peaceful assembly, to exercise basic human rights. Definitely we have seen a change. Change is happening. Change is taking place. And change will take its rightful place in due time. This brings us to a question! Is change itself a good thing or a bad thing? Has change brought democracy? Has change achieved democracy? Or rather the most appropriate question; whether we are following democracy? Well the constitution says we are! The constitution clearly states that “the Maldives is a sovereign, independent, democratic Republic based on the principles of Islam and is a unitary State”. So are we

DEATH OF A NATION...? Maeed M. Zahir “When a fisherman in an outer island of the Maldives, ventures out in to the sea at dawn, and watches the sun rising out of a deep azure sea, and observes spellbound the magic of a resplendent morning in the tropics; and when our young boys joyously swim in our crystal clear lagoons, drinking in the invigorating sea breeze to there heart’s, content; and when our people, both young and old, enjoy strolling on a moonlit beach, savoring nature at its very best, it is hardly possible that any of them would ever imagine that the beauty which is theirs today could be lost to others like them to a date in the not too distant future. Nor would any of our fishermen ever think that the sea which is bountiful source of his livelihood could, in a mater of decades, become his eternal grave. But that is precisely the prospect that we have to face today.” Maumoon Abdul Gayoom , Small states conference on sea level rise, Male’, 16 th November 1989. “Death of a nat