MANDELA OF THE MALDIVES
Last week, news from the Maldives sounded like a Hollywood movie. The battle scarred hero, still limping from the work of his torturers, imprisoned 13 times in so many years, beats his former jailer in a national election on a paradise island. The hero also has a catchy nickname - “The Mandela of The Maldives”. He even has an English connection, being educated at university in Liverpool.
Swamped by the bloated USA election, the up beat news from the Maldives received little attention. But it was a historic day for the new President and his country; Mohammed Nasheed is only the 3rd president since the UK granted the series of atolls independence in 1965. Nasheed has battled for decades against the 30 year old dictatorship that controlled the country: Amnesty made him a Prisoner of Conscience in 1991 when he was imprisoned for writing for the popular political magazine Sangu; in 1992 he was sentenced to three years imprisonment for ‘withholding information’; he was then rearrested in 1994, 1995 and 2001.
Despite his treatment at the hands of former dictator Gayoom, Nasheed has extended extreme humility, pledging a pension and adequate security for the former rule: “A test of our democracy will be how we treat (the former regime). I don’t think we should be going for a witch hunt and digging up the past”. How many other leaders could just bury a past of imprisonment, harassment and torture?
So Nasheed trumps McCains war hero and maverick card. Is he down with the kidz like Obama though? The youth of the Maldives certainly hope so. According to the Asian Development Bank, youth unemployment is as high as 22% for men and 41% for women. Worse, 90% of students do not pass their GCSE equivalent exams. With no qualifications and no jobs, it’s unsprusinly half the country is in poverty - despite hundreds of thousands of tourists visiting the islands every year. Nasheed’s job is turning the money spent by tourists’ sipping cocktails into students passing exams. Despite the tough task ahead, Nasheed's victory proves peaceful, but determined, efforts can turn a dictatorship into a democracy. Hope for a better world lies elsewere than America.