Chapter 03

3
PRESIDENT CAPRICORN

“I’m talking about invasion, Mr President,” said Mehdi, “Invading India, invasion by means of migration. My company finances the islanders in India, give them loans to build houses, buy cars, run businesses, for our people covering a wide range of towns in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, in Pondicherry too. You seem not worried about Brahmins troubles on our people in India. Whether they’re in India or England, they’re our people. It is your duty to reach out for them. Your government must be helping the Maldivian islanders and toughen foreign policies so that you achieve objectives to help the people and fund the people. Your embassies should do a better job, open banks, firms, institutes, schools, in those places and that’s how you reach out to them.”

“I heard enough. I regret our citizens deported and freezing our interests. Some profiled in India under the act of terrorism but how do you find terrorism in the Maldives! Prime Minister promised me to establish a special police unit to look after Maldivian houses and interests in Kerala. I am bound to pay another visit to India in just about few months.”

“Mr President. That is nowhere near enough. You are going through routine diplomacy. You’ll never reach out to them this way. You have to establish direct links with the local governments, establish a network of spies and institutes to deal with the islanders in India. I mean, ways to finance and protect our interests.”

“We do not have enough capital and that’s outside Maldives Law.”

“Does it matter? You simply need to support private enterprises to build a network of your links to them. I’m not asking the government to act outside law. You cannot send police to investigate matters in foreign territory but you can use other means of intelligence, private businesses and institutes and let them assist the police. You will obtain no cooperation if you tend to go by diplomatic means.”

President Capricorn sighed, “You are talking about invasion of a mighty nation by the tiniest country in the world. We do not have such capability even to finance a network of private agents or any business. Do you believe it worth feasible or reliable? We can never dream to invade India in five hundred years.”

“Mr President. I’m dreaming about it now. Your definition of invasion is occupation.”

Mehdi stood up with his glass and stepped to stand by the bullet-proof panel that gave a view of Malé International Airport lying in the cloudy sphere, speedboats drawing lines in the murky sea, waterfront of the capital full of activities and people. Mehdi said, “I can remember during the Iraq War, though I happened not to be your regular visitor, you people did fanditha for Saddam Hussein’s defence while your international calls sent a message supporting the international coalition. I know that’s politics but my definition of invasion means being invaded. For instance, think if India invaded the Maldives, no doubt there is going to be no difference of Maldives invading India. Why do you think that EU of all nations is crying over spilt milk of standards and values that they realised only now? After the colonial era and mismanaged migration, Africans are there, Asians are there, Moslems are there, Islam is there. Expansion of European boarder and all that have dropped its values and if they do not want to realise new standards and new values, they will never apprehend how much they been invaded. We have to develop concatenations in our relationships of some social and economical nature to demand unity of needs and norms with India or even the rest of the world. See what happens next.”

“Migrants must integrate with laws and model of a nation but I got your point, coexistence looks like a free choice if we’re wise enough otherwise occurs when there is no other choice like the laws of nature.”

“Migrants will not integrate. If they do, these Bangladeshis would have done or those Pakis in the UK would have done. Integration for one thing I do agree but it is a must and a must not always do. All we do is applying laws and force things to work.” Mehdi returned to the seat. “France and Bavaria wanted the girls not to wear headscarves. You cannot call it a norm, you call it law. It’s kind of thing to bring about laws and nowhere near to call a unity. Unity means to respect instinctive differences and absorb them to perform in some kind of harmony…tolerance. That’s not integration. Imagine, Al-Quds, if it’s a mosque or a synagogue or a church, you cannot expect them to combine faith but you can expect people to coalesce under the roof.”

“Integration means uniting together and mixing with people ignoring differences.”

“Indeed. From one point of view…that maybe true. On the other hand, migrants would expect you to accept a bit of their share of style or culture and that is what we can hardly stand because we know our values and standards are rather more civilised than them. We banned Indian three-wheelers because we cannot stand to watch them on our streets. British Prime Minister said after his talks with Bashar al-Assad, ‘These guys don’t think like we do in the West.’ He’s got no idea how the East and West differ...the problems, the culture and the situation…

“Look at these walls, Mr President. See no evil, hear no evil! I feel we got no time to sit and do nothing. You have ruled for thirty years warming this chair. Not a soul placed his arse on it and that expensive Japanese model toilet seat. Our time is running out, Mr President. You better listen to the Devil or your troubles are just getting started. What would you do in the next term election? How are you going to win? The Matadors are pulling down your pants.”

“You are right. The Matadors are strong but I cannot leave this post to fall Maldives into the hands of a rivalry or another form of capitalism. I want to be the last man to rule this country with this kind of authority and make sure nobody gets absolute power after me. I have confidence to win my next term election.”

“Well, Mr President. You might be right. But you have to establish serious democracy before you go. All the islanders are relying on you to do just that. But you have delayed the process and I still do not find a proper framework of dismantled powers. There’s a long way to go. You missed one good opportunity and now you got to create one. Sometimes I feel that you want to be in power until the year 2020. Does genuine support mean anything to you?”

“It does. I am certainly worried. My next term will be tough.”

“You are left with one year before the election. Use your power to win some votes.”

“How do you mean?” asked the President.

“First, you can bring down the 3000 signatures required to form a political party to a 1000.”

“I can see your interest. I am not letting you bring your MUM political party to recognition. You are calling on rights of religion. It’s the last thing I will do in my power. Your doctrine is outside our Rules and Law that conflicts with our culture and society, it deviates from Islam. No.”

“Perhaps, formation of several political parties might reduce support for Matadors. Don’t you see that possible? There are many individuals interested to form political parties on every island. Don’t you see?”

“Right, I do not see harmful coalitions forming up from political parties and obviously that is a gamble to decrease Matador support. I see every region forming small parties if we bring down the signatures.”

“Mr President, that’s not all you have to do. You got little time to win the support of the southerners, your weakest sector. But by changing tourism policy to apply a Cancun concept with private businesses, I am talking about privatising tourism, there is still a way.”

“What’s a Cancun concept?”

“Well, in Cancun, Mexico, you find city-centred businesses adjoined with a reef of luxury hotels with an airport lying on one end. It’s just like a reef from Gan Island to Hithadu Central. The difference there is that the people depend entirely on tourism. Your plan by bidding out five hotels on that reef to five international hotel chains will provide few jobs, say 1000 jobs, and the people cannot depend on tourism by running their own businesses because those five hotels will provide all services and facilities to sell all-inclusive packages. Restaurants, bars, airlines, travel agencies, water sports, diving, laundry, taxis, guides, excursions, sweeping and you name it, everything will be done by their staff and organised by the hotels. And that means only a limited number of people and families will benefit from tourism applied in Addu. A handful of people will have access to the tourists like you find here on these isolated islands around Malé. Nobody can reach them unless the guests come to them. What’s more, if they employed unskilled foreign labour!

“I’m insisting that you allow tourism related businesses and service outlets, including city hotels and motels to come up in those islands of Fèydu, Maradu, Hithadu, even Huludu and Meedu, to build on private property by the people of Addu. Anybody with money or land property will then benefit from tourism. Addu people are moneyed.”

“It’s a radical change. We do not have a strategy outlined for that.”

“But you don’t have time to plan a strategy.”

“And how am I going to do it?”

“You can fire the fat boy and replace him with Mr Mohamed Faizal. If you give him the go-ahead signal, he’s the one to do it.”

“I can’t just sack the Tourism Minister! I got to make an arrangement to change his post.”

“Oh shit! You change him to polish your shoes. He could not defend his country from placing Buddha in paradise on his watch.”

“All those who live in paradise go to hell in the hereafter. Obviously, I have no objection with Mr Faizal but you’re talking about a strategy that we have denied before. It doesn’t apply to the Maldives Rules and Law.”

“Look! You got support of some loyal followers and a bunch of extremists, just a handful of votes from the populated Southern Region. The rest of the society is supporting capital reforms. They need jobs now. They need tourism to come fast in private hands. They are a large segment of the society. If you do this, your vote changes instantly and those who favour the Matadors will be supporting you.”

“You are asking me to betray my followers.”

“Do you care? Your vote only counts.”

“You’re talking about a strategy that will bring influential changes to our society and religion. This is the reason why my government wants to allocate four airport destinations first to build tourist attractions so that no one feels left out and we have a better control to manage these facilities. It will also enable us to build a national airliner if we can fly more flights.”

“I’m asking you to disband that idea and give priority to privatisation at this stage rather than state interest. That massive ambition, that dream of yours, of a flag-carrier airline is something I detest very much. We cannot compete with even an Indian domestic airliner. If you open up a hotel in every airport island, that means technically, we are opening 100 percent of the Maldives to tourism and exposure of an indigenous society to the broad western world. I do not think we can cope with that. In four decades of tourism history, Maldives has opened only 10 percent to the world. You can see those kids in Ari Atoll speak Italian like their mother tongue. Well, that’s fine but we managed because of the small size. If Addu zone is open, that will make 20 percent of the country open, it’s a practicable area to focus and to monitor, at the same time, a considerable area to solve all overpopulation problems and unemployment even at fifty times greater than this. I don’t expect our working community to be immobile and the government provide jobs. No. Working community must move seeking jobs in this type of geographical environment. The jobs may be fixed at the southern sector if open for business.

“We must start this money-making machine of a southern tourism zone without any delay and then think about development for the Northern Region.”

“People in the atolls would demand something. It’s unfair to create such imbalance.”

“You have allocated zones before, like I said. In the 80’s, you allocated Ari Atoll Zone for tourism. You can allocate this plan only to Addu Atoll and Fua Mulak. You can bring reasons and criteria why Addu and Fua Mulak are applicable for this plan, say an infrastructure, an airport, a police force to serve tourism, management on auditing businesses and apply income tax in this new zone, they stand an educated populace and large scale unemployment, another reason…transport efficiency. You need to find a way to get rid of this parté retreat to Addu. Malé will observe lessening of people and that paves way for low prices to charge electricity or water. Count the figures, Malé and southern atolls against the rest of the Maldives, that’s the load of votes you need to focus now.”

“I know. We don’t have a system for taxation.”

“So we introduce one.”

“That’s impossible. I can only consult with the cabinet and seek an approval from the Parliament.”

“No. If you want to do in a proper manner, you will never be able to make it on time.”

“Taxation?”

“You don’t have to call it a tax, say a tariff.”

“No. You know what? You have a poor plan and it’s asking for major changes in policy. Soon you find Addu people deviating from religion and it’s profoundly controversial to Islam to allow a nation to deviate from religion.”

“You’ve got to deviate from religion for a while and face the facts on the ground. You find liquor sales and narcotics, business profits and bank interest. These are controversial to Islam but they exist here. If you find a non-Moslem among us, it does not mean that we are deviating from Islam. We are in no way throwing our country to deviate from religion or culture and we aren’t calling our people to follow a new faith. Forget about Islam. Religion doesn’t belong to the soil or mountains. It’s in our hearts.”

“This idea evidently favours your doctrine of multi-culture and freedom of religions.”

“Look, I’m doing this for you. There is nothing conflicting about Islam here. We are doing this for the betterment of our people and my religion…Islam. I want to see you in this seat to bring about a democracy. Only then, Islam will thrive. At the same time, we have got no power to hold Islam inside somebody’s soul. It leaves as it please.”

“What do you want from this?”

“Just get my man in there. Give me a guarantee that he remains in the post for five years.”

“Two years.”

“Two years, then. And that’s not all. I will build hotels in Addu Atoll and my effort to start flights but certainly, I’m not going to use illegal means. I’ll play by the rules.”

Capricorn smiled, “I can see that you bring in foreign investments and soon this goes out of control. And you will pay for this.”

“Come on, Mr President! It surely brings foreign investments. By law you keep restriction that freehold tourism only applies to Addu region. And see how we can manage foreign investments and interests. You are remarkably popular for control over matters and not slightly deterred from these demonstrations and IED blasts around here. By the way, Mr President, I wish to hear your support on Indian Prime Minister’s proposal. I am interested to seek fund for the Kela Energy Project.”

“Mr Mehdi, it’s a confidential proposal I cannot discuss. I’m aware of your connection to Brazil. What is your interest in it?”

“It supports investments from Africa and Latin America. There is this new mapping to link the Southern Hemisphere from China to Brazil, since Doha debates failed to bring reforms by the EU and the US to open up free trade and break up the barriers between the West and the Third World. I figure that South African Express Airways flying this route will soon touchdown in the Maldives. Flying routes are changing…new horizons and destinations. This is a trade war, Mr President, Southern Cross against North Star. Spice wars and now soya war. The whole point is the reason why western riches only tend to invest in this region. And it obliges putting aside Middle Eastern countries who invested in the US. To my knowledge, the IBSA is initiated by the SA President but it undermines economical ties we have with the Arab nations, maybe thousands of job opportunities to Asia but not for a Maldivian...not for Maldives. It does not serve us, there’s not a single job fit for a lazy Maldivian. We have substantial resources in Africa, China, Russia, India and Latin America. Why not allow all of them here in this hemisphere? We don’t have a connection earlier but now we do. Even SAARC should be replaced by ION – Indian Ocean Nations for trade and mutual relationship from Australia to South Africa. Mr President, this world is changing and when it changes we change with it.”

“It’s still the western interests investing in the south.”

“Correct. So, where is the American Air Force?” M