The news about all opposition groups and their multitude of factions posturing as a single political unit challenging the goernment reminds the very first time in the recent history of Maldives, people of all sorts gathered together in one place in the Republican square on Aug 12th.The extra-ordinary nature of August 12th event was not about the huge number of people or its aftermath.But the perplexing reasons why people of diverging thoughts could converge on one platform. Meaning how could 'Islamists' who were calling for penal codes(as if societal transformation will start with penal code) of Islam to be implemented converge with another camp who were calling for Western style democracy.Perhaps when the Islamist speaker was speaking about Shariah punishment for fornicators and thieves,he didnt realise that he was speaking in a platform that was organised by people who represented the antithesis of what he is representing(Or perhaps all he wanted was bits of Islam to be sprinkled within a secular democratic framework). But surprisingly enough, these two camps found a 'common framework' because both were uttering the same phrase 'I hate the government' using the same pronunciation although the meanings(if they understood things on a doctrinal level) were diverging to two distinct directions.

Similarly, this so called ‘National Alliance’ is based on nothing more than empty slogans. Simply uttering the catcy phrase ‘I am an opposition to the government’ even with the same pronunciation does not indicate cohesiveness or unity.

Related

Archive

Series of Thoughts (Dhivehi)