2 responses to “Political "Cults" of the Maldives”

1. 

   Shihab

   February 18, 2008 at 3:25 pm

   Heaven, Thank you for your comment. I managed to write it on my own, like the rest. Actually right now I don’t believe we have political parties (generally speaking)… they are more like “cults” to me. And they are bound by the “interests” of the leader than the masses. That is an opinion I hold. I recently met an international rights expert who told me that he felt our politics was in a very immature stage (in early development). He told me that a group of young political activists who met him, had the attitude “if you are not with us, you are against us!” He told me that it would take some time to actually have such attitudes wear off, and a platform of mutual respect of opponents in politics develep. My fear is that it will take a long time to have an environment where political opponents are driven by issues, and have the capacity for mutual respect, in a “democratic” sense of the word.

    
2. 

   heaven

   February 18, 2008 at 2:26 pm

   A very good article. Did you write it? Or did you pay someone to do it for you (no pun intended)?Who will now or who SHOULD take responsibility to maintaining civil values in the society? In traditional societies, it is the religious teachers who fill this vaccuum. But in the last three decades, I notice a lot of people have begin to think of religious authority as synonymous with government policy. When the government is driven by party interests (or as you say, by the interests of ‘gangs’), will it all be about profit and achieving the other objectives of a ‘gang’?What should happen if we are to finally establish a respectable multi-party democracy?