Maldives by Tom Masters (2006)

Following are some snippets from the book Maldives by Tom Masters (2006) that I found noteworthy for my study. Some very interesting observations:

Arts

Though performances of traditional music and are not everyday events, contemporary Divehi culture is strong and adaptive, despite foreign influences, which range from martial arts and Hindi movies to Eminem and Muslim fundamentalism. Western and India fashions, pop music and videos are highly visible, but on public occasions and festivals the celebrations always have a Maldivian style. Three daily newspapers and several magazines are published in the unique national language and rock bands sing Divehi lyrics. It’s remarkable that such a tiny population maintains such a distinctive culture. (p. 34)

Literature

Despite the unique Maldivian script that dates from the 1600s, most Maldivian myths and stories are from an oral tradition and have only recently appeared in print. Many are stories of witchcraft and sorcery, while others are cautionary tales about the evils of vanity, lust and greed, and the sticky fates of those who transgressed. Some are decidedly weird and depressing, and don’t make good bedtime reading for young children. Novelty Press has published a small book
called Mysticism in the Maldives, which is still available. The Hammond Innes thriller The Strode Venturer is about the only well-known novel that is partly set in the Maldives. (p. 34)

Visual Arts

There is no historical tradition of painting in the Maldives, but demand for local art (however fabricated) from the tourist industry has created a supply in the ultra-savvy Maldivian market, with more than a few locals selling paintings to visitors or creating beach scenes for hotel rooms. Some islands were once famous for wood and stone carving – elaborate calligraphy and the intricate intertwining patters are a feature of many old mosques and gravestones. A little of this woodcarving is still one, mainly to decorate mosques. The façade of the new Majlis building in Male’ is decorated with intertwines carvings. (p. 35)

Local Beliefs

On the islands, people still fear jinnis, the evil spirits that come from the sea, land and sky. They are blamed for everything that can’t be explained by religion or education. To combat jinnis there are fanditha, which are the spells and potions provided by local hakeem (medicine man) who is often called upon when illness strikes, if a woman fails to conceive, or if the fishing is poor. The hakeem might cast a curing spell by writing phrases from the Quran on strips of paper and sticking or tying them to the patient or writing the sayings in ink on a plate, filling the plate with water to dissolve the ink, and making the patient drink the potion. Other concoctions include istiri, a love potion used in matchmaking, and its antidote varitoli, which is used to break up marriages. (p. 31)

Engaging place(s)/engaging culture(s)

HGSO Annual Conference : Engaging place(s)/engaging culture(s)
5-8 November, 2008

Faculty of Humanities, Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia

The Ninth Humanities Postgraduate Conference
What now are place and culture? Encompassing the themes of engaging place(s)/engaging culture(s), this interdisciplinary conference seeks to open spaces for the presentation and discussion of the full range of topics and methodologies through which Humanities postgraduate students now journey and interrogate worlds and texts: to provoke conversations about local spaces, diasporic spaces, sites of subjectivity, cultural knowledges, place as urban streets, as words on a page, as paint on a canvas; culture as translocal, transnational, multi-national, global, local ...


Conference Abstracts

My Abstract

Issues in applying western research methods to a non-western culture
This paper explores the practical difficulties of applying western research survey methods to close-knit communities in both an urban and rural setting in the small island developing state of the Maldives. The research project is an exploratory study of
information provision and access in this small island developing state, undertaken because an improvement in information service provision is considered necessary for its development. A survey questionnaire was chosen as one research component in the study and covered matters including level of information access, use, and awareness of information sources. The survey included participants from the urban island community, Malé, and a selected rural island community. It was planned to take a purposeful stratified random sample from both communities inviting both a male and a female from every fifth household from both communities with a target recruitment of fifty participants from each community. The practical difficulties in this approach were different in both communities ranging from the physical infrastructure, timing of the survey, and the mindset of the people. The implication of this outcome questions the
applicability of established western research methods to non-western cultures.

Traditional Maldives architecture - a book

I was just working on my discussion chapter and wanted to describe the activity of women at the household chores “outside” the “house”. I wanted to make a point about how people in rural islands, even if they are “home” are actually not home and will miss out on broadcast news as they are not glued to the TV or Radio as we do in Malé.
Many people in the islands spend time right outside on the joali making or preparing their cooking, washing their clothes or simply minding their children; all done in a very social environment and away from electricity needed for the TV and Radio sets.

I just wanted to find an authoritative source of information to back my claims. However, I haven’t been able to find any – because I am just Googling. I am sure there must be some snippets of information in books which I do not have access to because they are not online. All this searching without much luck really keeps saying to me that someone should be writing a book on:

Traditional architecture of the Maldives

Wouldn’t it be fascinating to read something about the physical layout of the traditional houses in Maldives? I doubt if Malé has any of this traditional houses now. But in some islands (I haven’t visited too many) there still exists houses with the badhige (kitchen) as a separate annexure to the dwelling, and the huge gifili (open-air toilet) also sperate from the main dwelling. With the wave of modernisation taking place in the country, soon these will be replaced with “modern” houses. With it will be lost the ways of living that our mothers and grandmothers had experienced. I am sure there would be special meanings attached to the architectural layout (if I may call it that) of the traditional houses.

I have seen glimpses of this discourse in some of the historical accounts written by foreigners. The following is a snippet from the The strode Venturer / Hammon Innes . _ Collins, 1965.

Don Mansoor’s gai or house was built like the rest of coral cement with a palm-thatched roof. There was a well in the forecourt and the interior was lit by a roaring pressure lamp that cast giant shadows with every movement of the occupants. There was a table, chairs and a big, ornate mirror, a dresser with cheap English china displayed. But the thing I remember most clearly was a great swinging bed slung by ropes from the balm bole roof beams. His wife greeted us, slight and dark with doe-like eyes and a beauty that was clearly driven from Ceylon. There were other, older women in the background, and as I sat down a young girl brought me a glass of some pale, amber-coloured liquid. He soft nubile features smiled at me shyly as she moved back into the shadows with a glint of gold at waist and throat. (p. 112).

The family atmosphere, the sense of order and neatness, of a culture and a way of life nurtured and maintained in absolute isolation; it was impressive and strangely attractive so that I felt relaxed and at ease, and as I sipped my drink I found myself falling under the spell of the island. (p. 113)

Isn’t it time that a Maldivian – who is specialised (maybe) in architecture, study the traditional layout of houses and see how well they fitted with the traditional way of life – especially on the islands; and try to understand if there are lessons to be learned from this architecture before we barge into modernising our houses. More importantly, it will be an important addition to our historical collection and an important contribution to our future generation.

I can visualise that book:
Pictures of traditional houses, limestone walls with their myriad designs, their layout, the neat and tidy sand floors, how these designs ventilated and lighted the houses, and the sustainable nature of these designs, etc.

Writing up the results chapter

The date of thesis submission is getting closer. Still a few more months left. But I guess getting it all together and getting all the separate bits of work that I have been working with during the last two years will take considerable time. Especially in terms of getting it to flow coherently linking back and forth and also using the same style of writing throughout.

At present I am working on finalising the results chapter, which has taken me the good part of three months. I started off with the idea of having one chapter for the results but as it progressed, both my supervisor and I realised that it will need to be in two chapters as both needed an introduction and a conclusion. Moreover, the first draft of the survey results went on to 60 pages. So I started off the interview results as a new chapter and today I handed in a complete draft of this chapter to my supervisor.

Looking back at the last three months, I should say the writing up of the results has been harder than I ever expected it to be. It wasn’t as hard as the initial few months where I was struggling to give shape to my research topic and putting in the candidacy proposal. That was one stage in this journey which took a lot of reading (in terms of literature) and writing.

The survey results was at some stages exciting as I was finally looking at some trends, confirming things that I have always known and bringing up things that I haven’t expected to emerge. At other points, it was really tedious as I had to methodically analyse the data, prepare tables, write about the figures, present them graphically and then talk to them. Ploughing through the 60-question long survey questionnaire really tested my patience. The analysis was done using SPSS and I used excel to create the graphs as I wasn’t too happy with the graphics of SPSS.

Writing up of the interview results wasn’t any easier or cheerier. Since it was only 6 interviews, we decided that we did not need computer software to code it for me. And it wouldn’t even have been that practical because the interviews were conducted in Dhivehi language and then transcribed word-to-word in Dhivehi. So for it to really work with something like NVivo I would have had to translate very accurately which would take more time than it would to analyse it manually. The fact that two interviews were not recorded (because they did not consent for it) did create a few problems in the writing up as I must have missed some important points in my note taking.

However, it was also not too bad, because otherwise I would have had to spend more time in transcribing than I did. As it was, I spent over a month on transcribing the 4 recorded interviews. The actual interview durations were approximately one hour for each interview.

I started off writing the interviews thematically according to the interview guide. But then later realised that not all interviews went according to the interview guide and also since the four organisations were different, in their information approach and services, there were no real common themes. So I ended up changing the format of the presentation a few times and in the end I have 4 major sections–which also reflects the 4 main questions on the interview guide –with all the other information coded thematically in one large section.

At first I started retrieving relevant sections from all the interviews going back and forth between the six. But this strategy soon proved fatal as I was only confusing myself by going in all directions by working on 7 different word documents at the same time. Alternatively, I tried going by interview at a time and writing it up and then crossing it out on the transcription so that I know I have already talked about it. Then took the next interview transcription and talked through it, putting it together where appropriate with what I have already written. It was tedious but when I was through with the 4 transcriptions and the other 2 interview notes I was happy with the outcome. I guess I could have done save a lot of time if I had actually translated even the transcribed interview to English in at least summary form. I found it was easier to deal with the interview notes, that I made of the unrecorded interviews than it was with the transcribed ones.

Anyway, the draft looks alright. Now I wait for Kerry to read it and advice me on modifications.

The next step in this journey is writing up the discussions which looking at my track history will require at least 1 month of dedicated work to have a rough draft and another half a month to polish it up.

A promising platform for Maldives’ scholars

It is heartening to see that things are progressing in Maldives in the area of scholarly communication. A major step has been taken by MaldivesResearch in this endeavour.

The first issue of the International Journal of Small Economies is planned to be published in November/December 2008.

This will be a promising scholarly platform for all the Maldivians who have the potential and yet lack the necessary means of publishing, most probably due to the long wait periods to publish in other international journals.

I am sure, in the past, there has been a number of initiatives like this to establish a journal for Maldivian scholars.

For instance, the Maldives College of Higher Education has had plans to establish a multi-disciplinary research journal. This plan has been there for quite some time. But action has not been forthcoming for reasons that I am unaware of.

The one incident that I am very familiar with is that of Maldives Journal of Health Sciences.
An editorial board was established in 2002 with the help and guidance of two academics from the University of New Castle, Australia. The editorial board was made up of qualified Maldivians and a great deal of an effort was put into it by all the members to get the journal going.

However, for some reason which was not clearly communicated, the journal did not get the official backing from the government. In general terms, the gist of the reasoning was that there was no guiding policy in allowing this kind of publication. That if the Maldives Journal of Health Sciences gets the approval, many others will start requesting for the endorsement to publish...

At the same time when these official communication was going back and forth between the relevant government authorities and the Faculty of Health Sciences, work was in progress in enticing the academics/scholars in the health sector to contribute to this journal as the editors was anticipating a positive response for the approval of the journal.

As things turned out, it was temporarily rejected by the government authority. However, keeping an ever optimistic mindset, after a lot of deliberation with other relevant officials from the College and the health sector, the editorial board decided to publish its first issue as planned. However, it was published as an internal document hoping for a positive outcome, from the discussion that was still ongoing with the government, in time for its second issue.

The first issue was published and distributed freely to the health sector and various sections within the College and work was in progress in compiling the second issue. However, there was a loud and definite signal that scholarly publication cannot be formally published, especially in a field like public health issues. This was discouraging to the editorial team as the credibility and visibility of the scholarly output is very much reduced. It was not unnatural that the work of the editorial board finally dwindled and faced a premature death before it reached its third year of existence.

Coming back to the point of this post, about the International Journal of Small Economies, I applaud the trustees and the editorial board for the selection of the name that does have a broad possibility of topics as well as authorship. And given its international outlook it has reduced the bureaucratic processes of approval and opened up for scholarly contribution internationally. And with a title like 'small economies', I am assuming, papers do not necessarily have to be predominantly on Maldives. A very promising journal.

Maldives policy on censorship

Does censorship have implications for intellectual development?

In Maldives people have practiced self-censorship for a long time. People have been, in general, very cautious about what was expressed, especially in the written form. However, this situation is changing and has been on a roll for a few years now. This is evident in the number of newspapers and magazines that has been added in the last few years. And with the advances happening on the Internet with the likes of blogs, writing has reached a new height.

A few years back it would have been difficult, if not impossible to find any written material criticising government policies. But now, this is a common practice. True, the common folk show signs of intimidation when handling anti-government material.

My point here is to say that self-censorship has been in place for a long time and it is practiced by writers themselves, publishers, and also the readers. This situation still prevails with people who do not have access to the internet. And at the next level there is censorship imposed by governing authorities.

But is there a point in censorship? Censored or not, people will read and access what they want; if not openly then, in secrecy.

A few weeks back, the issue of censorship in Maldives emerged up with the book on apostasy co-authored by Dr. Saeed. This was published in 2004 and it has taken over 3 long years for the religious authority in Maldives to say that this book cannot be allowed to be freely circulated and read; that the book carries inappropriate information.

This incidence alone has shown what the information culture of Maldives is about. It is controlled and it is reactionary. A proactive community would have sought out the book sooner since we do not have too many scholarly books published in Maldives or abroad by Maldivian scholars. In an ideal scenario, the National Library of Maldives should have purchased it for their national collection at least within the first year of its publication.

And if, it was a book on religion, which it is - based on the policy on religious books being censored and approved by the religious authority, it should have been passed on to the mathee majlis (or the relevant body) and they would have either approved or disapproved of the book and this whole process should have, in an ideal world, taken the most of 4 months. And this whole process would have happened back in 2005, or 2006 at the least.

But as things happen in Maldives, the book has been out there for quite sometime, and all of a sudden someone contests for a job that many people are eyeing and there had to be some dirt pulled up against this contender. This dirt finding process brought up a book which is on a religious topic and all of a sudden this book comes in to the picture.

The book attracted the attention of everyone and something had to be done to this book. And I suppose mathee majlis did the most sensible thing (for them) that can be done under the circumstances.

Now the book is officially banned. This would mean that the National Library will not hold it in the national collection; which I personally think is very unfortunate as it is a national treasure for the simple reason that it was written by a Maldivian.

People should have the freedom to read whatever they want. I personally believe it should be the individual’s freedom to decide if the content is right or wrong. But of course, it is the responsibility of the concerned authorities to “educate” the public on what is right and wrong.

The most disturbing aspect of all this is that a good piece of writing is banned and from the looks of it nobody is concerned about it – that is other than the few blog entries that was written about it.

The general public is not concerned since, for them a book is a book and is not important as people don’t have time to read books and/or don’t have the money to spend on books. The reading body of Maldives is not too concerned either, because the chapter in question is available online. The Ministry of Information or the National Library does not seem to be concerned either.

Some questions that need clarification are:
Where does free flow of information fit in with this kind of censorship?
What does the censorship policy serve really?
How well defined is this censorship policy?
Is it relevant to the current online environment?
Does this control of what can be read and what cannot be read border on individual human rights?
Doesn’t this sort of censorship restrict intellectual output and lead to intellectual stagnation by the learned?

Help me pls!!!

i need to know how many newspaper/magazines are published in Maldives at present. pls help. I have listed those that i am aware of or heard of from others. some might even have slipped my mind. pls help me fill in the questions and to add those i have missed. many thanks.

• Haveeru - daily newspaper
• Aafathis - daily newspaper
• Miadhu - daily newspaper
• Minivan - daily newspaper
• Hamaroalhi - daily newspaper?
• Haama - ?
• Adduvas - weekly magazine
• Udhares - weekly magazine
• Fiyes - ?
• Huvaas - ?
• Dharuma - monthly magazine?
• Jazeera - ?
• Sandhaanu - ?
• Dheenuge magu - weekly newsletter
• Hukuru - ?
• Manas - ?
• Hafthaa - ?

(post edited on 15 june) The following is what is listed on wiki. but as we can see this is not accurate. the only thing i am sure about is that Monday Times stopped publishing a few years back. what else is incorrect?

Daily Newspapers
Aafathis Daily
Haama Daily
Haveeru Daily
Jazeeraa Daily
Miadhu Daily
Minivan Daily

Weekly Newspapers
Adduvas Weekly
Fiyes Weekly
Huvaas Weekly
Manas Weekly
Monday Times (English)
Udhares Weekly
Evening weekly(english)

I guess I will just have to try and contact the information ministry for this!?