‘We Can’t Afford To Look Back 1,400 Years’

Six weeks ago, terror struck the archipelago nation of the Maldives, a popular tourist resort nation comprising hundreds of islands in the Indian Ocean. A bombing attack and a riot involving radical Islamists in the same week have put this sleepy, hospitable, moderate Muslim nation on the front lines of the war on terror, and they are not at all happy about it. They face the loss of their standard of living if the radical Islamists succeed in pushing the Maldives back to the 7th century:

On Sept. 29, the two faces of the Maldives collided when a homemade bomb exploded in a park in the capital, Male, wounding 12 tourists, threatening the critical resort industry and sending the clear message that even this remote corner of paradise is not immune to terrorism.
The attack, and a bloody confrontation days later between police and masked Islamic extremists armed with harpoons, stunned this Indian Ocean nation and threatened its careful effort to balance its traditionally moderate Islamic heritage with liberal Western values.
The government reacted swiftly to crush the fundamentalist movement that had risen amid the palm trees and crystal blue waters of its 1,190 coral islands. Authorities banned the veil, arrested scores of suspected extremists, sealed underground mosques and promised a crackdown on radical preachers.
“We are not taking chances,” Information Minister Mohamed Nasheed said.
So far, the violence has not frightened off the tourists, who account for one-third of the economy, he said. But “if there is another attack, then we just close tourism here. And we can’t afford that,” he said.

Using the tourist industry, the Maldives has become the most economically successful nation in South Asia. Its location lends itself to resort hotels, tour companies, and relaxation, and the citizens of the Maldives reap the benefits of global trade. It allows citizens to have their children educated abroad, giving them the hope of an even more productive future.
That, unfortunately, is part of the problem. While some of the students go to Europe and Australia for their intellectual pursuits, others go to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to study at the madrassas that preach hatred and separation. Combined with new access to the Internet, the reach of the radical Islamists has grown strong in the Maldives and threatens to become a new base of operations for al-Qaeda affiliates in the Indian Ocean area.
Study abroad isn’t the entire problem, either. The 2004 tsunami hit the Maldives hard, and it prompted a turn towards fundamentalist religious practice. Also, unemployment has been a big problem for young adults in the Maldives despite the economy, and the lack of jobs allows for radicalism to breed among the bored and frustrated young men.
Government officials have started taking this more seriously since the September 29th bombing and the subsequent riot. The Maldives had long banned headscarves for women but rarely enforced it. Now they have begun to get tough on signs of radical Islamism, including headscarves, at the same time that the Islamists have targeted men without beards. The Maldives also announced efforts to fund moderate Muslim mosques and imams to counter the messages of hate coming from the Islamists, hoping to push them out of the marketplace of ideas. Government ministries have ordered the press to stop celebrating jihadists and suicide bombers. The last attack did not kill anyone, but the government recognizes that the next one might kill many — and they want to stop radicalism before it gets further out of hand.
Will this help or hurt? The Maldives has long promised democratic reforms, yet Maumoon Abdul Gayoom has remained president for almost 30 years. With over 40% of its population below the age of 14, the opportunity for radicalism looks very high, and if the government cannot move away from authoritarian rule, it makes it even higher. The Maldives needs to put some thought into transforming itself into a nation where radicalism finds no purchase because its people have no need of it.

27 thoughts on “‘We Can’t Afford To Look Back 1,400 Years’”

  1. Again, with the “democratic reforms.”
    While our own Revolution, nearly came to naught!
    It took 11 years to prove there are no utopias. And, man’s habits are pretty much universal.
    By 1787 you got comments like this:
    Alexander Hamilton: “It is now time to awake from the deceitful dream of a golden age.”
    Quoting Eric Lane’s THE GENIUS OF AMERICA. Page 50.
    … delegates convened in Philadelphia for the first session of what is now known to us as the Constitutional Convention. America was in crisis. Americans had won their liberty from Great Britain, but they had failed to establish a successful self-governing country. Their utopian notion in 1776 — that all they needed was simple government, free of England and relying on the public virtue of the people — had failed.
    Instead, the country was riven by factions, each intending to impose its interests on others. Self-interest, not public virtue, dominated public conduct. The pursuit of happiness had become the pursuit of individual and group interests and not those of the community or nation. Neither the national government nor the state governments were strong enough to create order out of the chaos these competing groups created.
    The fear that their country was failing produced in the framers a new attitude.
    Our US Constitution was born in strife. And, mid-wifed through the hands of its creator: James Madison.
    What Bush has done, FAKING this “voting crap” … is hurt DIPLOMATICALLY … just about every country so touched.
    We’ve got the silences now from many groups.
    Putin is going in and picking up chips that come to him under the same pressure you get when water shoots out of a fire hose. At Bush’s confligration. He started this fire. And, the incompetent Condi Rice is fanning it.
    (Ah, while the only candidate who isn’t “involved,” is Fred Thompson. Off to the side; shrugging away like Jerry Seinfeld, walking towards the White House.) Who gets there is gonna be anybody’s guess.
    Meanwhile, one of the nicest things to see up here, is that other people, too, join the conversations at length. Gives me faith that you’re reaching, people, captain, who are putting “captioning news” beyond one sentence “funnies.” You have no idea how much better this is than anything else, around.
    By the way; the few sentences quoted above from: THE GENIUS OF AMERICA, HOW THE CONSTITUTION SAVED OUR COUNTRY and WHY IT CAN, AGAIN, should become a handbook. It’s got our history in there. And, it shows ya; to win you’re gonna need to COMPROMISE.
    Can you imagine compromising … once the people go out and vote on November 4th, next year?

  2. Good for you for continuing to highlight stories outside the US. It’s important for readers to remember that Islamic Jihad occurs every day all over the world–and that its objectives are global. As a Hindu writer once put it, “Islam’s borders are on fire everywhere’, even, as in the Maldives, it merely rubs elbows with Western tourists.
    The over-arching question both in the Maldives and, more importantly in more powerful nations, is whether Islam can coexist with Western-style parliamentary democracy at all. With the imposition of martial law in Pakistan, only Indonesia and Turkey remain as Muslim democracies, and their traditions of this are both recent and fragile.

  3. 40% of the population under 14 years old? People are the same all over the globe regardless of culture.
    These minds are innocent and open. If hatred fills them up due to indoctrination from islamic radical fundamentalism, is would truly be a waste.
    Knowing this our state department should really be putting our carrots to influence this nation toward western values and education.

  4. Does “tourism” spread the wealth?
    Heck, in another example: DUBAI. You know the arabs, except for their oil wealth, have no talents. And, they import all their workers from 3rd world countries. And, then they pay them poorly.
    Leaving all this dough “leftover” to fund Madrassas’z.
    Do you notice the problem?
    Granted, the Maldives have “tourism” now. Who comes? Wouldn’t the first people coming be sex deviates? And, then? People who want to walk their beaches, making believe they are rich. When back at home, they’re closer to the bottom of the totem pole. But your “dollar goes further.”
    What’s it like to be Maldavian? You’re getting your up-close look at “vacationers.” And, what if that’s all you see? (Are you like the maids, who were slaves, back in the old anti-bellum south?)
    In other words, we know the slaves grew up with an entirely different belief system, than those who owned the plantations.
    And, the oil wealth nations, under the Saud’s OPEC umbrella, are living like bandits and thieves.
    What do you think motivates Hugo Chavez?
    Oh, and Putin.
    And, Iran.
    While Condi Rice keeps blowing her fantasy world bubbles. Where she can pretty much crap on all the diplomacy America’s arleady built.
    Again. Being a tourist attraction isn’t the most normal wave there is … to making livings.
    Having lots of young people?
    Well, we don’t!
    Nor do we even know what to do with our “young people,” here … Leaving many of them shiftless.
    By the way, of all the things that cannot put our fires; democracy stands out as lacking much, except wind. And, that only blows. To make fires worse.
    Maybe, we should be noticing the world of silence; that seems to be gripping?
    Israel, is silent. And, yes, plays Condi’s games. (You bet, I’m hoping that Olmert’s pants don’t fall down, as he’s doing this diplomatic dance with her.) But life provides no guarantees.
    How will the next president repair the already obvious damage?

  5. There is not, nor can there ever be, any such thing as “moderate” Islam. The Quran, which is the literal word of Allah, can never be changed. Allah has decreed that Islam will rule the world and that infidels will convert, be enslaved, or die.
    That’s it. All the blather about economics, education, etc., is just that – infidel blather that has no effect on the servants of Allah.
    Any Muslims who do not participate in the jihad and do not strictly follow the precepts of Allah’s law (Sharia) are apostates and will die along with the rest of the infidels.
    Either Islam is destroyed or the West will fall and the world will sink into an unending darkness beyond our imagination.
    Now, what will we do?

  6. Norseman:
    with 1.3 billion Muslims worldwide, you’ve got your work cut out for you.
    Seriously, there is no ‘solution’ on our end. Muslims have to fix this themselves- and given the events recently with the Sunnis in Iraq I remain hopeful that the majority will opt for a modern peaceful existence.

  7. Compromise has it’s place, but it is not always right. We did not compromise with King George, southern slaveholders, or the Nazis among others. This is not New York delegates against Pennsylvanian. Fundamentalist Islam and Western values are incompatible beyond compromise. The West and moderate Islam already compromise every day. We need to kill the Islamist movement with the help of muslims if possible or without it if not.

  8. One strong word from the US administration would send this little 30 year dictator Gayoom scurrying for cover – democracy would be established with very little effort in Maldives, giving little space for extremism. Where is the United States when it comes to these little countries where so little effort is required to democratise? The one place that the Bush could have helped install one of the first islamic democracies, within a few months, and they havent, have failed again – miserably – ElPresidente Gayoom looks set to sit through another 5 year term and the extremism will grow. Thank you America.

  9. Norseman, I agree with you. Not only that. I’ve got Winston Churchill’s words to add, as well.
    (Circa 1899) Churchill was a young man, when he said this:
    “Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyzes the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step.”
    Winston Churchill was the Great Man that saved Western Civilization.
    Which, following the “oil finds” that enriched the Saudis, we now have the most money, consolidated anywhere, to “spread this militant disease.”
    Too bad the House of Saud and the House of Bush are connected at their belly buttons.

  10. In a tiny nation, wouldn’t going to a democractic system empower a relatively small but energized minority (like religious fundamentalists) to be able to capture the government via the ballot box?
    Wouldn’t take all that much cash to fund a takeover, either.

  11. “There is not, nor can there ever be, any such thing as “moderate” Islam.”
    The same thing could have been said about Christianity in the centuries past. Remember the Inquisitions? The Crusades? No religion is immune from fanaticism and militancy.
    Islam seems to be going through a period of militancy, just like a lot of religions have in the past, but it really isn’t for the sake of that religion, it’s for the sake of power and control for the militants. Religion is just the excuse the militants use to justify their quest for that power and control through the use of death and destruction. Using force and the threat of pain and suffering has long been a means of control over populations large and small, and using religion as a means of justifying that force is as old as that quest for power itself. It predates history.

  12. The Inquisition was indeed reprehensible in every manner, but no Westerner needs to apologize one iota for the Crusades, which were intended to turn back the Islamic tide of aggression that had swept so far in such a short period of time. The notion that the Crusades were just Christian aggressive brutality is a bunch of revisionist history put forth by guilt-ridden western leftists.
    Chrstianity was always intended to be a peaceful, reflective, philosophical religion. Islam on the other hand was born in politics and violence pretty much from day one. Muhammad first made his bones as a caravan raider on the road to Mecca. He then graduated to assassination, and finally into a full-fledged charismatic man of military conquest. There is a reason why the flag of Saudi Arabia has a sword on it to this day. Jesus on the other hand never wanted his disciples to kill a soul.
    During those times when Islam had periods of relative peace and tranquility, it was when they had completed their conquering and subjection of their enemies to Dhimmitude. When they’re not on top of the world though, look out, because they’re in constant war mode.

  13. Who is going to clean house? While the west is rotting away in consumer gluttony, lost principles, awash in debt, Islam is breeding warriors full of hatred ready to do us in.
    What percentage of people awake will it take to turn this around?

  14. Well it’s hard to complain about the mischief of the Muslims when we are giving them TWO TRILLION dollars of unconditional love a year. Oh well, this is only going to go on for a few more years.
    ………High oil prices are fueling one of the biggest transfers of wealth in history. Oil consumers are paying $4 billion to $5 billion more for crude oil every day than they did just five years ago, pumping more than $2 trillion into the coffers of oil companies and oil-producing nations this year alone…
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/09/AR2007110902573.html?nav=hcmodule

  15. The Maldives would do well to ban polygamy as well as the headscarf.
    In polygamous societies you see large numbers of angry and restless young men, unable to settle down and raise a family because the available women are in the harems of older men. This culture also breeds homosexual rape of young boys. This is seen in the Mormon polygamous communities in Utah to this day, as well as every single Islamic state. Sexually molested, unemployed, angry young men are great cannon fodder for the jihad.
    Ban polygamy. Ban it everywhere, enforce it fiercely. No society has a hope for peace if they have polygamy.

  16. If only the Maldivian Army would get out of Iraq they wouldn’t have this problem.
    Then again, how close is Okinawa?

  17. When you’re comparing apples to oranges, at the end of the day, you still have separate piles.
    Now, to answer Ray in Mpls. Islam’s text is SET. Can’t be changed. Not one word of it.
    You want to go back to the Inquisition? Go ahead. But if the Church had remained there, they’d have lost the ballgame. Since the “hooded stuff” … and the arrests … would have no takers.
    Perhaps it all happened because it filled in for sex? And, today, you can see the freaky stuff as porn. No middleman. Let alone, a religious organization. Able to control “urges.” Here, you can use a sarcasm tag. Or not.
    But the West advanced … step by step … by bringing on board new ideas. Sometimes, the foot raised, was “humanistic.” Free of religion. And, at other times? Religion came along for the ride.
    But it was always in the nature of exploring thoughts … that we got to where we are.
    And, ya know what? I don’t believe even a billion monkeys, slapping around at whatever, can ever produce a single Shakespearean line.
    Islam, is all about submission. And, militancy. And, it’s a whole system where fathers, uncles and brothers, attack all the females. At will. To the point where any given wife is a well-trained goat.
    Talk about going backwards! Under those black tablecloths there’s little hope. And, nothing new under the sun.
    By the way, occasionally, a member of the flock wants to leave. But they can’t. They can be killed by “fatwa.” At will. And, it’s considered a step in some heavenly direction. If all heavenly was, was a cup of coffee.
    Conrad is right. Something was put into motion, politically, that is sapping our vitality.
    It’s not for naught we should beware the Roaring 20’s. And, the disregard for “t’marra.”

  18. grgdn~ Yes, all those ‘moderate’ muslims MUST come forward and do something about radical islam soon, yes?
    I mean, it has only been 90 years since the radical movement started.
    Can we hope they’ll make their move against the 10% of their faith that takes stock in this, any time in the next 90 years?
    The Nazi party, home of the islam-loving Hitler, was less than 10% of the German population. And they went from Zero to Hero in less than 30 years, thanks to all those Moderate Germans.

  19. Bonnie- You’re right about polygamy its a vile practice that should be banned everywhere. The problems associated with polygamy are compounded in the Islamic world by the excess male population in almost every Arab/Muslim country. Particularly in places like Saudia Arabia where there are approx 5 men for every 4 women. Even without polygamy a quarter of all men in that country will never marry, add polygamy and the problem is worse. Yet it’s easier for Muslims to lash out at the US, Israel, the West or whoever rather then face the source of their problems which is Islam.The problem for Muslims is that “infidels” are tired of the blame game, when Muslims have created many of their problems themselves.

  20. gee, why don’t you wizz somewhere like daily kos, where lack of intelligence is taken for wit?
    btw, you forgot about near-daily muslim terror attacks in Nigeria, Darfur, Indonesia, the Phillipines, Georgia and a score of other nations around the globe, leaving scores dead and many more injured every month, and sometimes a great deal more than that. Maybe you think we should go after them also with your ‘slam-dunk’?

  21. Before CE redesigned the face of CQ, I would have to read a couple of sentences before I said “my head is spinning; must be Karol H.; skip down”. Now I can just skip Karol altogether because names lead their comments.
    Thanks CE.

  22. Ed wrote- Using the tourist industry, the Maldives has become the most economically successful nation in South Asia.
    The Maldives isn’t even close to the GDP of India. Yes India is South Asia. Pakistan and Bandladesh have greater GDPs. The nation of Bhutan is about level with the Maldives.
    Bottom line- Maldives is lucky to make the top five richest nations in South Asia.

  23. Just when I thought I’d hit bottom by contemplating Hildabeast as my CinC…the image of dingle-berry “Admiral Gee Whiz” is foisted upon me. The horror.

  24. “Now, to answer Ray in Mpls. Islam’s text is SET. Can’t be changed. Not one word of it.
    One could argue that the Bible is SET text as well and can not be changed, yet the Bible has gone through several Reformations over the centuries. There’s no reason that the Koran can not as well. Religious scholars constantly debate the meanings and intents of the religious texts and they form a consensus as to the composition of any particular verse. Some times that consensus actually leads to the removal or alteration of existing text. Islam is no exception.
    As for the militancy in religious text, Just about any religious text contains material that can be quoted to justify a call for militancy.
    The Bible has text that can be considered as a call for militant actions. For example: Mathew 10:34 “Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword” or Luke 12:51: “Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division.”
    Some people have taken this these passages to mean that the word of Christ must be spread through force, if necessary, and has used it in the past to justify the use of violence as a means of forcing others to accept Christianity. Sound familiar?
    The point I am trying to make is that NO religion is free from those who will try to use violence to promote that religion. That’s a human failing , not a failing of any particular religion.

  25. Islam has the concept of Takfiir.
    This concept, excommunication, wherein one Moslem can declare any other Moslem a heretic, and excommunicate them without any formal process, making one Moslem a legitimate target of death from another Moslem, has been hijacked by the jihadis and is their most vital tool when dealing with other Moslems.
    Zawahiri, Bin Ladin’s right hand, brought this concept to the forefront in the 80’s and 90’s, citing that any Moslem who accepted Western values, parroted Western ways, was not a true Moslem. “Moderate” Moslems, and Moslems who are openly friendly with Christians, Jews, Hindus, atheists and agnostics, and all non-Moslems, are fair game to be killed by the jihadis under takfiir. The radicalized concept of Takfiir has kept way too many “moderate” Moslems hiding in the shadows, even here in the United States.
    The jihadis have chosen to return Islam to its pure roots…1,400 years ago…and establish a pure Islamic caliphate, which is necessary for the end times as viewed by islamists to begin.
    It is in the Koran. The jihadis have no intention of letting a word of it be re-written, or even re-interpreted to reflect a “moderate” Islam, either.
    We have come a long way since peaceful, thoughtful, tolerant Suffi Moslems were viewed as the epitomy of piety and goodness in the Moslem community, with Suffi adherants going from town to town, being treated much like Buddhist monks in Thailand, being seen by the populace as teachers, model citizens, and bearers of the truths of the Koran. Suffis are targets of the jihadis as well.
    The jihadis have every intention of turning back the clock to purify the Islamic world and the world in general.
    How do we deal with this sort of threat?
    Reasoned discussion won’t work. We are not part of the problem. We, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, agnostics, “moderate” Moslems, are THE problem.
    The big failure in the West is that we are arguing among ourselves, even among Christians, that if only the hard-line fundamentalist Bible-thumpers are silenced, then the problem will go away. Likewise, atheists and agnostics arguing among themselves and non-Moslems that the Christians are the problem has nothing to do with changing the hearts and minds of the jihadis and islamists. This argumentation among ourselves shows the jihadis that they are right, that we are corrupt across the board, and we ourselves admit it daily, in our constant arguing over the merits or lack of merits of Christianity, of religion in the public place, and so much more.
    For your average run-of-the-mill jihadi on the street the fact that we are still breathing air is sufficient for us to be targetted. The only salvation is to accept Islam, all of us, and help prepare the way for the end times.
    Our weakness in addressing the fundamental problem of radical islam, of failing to undo nearly a century of Wahabist teachings, of spending time trying to lay a Western template over the jihadist movement, of ignoring the deep theological roots that drive the jihadis, doesn’t get us anywhere close to solving the problem.
    Only when the last jihadi is left hanging from a lamp post, and the jihadists are shown globally to be anethema to all Islam, to all of the rest of the world as well, will we be able to begin to convince the so-called “moderate” Moslems that they have been saved from a hijacking of their religion. Their continued silence to stand up against this hijacking should be a life lesson for them.
    In the meantime, having a quantum increase in young unemployed youth in the Third World over the past few decades only provides the jihadis with further evidence that they are the chosen ones to inherit the earth before the end times. Why else would there be so many of them? Obviously, Allah wants it this way. It also offers those many unemployed youth something to do that will achieve for themselves at least something…something of worth if viewed through the lense of radical Islam. And the jihadis understand this very very well.
    When facing a malignant tumor, one should not waste effort worrying about the next pedicure. Get to the source of the cancer, use all efforts to kill the cancer, use radical approaches if traditional approaches are not working, but above all, stop worrying about pedicures when there is a far greater threat present.

  26. “When facing a malignant tumor, one should not waste effort worrying about the next pedicure. Get to the source of the cancer, use all efforts to kill the cancer, use radical approaches if traditional approaches are not working, but above all, stop worrying about pedicures when there is a far greater threat present.”
    I agree with that, 100 percent! To stop the threat, you have to stop the people carrying out those threats by whatever means necessary. Capture them if possible, kill them if necessary. They’re fanatics, nothing else will work.

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