Terror Strike in Maldives

(Published in Banking Services Chronicle March 2008)

We are moving increasingly towards a globalised world. Technology has made everything in the world much more easily accessible. But in a globalised world that promises equal access to things, some ideas and cultures are more equal than others.
It is this paradox that has made the world such an unsafe place to live in.

As Western culture liberally enters the minds of the youth, there is a backlash from the fundamentalists. The latter fear that their culture may get swamped by the appeal of the dazzling divas of Beverly Hills. The reactionary approach taken to avert extinction is often thoughtless. And it results in what the educated see as primitivism.

Until recently, Maldives was a paragon of liberal values. But the September 29 Sultan Park bombing in the capital Male is an evidence of the fact that things are no more the same. The first-ever Islamist terror strike in the Maldives is a reflection of the increasing cultural influence of the Islamists in what used to be an almost ostentatiously westernised society. There are more women wearing headscarves than short skirts or jeans now. Growing number of men can be seen sporting full-length beards.

If it can happen in the Maldivian paradise, it can happen anywhere else. The aspirations of social groups or communities that Sir VS Naipaul pointed to in India: A Million Mutinies Now become more pronounced when they see a threat to their existence. Whenever intruders from an alien culture have tried to make inroads, the natives have resisted. Today the resistance is not easy to defeat. Any such conflict gets humungous publicity, thanks to an overwhelming presence of the media.

If the world leaders desire peace, they will have to think beyond sustainable development. This requires an accommodation of culture. It is said that respect should be commanded, not demanded. So should be the case with cultural superiority. The West needs to learn how to play the benevolent Big Brother.