MANIPAL, India, March 1 (UPI) -- The
Maldives is a tiny group of islands nestling in the Indian Ocean that got into
the news only because of the Dec. 26 tsunami. For years it has been the focus
of concerted NGO action designed to convert the regime into a genuine
democracy, with political parties and a Westminster-style parliament where the
two sides glower across the aisle at each other.
India has shown that multi-party democracy
can work even in conditions of illiteracy and poverty. The country borrowed
heavily from British political institutions, even while retaining most of the
administrative and judicial infrastructure left behind in 1947.
Another country that could succeed in
such a transformation is Iraq, which has a sizeable middle class and a national
consciousness based on the centuries of civilization in the region, beginning
with Mesopotamia. To interpolate from this that a similar graft would succeed
in the very different scale of the Maldives may be a mistake.
A rough rule of thumb would be that it
takes a minimum population of 5 million in order to create the diversity that
is called for by a multi-party democratic system. A lesser number would not be
able to sustain the spread of debate and contain it within bounds that do not
result in widening fissures within the society.
To take the example of the Maldives
again, it is a fact that the Maymoon Abdul Gayoom regime is paternalistic and
lacks a significant machinery to monitor and respond to public opinion. It is
equally a fact that the Maldives is a moderate state with an overwhelming
Muslim majority, and that President Gayoom has thus far succeeded in keeping in
check Islamists funded by Pakistani, Malaysian and Saudi Arabian religious
charities. It is this visible secularism that has motivated such intervention,
which has succeeded in creating a small but very vocal group of democracy
activists that are calling for an Islamist state.
