I have been the quiet eyes in all of the
madness that has been going on. I have listened to the activist, the protector
and the unbiased. And to come to a conclusion after hearing the countless
echoes of wailings and warnings and wishful thinking was quite a task. Further
more, I did not want to be misinformed so I decided to do a little digging up
myself; even so I hope that you will accept my apology if I may not be able to
provide you with a magical solution from this. Truth is, there is rarely a
situation in real life where everything is written in black and white and the
solution could be a glass slipper fitted in just right. Sometimes, the glass is
tainted and the slipper fits them all.
In the case of our current situation, it
seems Nasheed’s glass slipper has been stolen before the clock struck midnight.
Whether or not it was a coup d’etat is not the question that I’d like to probe.
Given the world’s history of coups, it is no surprise that the international
community isn’t rushing to our rescue in their shining armor. Most successful
coup d’etats that have occurred in the world have been brought as an uprising
towards remedying grievances and to implement ‘correct’ orders with a small
group of politicians or military generals under the whole operation. Also, it
is not uncommon to seize power over the radio and television services and proclaim
themselves in power. Sound familiar?
I truly believe that the police mutinied
against the government on the 7th and hence brought about the
resignation and change in government. This could be established by a simple
test of causation. If not for the police mutiny would the former president have
resigned? Of course, the causation should not be stopped there. If not for the illegal
orders that were brought on to the police, would they have committed the
mutiny. Now causation would only be a valid point if the action had been the
necessary and right course that should have been taken by a reasonable person.
In the situation of illegal orders, the police had clear procedures to deal
with such situations included in the Police Act of 2008 in which it states that
illegal orders need not be adhered to, and they can be ignored without
repercussion. The fact that they used this situation to call out for the
resignation of the president by using state resources against the government
shows that their reaction to the situation cannot be justified.
As for nasheed’s resignation, I do not
believe that a president or any other citizen should have to fear the defence
and security forces of the country. In fact, up until he resigned I hoped that
he had some other means of amending the situation. Even so, he did resign and
later on announced that he had been forced to do so at ‘gunpoint’. Now, there
could be two ways to go about this; If he was held at ‘gunpoint’ or coerced and
intimidated into doing so with no other means, this would be justifiable
causation for him to resign. If not, and if he did have other means of
controlling the situation at hand….simply put, he must have been out of his
mind to give up the presidency that he had worked so hard for. I know that it
is not very scholarly of me to say that, but I see no logical scenario in which
a person who has suffered and been tortured in his strife to be where he was,
just simply give it up when he had any other way. Even so, I would like to
address this unlikely situation as well, and in such a case, he would have done
so without duress and ultimately be seen as just a president resigning from his
post and the vice president taking over it under a presidential succession.
Even in this scenario, the mutinous police and mndf cannot be justified.
So, where does this leave us? I don’t see
how the international community will be able to help us out of this mess when
we are not willing to do so ourselves. Shows and publicity stunts will get us
so far. The Inquiry Commission, enacted by Dr. Waheed is currently undertaking
the responsibility of determining whether this was a coup d’etat or not. In the
somewhat unlikely situation where they work completely unbiased and draw out
the conclusion that it indeed was a coup d’etat, what would happen then? Would
there be another election? I suppose the answer is yes. Even so, when we are
probing into the question, the Inquiry Commission should not stop just there.
They should also be probing into the context
of the coup and whether or not it could be justifiable. Even though, there can be no justification for the brutality by either side as well as the security forces, there have been numerous occasions in th history of the world where coups have been accepted as a sort of 'necessary evil' in order to get rid of dictatorships and such. Also, after the inquiry
there must be harsh penalties for whoever was responsible for the crimes that
had been committed, Maumoon, Anni, MNDF, Police or otherwise. Even though we do
not have a law that governs mutiny, we do have terrorism laws that could help
to ensure that none of these crimes go unpunished. It is a dangerous thing to
allow what happened to be set as precedence for it may lead to the kind of
situation that plagues other countries like Pakistan in which the military acts
as a ‘savior’ of the nation everytime there is a political turmoil. The people
elect their president, the people should be the ones taking the responsibility
to ensure that the president and the elected members work in their best
interest. And if it is not so, they must be the ones who rally and protest and
if need arises, force their resignation. Not the security forces who are under
oath to protect and serve us and our leaders alike. Who should be serving the
public in general, not just the ‘90%’ or whatever the percentage may be.
