The island nation of the Maldives is an extraordinary little place. It is a newly (and organically) evolved democratic Sunni Muslim republic. It also boasts a recent political narrative of Dickensian improbability. Its president, Mohamed Nasheed, is a former political prisoner, having been an outspoken critic of Maumoon Gayoom, his dictatorial predecessor (and the longest ruling Asian leader at the time). Nasheed beat Gayoom in the country’s first fair elections last October.
The country’s human rights record has already improved dramatically. And earlier this month President Nasheed announced his intention to make the Maldives a safe haven for dissident writers.
Because the Maldives is the world’s smallest Asian country, and smallest Muslim country, this heartening drama has been completely overlooked. Moreover, because the Maldives is farther below sea level than any other country, all discussion of the Maldives’ future is dominated by fears of rising sea levels and the effect of global warming.
The Maldives has just added yet another superlative to its description:
The Maldives will shift entirely to renewable energy over the next decade to become the first carbon-neutral nation and fight climate change that threatens the low-lying archipelago’s existence, the president said on Sunday.
President Mohamed Nasheed said the Indian Ocean islands would swap fossil fuels for wind and solar power, and buy and destroy EU carbon credits to offset emissions from tourists flying to visit its luxury vacation resorts.
Talk about “cultural imperialism.” This tiny laboratory for Muslim democracy will take on global warming as its premier challenge (while America itself grows ever more doubtful that the phenomenon even exists.) I suppose, in a twisted way, this bodes well for the future of the Maldives. Spending uselessly on liberal causes has become the way of the West. If President Nasheed’s plan doesn’t work out it won’t have anything to do with the supposed incompatibility between Islam and democracy. It will be because of the incompatibility between P.C. spending and democracy survival. And if that proves insurmountable, we’ll all be under water.
