our maaiy-bas reflects our caste history, and the way we still use it symbolises just how deeply embedded caste mentality is in our minds and subconscious politics.
here’s some context from the anthropologist elizabeth colton’s ethnographic dissertation on the maldivian sociopolitical elite:
“Yet, once in the field, I found that members of the Maldivian society seemed to acknowledge no ideological problem nor experience any practical problems as Muslims with the existence of their traditionally rigid stratification system, which may, indeed, have come from an ancient caste system brought from India.”
here’s an actual description of our caste system:
“The current stratification system is rigid in the overall division between the elite and the ‘ordinary people’ (މީހުން) but there is fluidity of movement for individual ‘މީހުން’ who manage to become ‘ބޭކަލުން’ (the middle group) and over time become accepted temporarily as members of the elite. Eventually, through marriage to the traditional elite (ބޭފުޅުން) their children become ‘ބޭފުޅުން’ by blood and by language…The powerful ‘ބޭކަލުން’ often overcome the stigma of lower status within the stratification by speaking only in English and thus avoid having to use the stratified Maldivian language.”
does that disgust you? it should.
capitalism is fundamentally similar to the caste system; one is deserving of extreme wealth because their parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents ‘worked hard’ for it, often from their own places of privilege themselves.
labourers are a lower caste, stratified into skilled and unskilled labour (and proximity to capitalists), while corporate capitalists are a step higher, often intertwined with the bureaucrat capitalists. the impoverished are the lowest caste, placed there not by ‘karma’, but this time by their (or their ancestors’) ‘lack of hard work’ or ‘laziness’ — i.e., their failure to adequately worship, honour, and make tributes and sacrifices for capital — and that has bestowed them the fate of falling into the impoverished caste.
the fundamental similarity between capitalism and casteism is that both systems reward and center birth. good fortune and basic existential security is inherited, not a universal right. in retrospect, it makes perfect sense why our elites adapted to capitalism so easily: it is compatible with casteism.
The labour aristocracy of the Maldives
what exactly is a labour aristocrat? let’s take martin nicolaus’s description thereof:
“a labor aristocracy is a monopoly within a monopoly. It consists of workers who benefit from structures that exclude the competition of other workers, within a capitalism structured to exclude the competition of other capitals. Seen on a world scale, a labor aristocracy is a miniature “empire” of workers within a larger empire of capitalists.”
further, we have these insights from Lenin:
“The important thing is that, economically, the desertion of a stratum of the labour aristocracy to the bourgeoisie has matured and become an accomplished fact… the political institutions of modern capitalism — press, parliament associations, congresses etc. — have created political privileges and sops for the respectful, meek, reformist and patriotic office employees and workers…Lucrative an soft jobs in the government or on the war industries committees, in parliament and on diverse committees, on the editorial staffs of “respectable”, legally published newspapers or on the management councils of no less respectable and “bourgeois law-abiding” trade unions — this is the bait by which the imperialist bourgeoisie attracts and rewards the representatives and supporters of the “bourgeois labour parties”
by these definitions — and by his self-definitions, just so you know — nasheed is a labour aristocrat turned petite bourgeoisie. he was very clear about his alliance to the capitalist elites from the get-go, and mdp is therefore better described as a bourgeois labour party from its foundations (and it still remains one, it cannot be ‘reformed’). i talk about it in detail here.
if I have to thank nasheed for the ‘freedoms’ we have today (all indirect consequences of his bid for power), then i guess we should be thanking amin didi for introducing the presidential system into the Maldives, right? except we don’t, because amin didi was a cruel despot, and the swap to the presidential system was a changing of the guard. same principle, except instead of a true bourgeoisie, nasheed was a labour aristocrat.
nasheed isn’t the lower-middle working class hero he and his loyalists deceived you into thinking he is. he even admits that himself in 2019 about his history:
“Our whole family was a merchant family. With the growing tourism industry in the Maldives, our family was a little prosperous. We were relatively luckier. We had some old money too.”
born into relative privilege, as part of a capital-owning family, and blessed with generational wealth, he isn’t exactly the rags-to-riches archetype, is he? now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with privilege (engels, lenin, mao, guevara, kropotkin, and so many other key marxist figures were born into upper-class wealth and privilege, did you know that?) but rather how it is used and if it is preserved.
only, nasheed deceived the working class, aligned himself with the british elites, and toppled the old order to usher in today’s modern capitalist dystopia. from the beginning up to this day, he has served the maldivian elite and sought to become one himself. he is, by his own definition, a ‘capitalist’, after all.
yes, he put in so much effort into toppling the maumoon regime, spent so much time in prison and exile, and worked so hard to get to where he is; but guess what? so did maumoon. he was arrested many times, and he worked diligently to seize power. nasheed isn’t special in this, and I feel no sympathy or admiration for him. in fact, consider this, again from colton’s research:
“The elite group in power controls the country’s little wealth, and the former elite group becomes envious and seeks to seize that power … The first method they use is talking against the government, and ultimately they can plot coups (ބަޢާވަތް), but this leads to counter-action … (in) the form of punishment … by house-arrest, imprisonment, banishment …confiscation of property”
No difference from his predecessors, see? it’s a generations-old cycle. maumoon was old capitalism, nasheed is early neoliberalism. sure, he worked hard; but so did the rest of them. the means don’t matter when the ends are selfish and elite-serving. cry about it.
but you see, that is what the british conservatives planted in the maldives: a neoliberal rule of labor aristocrats with a pathway to becoming bureaucrat capitalists or even petite bourgeoisies if they obediently serve the elite. they’re conditioned to no longer think of themselves as working class, but rather temporarily embarrassed beyfulhun.
Language is power; stop using maaiy bas for them, they’re not Nabis
language commands and transmits power.
tell me, why do we need to use ‘maaiy bas’ for these people? do you worship them? are they divine beings? no.
these beyfulhun and mahujanun are flesh and blood that eat, drink, breathe, urinate, defecate, and survive the same way that the rest of us do. beneath their funny-looking suits, ties, garments, flashy hairstyles, and shiny accessories, they are just naked, sweaty, grimy, wriggling creatures like the rest of us. hierarchy is a social construct.
so stop saying “ebeyfulhun vidhaalhuvee” and “emanikufaanu vadaigathee” and start saying “eyna bunee” and “eyna dhiyaee”. it’s less of a mouthful too, and you don’t sound like you’re slobbering all over their feet. even for politicians or other people in the present we respect, we should still use ‘normal’ dhivehi.
this is a slow, soft step towards demystifying their existence, seeing them as only human, and dragging them down to earth — within the reach of justice’s unforgiving hands. count your days.
