mal­di­vian par­ty elites, their fac­tion loy­al­ists, and their labour aris­to­crats are foul and treach­er­ous.

if you’re sim­ply a par­ty sup­port­er or a low-rank­ing mem­ber (espe­cial­ly a non-can­di­date), which makes up the major­i­ty of the mem­bers, please know that my crit­i­cisms of mal­di­vian par­ties and their elites are not about you. they’re nev­er about you. i might have decen­tered elec­toral pol­i­tics (i’m not vot­ing and I haven’t vot­ed for any­one, even in par­lia­men­tary and coun­cil elec­tions, since 2018) because I believe ‘ފަރުދީ ޒިންމާ’ can­not func­tion inside a bro­ken, wealth-manip­u­lat­ed elec­toral appa­ra­tus, but it does­n’t mean I think you’re stu­pid for vot­ing. I under­stand you; you want exis­ten­tial secu­ri­ty for your­self, your fam­i­ly, and your friends — and you gen­uine­ly want to believe that this time, your par­ty will deliv­er. i get it.

i’ve nev­er been a par­ty sup­port­er and have nev­er reg­is­tered myself under any par­ty, but i can sym­pa­thise with you.

if you’d kept up with his­to­ry and the news, you’ll know that par­ties, their elites, and their fac­tion loy­al­ists are cru­el. some of them are down­right evil.

these parties would stop at noth­ing. they will spread dan­ger­ous lies on your name, pro­voke peo­ple into vio­lence, set the cops on peo­ple, frame their pawns for things, and use their anony­mous accounts to dehu­man­ise peo­ple, harass them, issue death threats, and man­u­fac­ture con­sent to cre­ate an envi­ron­ment where they’re more like­ly to get harmed. they would even “get these ungrate­ful kids beat up by the police to make them expe­ri­ence what we went through” just because they’re angry at being crit­i­cised. then, they would use what hap­pened to you as cam­paign mate­r­i­al.

i’m well aware, too aware, more aware than i’d like, because many peo­ple have told me things they’ve heard and seen over the years. many of you may know this too.

it makes me won­der, once all of this is over and they are ques­tioned by jus­tice or god one day, what would they even say? how would they explain their actions? i’m gen­uine­ly curi­ous, because I can’t think of a sin­gle redeem­ing answer that absolves them of treat­ing their fel­low human beings and com­mu­ni­ty like this. this applies to all par­ties.

so remem­ber, if any­thing hap­pens to me or any­one else today who’s crit­i­cal of all par­ties and politi­cians — there are so many today — imme­di­ate­ly assume all of them are to blame. they all gain some­thing. then assume there’ll be peo­ple who’d want us to get hurt to use those tragedies to dethrone the old sys­tem, pre­tend they’re ‘non-par­ti­san’, and place them­selves on the throne instead. if any­thing hap­pens to me and these polit­i­cal pun­dits try to co-opt it, you have my con­sent to absolute­ly derail it, no mat­ter what my fam­i­ly would want. if they tar­nish my rep­u­ta­tion with lies, then throw me away and keep mov­ing for­ward. con­sid­er me irrel­e­vant to the greater cause. no heroes.

because you see, many of us are risk­ing our lives and liveli­hoods here. to be sup­port­ive of one par­ty but against the oth­ers means at least you will be pro­tect­ed by that par­ty and their bureau­crats and foot­men. to be against all par­ties and politi­cians makes you pub­lic ene­my num­ber one, espe­cial­ly if you’re refus­ing to vote at all. we’re the real last line of defence for an hon­est voice. it is us that are being brave right now, not the par­ty front-lin­ers, because we’re the ones in the most dan­ger from all sides in all ways, phys­i­cal, psy­cho­log­i­cal, rep­u­ta­tion­al, and finan­cial.

but despite all that, you know what i think?

it might be dan­ger­ous for us; but being a par­ty sup­port­er, on the oth­er hand, is fatal. indeed, that line is from the evil amer­i­can impe­r­i­al-colo­nial­ist hen­ry kissinger, the mod­el for our own cap­i­tal­ists here, who said, “It may be dan­ger­ous to be Amer­i­ca’s ene­my, but to be Amer­i­ca’s friend is fatal”. when elites tell you who they are, believe them.

being a par­ty sup­port­er is fatal.

because unlike those of us who are against all par­ties and politi­cians, you are direct­ly under their com­mand, con­trol, and influ­ence. you are effec­tive­ly their shields, pawns, and swords. you are expend­able and replace­able. you are just num­bers.

it is your fam­i­lies and their liveli­hoods they stake for their win-or-lose objec­tives. they promise and give you jobs, hous­ing, and even land in exchange for sup­port, only to have it all crushed when the next par­ty comes in or as a way of per­form­ing account­abil­i­ty if they’re in gov­ern­ment. they put you on the front­lines at protests, then they agi­tate the police and vio­lent mem­bers of soci­ety into attack­ing you en masse, then they pho­to­graph and video­graph it, and use your blood­ied faces as rage­bait cam­paign mate­r­i­al. they may even have you killed just to use your deaths for mar­ket­ing.

don’t you see? you’re their human shields and smoke­screens.

i said ear­li­er that we’re the ones risk­ing our lives the most, but that was to get your atten­tion. the truth is, even your lives are at risk. they’re men­aces to soci­ety, and any­one who engages with their pow­er struc­ture in their own bids for pow­er are either wil­ful­ly igno­rant or com­plic­it.

hence my invi­ta­tion to you: leave those par­ties, decen­ter elec­toral pol­i­tics, and start organ­is­ing at the grass­roots.

remem­ber this:

<sub><sup>“When the oppres­sive forces main­tain them­selves in pow­er against the laws they them­selves estab­lished, peace must be con­sid­ered already bro­ken.

Under these con­di­tions pop­u­lar dis­con­tent express­es itself in more and more active forms, and resis­tance final­ly crys­tal­lizes, at a giv­en moment, in an out­break of the strug­gle.”</sup></sub>

your actions, voice, and micro-organ­is­ing aren’t use­less. join com­munes and soci­eties, write, com­pose, draw, set up mutu­al aid net­works, vol­un­teer, start pub­lic ser­vice activ­i­ties, run prac­ti­cal and intel­lec­tu­al work­shops, start a com­mu­ni­ty gar­den, set up a soup kitchen, take care of street cats, do what­ev­er it is that you do best, and keep doing it with com­mit­ment. that is ‘ފަރުދީ ޒިންމާ’, not just cast­ing a vote in a bro­ken sys­tem and then doing noth­ing for anoth­er year or two.

i promise you, it will all come togeth­er one day, all move­ments will con­verge, and the con­nec­tions we build and the work we con­tribute will nev­er be in vain, no mat­ter what hap­pens to us indi­vid­u­al­ly in the end.