BRIDGING PARADISE

Written by: Kashfuveriya

The stillborn brainchild of former President Maumoon Abdul Gayyoom, the strategic mastermind of the metaphorically paradise nation–Maldives, has surpassed its life span from its origin to germinate and take root into the wants of the numerous residents whom possess at least a formidable form of intellectual insight. Even in today’s age of such fluctuating political ideology, the idea is still thriving with greater speed and intensity than that of an epidemic. It has, with great amplification of its imperative nature, successfully invaded these minds such as an alien invasive species of flora that has achieved succession, and thereby haunting three presidents till today’s date. This ideology is nothing else besides the reality that is being concreted as we live and breathe, the simple yet immeasurably necessary lifeline to the utopian dream of the Maldives existing as a socio-economically thriving republic. The idea that will provide a non-weather dependent possibility of accessibility to the nearby island of Hulhule’, which happens to home Ibrahim Nasir International Airport, or more commonly known as the “Main Gate” of the country, not to push out the fact that it does, in fact, literally bridge the distance between the unplanned, both internal and external immigrant oozing concrete float of a capital with its suburban, comparatively eden like Youth City, otherwise known as Hulhumale’. This is the China-Maldives Friendship bridge.

Crucially significant as an infrastructure, a bridge, be it splashed with grandeur or insignificantly simple, to such a country that, for all its beauty and exotically enthralling nature is so much more a weight on the shoulders of its figurehead than a few dozen capsules of aspirin could cure. And may it be due to incompetence for the given onus, Ex-president Mohamed Nasheed who is currently in exile under political prescription, claimed it as a feat impractical. Later, he swung back to a streamline of consciousness which pushed him to attain sufficient amount of grey matter to absorb the materiality of the hypothesis that this was an unavoidable instrument for the nation’s development and hence so unsuccessfully attempted to prove his previous misconception as a false, misleading concept. Through which, he had, admittedly, yet unknowingly admitted his ineptitude for the post.

While rebuilding a battered nation, former president Dr. Mohamed Waheedh Hassan Manik strived to conquer the unconquered title of the first of his position to materialise the much-needed requirement of a bridge in Maldives, with futile efforts, in his lamentably minuscule term in office.

But the will and optimistic drive of the present President Abdullah Yameen, has, with no regard to the stain of a memory of the impossibility of the task, under many pessimistically rigorous eyes, forged the possibility of a bridge, which skyrockets upwards below the ultraviolet beams of the sun. Even beneath the inferno of the equatorial belt, it is now in itself in comparison to the galvanising roar of Maldivian spirit of heart or as we prefer it in Dhivehi, “Gaumee Vindhu” booming with the proud roar of accomplishment.

The district Hulhumale’ of the capital Male’ segregated by the body of salt water that is dictated by treacherously unreliable weather charts, is discordant to the fact that the Government has an infinite set of services to provide for public. By unfortunate circumstance, this is the case of the approximately 188 islands of inhabitation of citizens ruled by this governing body, in which the customary transportation mechanism of ferries, more often than not, have been inert. Inevitably, the next cause of action, would by the dearth resources and unequal budgetary capacity would be “Effaskurun”, or a collectivisation by a geophysical aspect, which by the individual standards of island reclamation has proven to be at odds with the frailty of the coral originated atoll formation.

Hence, the only approach left unexploited is bridging, which in contrast to land reclamation is comparatively less environment altering, noxious to the health of it and much more prospective for the possibility of the survival and burgeoning of a densely biodiverse marine ecological system.

In the case of the current situation too which is the case of validity behind the misinformed media of a group in pretence of being environmental activists whom are battling a more-fictional than materialistic evil against the likelihood of the extinction of the already endangered cluster of the citizenry of Male’ City, with the demolition of the underwater shield, which, regrettably had been already extinguished long before the very image of this unjustly tabooed project came before the big screens.

Notably, there is an exception of a singular terror of the dismantling of a dive sight and a replaceable surf point with the progression of this project. Regardless of any fabricated fable, the unvarying veracity remains that now it has become apparent of the bridge’s noteworthiness as a tool for the ascend of this land from a developing country to a developed country. This, out of hand, outweighs the anticipation of an escalation of the rates of crime which could challenge the recently sky scraping architecture of the sun of this state’s solar system. Any other conjured tale can be out jousted by the fact that the ongoing construction of the bridge column has already fashioned a large scale eco system of a marine biome that could, in few decades outdo the underwater Babylonian gardens that the nation boasts so much of.

A stranger, could effortlessly encapsulate the notions and transgressions exhaled by the filterless, adrenaline rushed environmentalists who claim the act of positioning parts of the puzzle pieces of this landmark upon the reef of Gulhi Falhu, while under the sensitive scrutiny of a more apt intellectual could doubtlessly deduce the fact that it was already left dead by the wake of the many notorious environmental impacts faced by this dainty nation that is so bluntly oblivious to its natural state, such as the recent El Nino overload. Such headlines, in conclusion, are no deeper than a shallow tidal pool with less candour than its percentile of drinkability to one haunted by thirst.

Nonetheless, the dearest weapon in the relentless supply of arsenals that aim to wound this architectural Aphrodite would be the mythomaniac cry of oversimplification about the choice of contractor for this historic landmark. But can one bark at the sky off its stubborn blueness and expect the heavens to bow down to your biding? No. Why then would one point their atrociously accusatory finger at President Abdullah Yameen when the bidding of this project was conducted solely by the Chinese Government?

The taunting truth that will someday henceforth strike down the radical yet rudimentarily immature revolution is that the fiasco of GMR Company of India had undeniably left Maldives in a state of incarceration with heavy sanctions and a bitter taste of unwelcomeness that may have kept a solid block of air between the stamp of VISA from the page of any Maldivian’s passport into India. What’s more were the turbulence of international currents from India that bullied Maldives deeper into the sea of depression of countless departments that were all the more readier to swallow the country with their predatory practice.

If not for the regal brainpower and the punctual manoeuvres of President Abdullah Yameen that solidified a fraternity of security with China, the island nation would have become an exemplary Solomon Islands where the Solomon Sea would be the suffocations of politically destructive waves of India that would surely have eroded the ever-praised archipelago into royal blue depths of its own territory.

Therefore, what we must ask ourselves is not whether the China-Maldives Friendship bridge is a sculpture of political achievement, not whether it is a possibility or not, not whether it will eradicate the very cause for our existence, not whether it will open up new opportunities for economic prosperity and certainly not whether it will benefit us or not. The real question that spirals down to our today and tomorrow is simply, if it is not an absolute necessity or not. The answer is as obvious as obvious can get. It is engraved in the betterment of every Maldivian youth and their to be grandsons’ and granddaughters’ bones. It is our now. It is our future.