Let my country awake!

There is no doubt about the patriotic enthusiasm shown for celebrating of Republic Day and Independence Day every year by bringing up a festive atmosphere during these days. But what people interpret about patriotism is totally different now and depends on the attitude of the evolving generations. Over time, patriotism has taken up different meanings.

As a child, I have noticed that whenever President or any great leaders visited our island, the entire island used to have a festive look with crowd standing alongside the roads, cheering and waving to him.  The enthusiasm, affection and respect shown to those great leaders is definitely lacking now, partly because they themselves are to be blamed! In fact, sports, mainly Football, were one of those areas in which patriotism was an important factor for motivation.

 According to me, patriotism is slowly vanishing and is badly the need of the hour for many reasons.

Ever since Independence, Corruption has been an unending war. We are all aware of the magnitude of this threat because corruption is capable of destroying the very root of Our Economy. To combat this threat, the entire society should become mature and responsible and this is where patriotism plays an important role.

Yet another sad story is about a lot of poor Islanders who virtually live under the open sky in extremely hot or cold conditions and desperately in need of fresh water and other basic requirements.  As of now, there is a long way to go, because Government influence is yet to spread among remote Islanders to give them education and work. They are yet to be given more facilities to connect with the wider world and to be made to enter into the political arena. 

Added to these issues, 2004 tsunami disaster took a heavy toll on our economy.

All said and done, though public services do exist and a lot is being done from the side of the government, what is lacking is the public spirit. We, the public, commercialize everything and we are not ready to take up responsibility for public causes. This raises a doubt whether we do not have as much patriots like olden days. The spirit is missing. It is no use blaming the government always, because we also have the responsibility and commitment to preserve public properties and to extend cooperation to the government.

The politicians are also to be partly blamed for this low ebbing of patriotism because most of them do not show enthusiasm to take up public issues to the Parliament (we can say not a single parliamentarian in our parliament cares). There is nothing good that we can hope, this narrow dimensioned politics do not take us back to the olden days where it comes to patriotism, silence rules!

Now the question is if we have ever utilized our secured freedom fully.  We are still lagging behind in utilizing our traditional resources.  In spite of our being exploited by foreign countries like China and U.S we are still not using our originality and creativity that much. There is still a lot to be done.  Awareness should be created among the younger generation about patriotism and they should be taught the responsibility of spreading our influence in the global market. The scenario of corruption and violence should not be allowed to corrupt our youth.  The importance of patriotism and public spirit should be taught to the evolving generation in order to inculcate human values in them. 

Our Republic Day resolution should be that we should not allow patriotism to become a forgotten spirit in Maldives.

However, on the other side, Republic Day and Independence Day needs to be celebrated as a mark of respect and remembrance of our great leaders and all Maldivians who have toiled till date for the development of our nation. So hats off to them all.