Suddenly, the Maldivians are in the news. Earlier this year, they locked up their first democratically elected president, and just recently they declared a state of emergency. It never used to be like this. The Maldives was just a place you saw in brochures, looking expensively turquoise.
It has a population no bigger than Barnet (350,000), and 99 per cent of the country is covered in water. Until recently, even its neighbour, Sri Lanka, hardly seemed to notice it. During my time in Colombo, visiting Maldivians were merely a source of idle curiosity. They flew into town either to pick up a secular education or to get roaring drunk. It did make you wonder what went on at home.
Well, now J.J. Robinson has some of the answers. He describes a society that has always been conservative, and whose variant of Islam is particularly vehement. The country was a British Protectorate from 1887 to 1965 — not that you’d know it.
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