In Albert Camus' poignant exploration of the absurd in Greek mythology, the mortal Sisyphus is condemned by the gods to roll a boulder to the top of a mountain, only to see it fall down again of its own weight, repeated for eternity. Often, the transition from autocratic despotism to democratic rule appears an experiment in Sisyphean futility. How many times has history watched - with a diffident eye - a former imperial colony rebel and achieve independence, appoint a strongman (often approved of by the former owners), suffer the economic consequences of dependency, undergo a military coup d'état and fail to establish democracy and stability?
The Republic of Maldives, a series of Muslim atolls that repelled the triple-threat of Portuguese, Dutch and British colonial rule, would appear a suitable case study in the difficulty of this transition. Indeed, the aquatic seclusion of a tiny state - Maldives is slightly larger than Washington, DC with 1/13 the population - often allows one a sense of clarity in understanding its political struggles. And yet last week's forced resignation of the Maldives' first democratically elected president, Mohamed Nasheed, is less straightforward than it appears, and carries geopolitical consequences disproportionately larger than its landmass.
In November of 2011, China celebrated the meeting of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) by becoming just the fifth nation to establish a proper embassy in the Maldives. The sign of affection echoed the boost in Chinese tourism to the islands in 2010, but more significantly irked China's regional rival India.
The Maldives lies just miles southwest of India's southern tip, and the latter responded to China's affection with a show of military might off the shores of the SAARC summit. The economic interest in the Maldives is negligible - India will always remain ethnically and religiously closer to the island's inhabitants regardless of Chinese investment. What's really at stake is a potentially crucial gem in China's "string of pearls" strategy: erect a sphere of military influence from Oman to Hong Kong, specifically mapped along integral oil and trade routes.
India, a bursting yet deeply flawed economy itself, is understandably concerned with China's rising presence in South Asia; an alliance with India's detested neighbor Pakistan hardly soothes the irritation. The United States also has an indirect stake in the Maldives' future, as it has become equally concerned with Hu Jintao's military modernization spending. The Obama administration only recently announced the construction of an American Marine base in the strategically located city of Darwin in Northern Australia, criticized by Chinese officials as an escalation of tension between the two powers. The political instability of the Maldives will be followed closely by the U.S. State Department given its potential use as a strategic nexus of Chinese military influence.
Further, the political struggles of the Maldives should serve, as Nasheed wrote in a recent New York Times piece, "[as] a warning for other Muslim nations undergoing democratic reform." Indeed, Egypt achieved a historic dethroning of longtime U.S. friend and dictator Hosni Mubarak, yet political groups have contemplated civil disobedience in response to the power struggles between military hierarchy and the Muslim Brotherhood; Libya, fresh off its own revolution, faces condemnation for its revolutionary fighters-turned-jailers, accused by the UN of exacting inhuman revenge on Gaddafi loyalists. Perforce, the successful liberation of former autocratic states should be marked with an asterisk - as should the victorious claims of their liberators.
The Maldives' political instability is unique, yet it carries implicit lessons for the future of democratic movements in the Muslim world. Its struggle to attain a democratic state has been unceasing, Sisyphean, and disheartening. And indeed the absurdity of the situation, as Camus so harmoniously penned in 1942, is that the hero Nasheed is conscious of this apparent futility. Yet like Sisyphus, in the climax of his efforts, when he turns his head and sees the rock roll down the hill, "he is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his rock ... There is no sun without the shadow, and it is essential to know the night." One must imagine Nasheed happy.
