Paki Muslim Dress Code

Since the conversion to Islam, there has been an incessant effort to eradicate everything to do with Maldivian past and culture. There is a reluctance, and even downright opposition to the study of early history. Islam seems to demand that - what they see as - the contemptible past before Islamic faith is forgotten. All artefacts preceding Islamic time have been systematically destroyed up to the present.
Now a large number of Maldivians have discarded Maldivian and western attire and moved on to the Pakistani Muslim dress code. And their numbers are growing everyday. Everywhere you can see people who dress like Kashmiri jihadis and Afghan Taliban.
No men except the mullahs on Friday are wearing the Arab dress but the move to Pakistani Muslim dress is maybe a way of getting closer to Arabia. Many women are already bundled up like Saudis. Soon we will have Maldivian men in full Arab regalia?
The quote below from one of the best books written about Maldives is worth reading and contemplating.

"Is the fate of gradually becoming an Arab nation the Maldive Islanders' only option? This is the Maldivian dilemma since they made the decision to accept the Arabs as their undisputed cultural masters and began to sever their links with their own past. Nowadays Maldivians are culturally restless people who can never be at ease. The intense indoctrination of the 1980s and 90s, when Islamization was imposed on the islands at a much higher gear than at any time in the nation's history, has made Maldivians feel uncozy in their own country. The changes brought about have been of such magnitude and in such a short time, that there is now a whole young generation of Divehi people who, having not known how things were previously, take for granted that their home nation has always been so orthodox and impersonal."

- Xavier Romero-Frias
in THE MALDIVE ISLANDERS, A Study of the Popular Culture of an Ancient Ocean Kingdom

Yesterday

Tomorrow