What did Addu gain from the British?

Whether or not Addu got any benefit from the British residing in Addu Atoll is an important question many of us query on. Of course, different people have different views on this particular question. But, as a born local of the Addu Atoll, I would have to say that, what we got from the British, and what we’re still getting from their unruly settlement, are downfalls and detriments. Even though my vantage point of this subject is widely criticized upon, this does not concern my opinion. I cannot pretend not to see what is obvious. Paradoxical to it, there was nothing that the British have ever done to for the sustainable improvement of the atoll.

From the time when the British settled themselves in Gan of Addu to the day they left, and from that period up to now, the British have been an inexpressibly abject blight to Addu and its residents. Firstly, and most importantly, because of the displacement of population that had to take place, for British stay in Addu, the sustainable livelihoods of the locals that were based on fishing and the agriculture were totally replaced with locals becoming instant slaves to support British life in Gan. Our lifestyle turned upside down. It is not all that surprising the locals from other parts of Maldives have come to think that the British were an incredible elevation to Addu. This may answer the unspoken resent for Addu which resides in the hearts of most of rest of the Maldives. Regardless of which when we weigh onto the truth, there is not much the British have ever done for the development or to the benefit of Addu.

It is true that the British built a military airport in Addu. However, the airport with a short runway was not built for the benefit of Adduans, rather it was constructed absolutely for their own use. And, yes, a hospital was also run, but it was not built for the provision of medical care to the people of Addu. It was for theirs, and for the prevention of contagious diseases, it became a must for them to treat our sick as well. While it is also a truth that they have paid the people of Addu with sterling pounds, it was only for the hard and inexplicably tiring labor that the people clearly earned. Moreover, there was also one dailies shop in Gan, nevertheless, this was only so that they could obtain the little pound that entered Addu by selling the products dubiously expensive.

If the British were to do something in good heart for Addu, the first thing they would have to look for is their fundamental needs, such as basic education and primary health services. However, none of these have been provided for us by the British. There was no school in Addu erected by them. There was not one teacher that the British paid for. There was no syllabus that they put together. Perceptibly, educating the children and youths of Addu wasn’t a significant issue for them. If they were concerned in the least for the future of the upcoming city, there would have been people sent abroad for higher education or for that matter any training. There would have been Oxford or Cambridge University graduates in Addu Atoll. Nonetheless, none of these things were to be seen in Addu when the British departed. From the people of Addu, there was only one person and his family that the British sent overseas, and that was Abdulla Afeef and his family from Hithadhoo. Even so, they weren’t sent to UK; rather they were discarded off to the shores of Seychelles.

By working with the British, or to be more accurate by being helpers to Pakistanis, some of the Addu locals got exposed to variety of technical skills. However, in truth, the people of Addu were labors who were subjected to work under Pakistani foremen. Pakistanis were brought in by the British to work for them. Maldivians were obliged to do the work the Pakistanis ordered them to do. While the Pakistan people were the slaves of the British, the people of Addu were the slaves of the Pakis. We didn’t even have the right to sleep in Gan or Maamendhoo, not even the comfort of resting our eyes on the same ground the British were on. Even so, some minority people like Mohamed Saeed from Hithadhoo did have some freedom of sorts. People like him were translators who were used to send messages back and forth and communicate with the labors of Addu.

When the time came close that the British had to leave Addu, they minimized the amount of Pakis allowing few dignified jobs like drivers, mechanics, masons, gardeners and electricians for the locals.

But the only people who got any profit from working for the British were the people from Pakistan. Not one of the Pakis who left Gan went back to Pakistan. Every one of them went back to Britain to learn and earn better lives. Not so long ago, the people who set off the bomb in London were the descendants of these said Pakis. The suicide bomb was set off by one individual named Tanweer, whose father was a child of a Pakis who worked in the Fire Service as a driver.

While the British had agreed to send all of the Pakistani workers back to England, they didn’t agree to help out even a single local to Britain. People who worked in line with the British pleaded for their kids to be sent to England for higher studies, to the British deaf ears.

Some people worked aside British military doctors and nurses as translators. These people received some sort of medical experience, but it was not to be about public health or primary health. There were no health specialists for perilous diseases such as cholera and diarrhea in Addu. There were no experts on such areas to aware the local community even not to relieve themselves on the ground or to chlorinate the drinking wells. The British didn’t do anything to educate such a person.

There were some amounts of people who worked with the British who learned to broken-speak in English. Nevertheless, even most of these people never learned how to read and write in English. Some of these people include Boadeyya from Hithadhoo and Elharahaage Anwar from Feydhoo. Later, to the request of some people, there was a course for Addu labor workers to learn English from a text book called ‘First Things First’. There were a few people from this course who learned ABCs and how to read and write. However, this wasn’t a regular everyday class to teach English.

When the British came to Gan, they moved the people in Gan to Feydhoo, and the people in Feydhoo to one side of Maradhoo. They even built lodgings for the people displaced. But these houses weren’t built for permanent purposes. They were only temporary, not sturdily built, and not even merited to be called housing.
When the British first came to Addu Atoll, people were habituated to overseas trading. But since the British settled in, the trading ended. Fishing and agriculture impeded as well. The public interest in moral and religious views faded and died away.

Despite all this, the Maldivian government believed the British to be an elevation in the development of Addu Atoll, and conducted a development program to keep the people of Addu on their level. This made the living of most people apprehensively hard and consequently, people in Addu decided that having their own government would rally round in this problem. Even though it is true that this government was made because they had no other choice, it is evidently acceptable that this was caused by the British inhabiting Addu. Because of this, even today, citizens of Addu are still tagged to some extent. Locals from other parts of the Maldives consider the Addu society to be an undignified community with no co-operation whatsoever to the government.

Furthermore, the destruction caused by the British to the environment of Addu is limitless. The namesake of Addu Atoll, the “Addu” Island is nowhere to be seen. The island, which was in the coast of Gan, was demolished by the British. It was desiccated along with a mangrove in order to build a runway. The soils and rocks of the island were cast off onto the heart of Gan. Moreover, British oil tanker “ British Loyalty” submerged in the Inner Atoll, causing a massive oil pollution in the inner atoll. The damages to the marine life has been extensive, to the memories of the present generation about 200 dolphins were killed in 1984 by the oil spill of the decaying tanker which went on for a month. In addition, the gun stands set in two reefs of the northern face of the Atoll has even caused cracks in the main reef and the destruction of some reefs in the region. While this is not a truth that many people are aware of, this will obviously cause a lot of problems for the physical basin of Addu Atoll in the future.

What is more, the British never reflected Addu citizens as complete human beings. Not one of them has ever picked up a little child from Addu amorously. Even when they visited other islands, little kids were mainly looked upon as a cluster of irritating chicks. In fear they might come near, they were scatted away with sweets.

I persist once more Addu and the Maldives gained nothing significant from the British. Demanding a compensation for the innumerable and irreversible damage caused to Addu by British conduct is every individual local’s right and the Maldives as a nation’s responsibility.