My article for The New York Times

Below is a feature I wrote some years back for The New York Times' "Turning Points" magazine that exclusively covered issues relating to Maldives. This article is about the revival of Maldives' culture with the introduction of democracy in 2008:

+++

Bodu Beru and a ‘cultural revolution’ in the Maldives

Globalization’s good side to the Maldives has been in the form of finding a niche market for local culture, a unique case amidst a world trend where the threat is always by tourism on the local environment.

Traditional music, accompanied by singing and dancing, are vulnerable to the inevitable urbanization, yet ‘bodu beru’, a sing-along dance frenzy by both genders, has found a unique market of its own due to the demands of the discerning luxury traveler who has become ever-so empowered in a conscious awakening to the ‘balance’ of the environment and the indigenous nature of local culture of the destination she or he is visiting.

In the Maldives’ transition from autocracy to democracy, the world was introduced to such household names as ‘Harubee’ bodu beru group, a “window into Maldives’ soul”, due to their ‘foreign’ performances in cities from the West to the East. But even before that, bodu beru had made its way into the veins of Maldives’ most popular and world famed folk album, “Dhoni” -- and in another sporadic venture into local ballad by Meynaa Hassaan entitled “Maldives Fantasy” and its sequel, the “Maldives Ecstasy”.

Just as the discriminating tourist is looking for the ‘real thing’, one Western journalist describes on an international website that the vast Maldives archipelago, consisting of 1,200 secluded coral islands scattered across 90,000 square kilometers at the southern tip of India, offers “200 different cultures” – and truly so!

The urban ‘feel’ of the federal capital Male is vastly different in comparison to former president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom’s “pet project”, the modernization of Baa atoll capital island Eydhafushi as to result it being locally nicknamed “Kuda Male”,  literally, “Small Male”.

Likewise, the second most developed island in that atoll, which has been declared a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, is Thulhaadhoo. Yet, you would feel it different than Eydhafushi, and yet again different if you happen to visit a “lesser” developed neighboring Kihaadhoo.

A Western reporter recently wrote on an international website that he refrained from a selfie, while attending a bodu beru event in a local resort island, wondering whether Maldives’ bodu beru is “just a group of youths having fun” rather than it being an “authentic cultural experience”.

An easy way to experience these macroscopic scales of the ‘division’ of culture into sub-cultures is to physically visit two “equally” poor communities, like Goidhoo and Noomaraa. Whether you see women, men, and children all hanging out together out on the local choir stool ‘joali-fathi’, you would still experience a true difference between the cultures of even these two island communities.

Hence, now there is no “correct” flavor to our ancestral heritage. Bodu beru can be sung in not only Dhivehi, but other languages as well, such as the recent performance in Arabic by the Varunulaa Bodu Beru Group.

As Maldives is now set to launch its own ‘Maldivian Idol’, under a tourism ministry drive to attract 1.5 million visitors to these islands in 2015, this has created genuine interest in the art of singing, and its ‘supplementary’ activities, such as the music and the dancing, has resulted in the creation of young male bodu beru groups and young female ‘bandiya’ groups as such – the latter being a folk song-dance, played with traditional aluminum water-containers known as ‘bandiya’ which gives a nice hollow sound to it when struck simply with the backs of the hand.

Bands like today’s Habeys thrive simply on the revival of the bodu beru ‘spirit’ by Male bodu beru groups such as the more senior and seasoned Bunzeela. What we are now seeing is a new generation of artists and performers enthusiastically embracing these ‘outlets of artistic expression in a cultural form’ in a society where democracy was an alien concept until the country’s first multiparty elections in 2008.

But, most importantly, this ‘cultural revolution’ could not have happened if not for the technical advancements that have made ours the ‘age of the selfie’. The world population has exploded into more than the feared 6 billion, and with the high competition, the progress in state-of-the-art communications technologies have given every – even the poor – aspiring young ‘artist’ to express his or herself on ‘social media’ platforms such Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube and thereby create an ‘individual’ identity.

Most local cultural groups have now captured the imagination of ‘outside’ viewers because today’s cultural productions can be accessed – and allowed continued access – to their products through various audio-visual formats. In other words, once traditional media such as television stations has “chosen” to highlight a particular “product”, that product, for example, a latest video of a recent Harubee item would continue to have easy “eternal” access to potentially millions of fans through channels like YouTube. Not surprisingly, most Maldivian bodu beru groups do run their own websites, ‘soundclouds’, Twitter and Facebook in addition to YouTube. If such a video even crosses the 100,000 view ‘hit’ mark, it would mean that at least a quarter of our population – of mostly youth – are savvy to the wonders of the smart phone.

Needless to say, this revival of Maldives ancient ‘Dhivehi’ identity and culture, with its offer of not just ‘200’ different cultures but a number you have to multiply in accordance with the ‘districts’ in each island community in a country which has its own ward ‘rivalry’, known locally by the term “avashu vaadha”, do result in a proportionately higher number of the ‘varieties’ of culture – if the ‘feel’ of each current bodu beru group speaks for itself. There is a distinct feel if you closely listen to the bodu beru items by bodu beru groups from almost each and every ‘ward’ and ‘district’ in all islands.

Yet, there is an ‘affinity’ in the ‘melody’ of each bodu beru item, regardless of their cultural background. It plays directly with the national “heart” of “being Maldivian” – a distinguished local culture similar yet different from the roots of the prevailing larger culture of South Asia and Africa.

To this have been added ‘outside’ influences such as ‘borrowing’ from both Western and Eastern cultures, as attested by 67-year-old Abdulla “Hakuru Kudey” Waheed”, who claims he is the sole survivor of the knowledge of “true” Maldivian culture and believes that this ‘reborn’ bodu  beru is “not” the real thing but a “fusion” of “modern” world influences, due to Maldives exposure to the world with the advent of tourism in 1972, with the first tourist group, consisting of Italian journalists, ‘exploring and discovering these virgin islands as the new tourist destination for Italian travelers” -- exactly six years after the British gave Maldives independence. Hence, an ‘exotic’ addition to the flavors of bodu beru may have been an important ‘catalyst’ to launch bodu beru on to the world stage -- to a market of a new generation of classy consumers who seem to easily and willingly gobble up anything that offers the taste of a ‘masala’ of different ethnic cultures.

As long as you got the ‘talent’ to give a ‘catchy’ beat to the audience, your bodu beru group is a sure win – no matter how many bodu beru groups are out there! The YouTube hits are counting.

We are all dancing to the same drum, albeit differently. Therefore, this creates a ‘never-ending’ market for the fandom of Maldivian bodu beru, and Maldivian youngsters are currently ‘occupying’ this new ‘niche’ market confidently and comfortably, assured that pure culture will always restore order and balance to chaotic politics.