Letter on prejudice
19 Jun 2010, 2:27 PM
An African living in the Maldives
The origin of Maldivians has part of roots from the African continent. It’s been written in history books and is openly talked about by elders in some islands, especially one in Alif Atoll where the complexion of the entire community is 100 percent black and most people have curly hair.
For over thirty years, the African community has been very productive in various sectors of the economy and social structure in Maldives. We have Black African GM’s & Financial Controllers, Engineers, Doctors, Divers in resorts. The Red Cross / IFCR have were managed by Africans until Maldivians took over recently. The agriculture sector derives its consultancy from an African expert and a number of new resorts have been constructed by African engineers.
Every top football team, basketball team or volleyball team have Africans as key players and they bring joy to thousands of fans.
We are black and we are proud of who we are. It is not our choice to have the dark complexion and as human beings we consider ourselves similar to other races of people. As recently stated by one of the religious scholars, we are all the same and no one is higher than the other except the Almighty God.
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