The Island President (2011)

  

There's a moment, in the middle of John Shenk's captivating 2011 documentary, where President Mohamed Nasheed is starring on a British radio show. The host notes Nasheed's record of political protest, and his fight against global warming upon assuming the presidency of the Maldives.

"You do like a battle don't you?"

"It won't be any good to have democracy if we don't have a country," Nasheed replies. 

This exchange is the bridge between the film's two segments.

The Island President begins by detailing the recent history of the Maldives, a country comprised of a chain of islands in the Indian Ocean. For decades, the political scene was dominated by Maumoon Abdul Gayoom. The crystalline blue waves appeal to rich tourists but dissidents, such as Mohamed Nasheed, were often locked into tiny shacks on those same beaches. Captives were tortured and terrorized in prison cells, and the 2004 tsunami wreaked havoc on the general populace. Despite this multitude of disasters (or, likely, because of them) citizens organized, protested, rioted, and eventually elected Nasheed into office. 

This portion of the movie depicts Mohamed Nasheed as a true believer in democracy. However, after fighting tooth and nail to abolish dictatorial rule in his country, the knowledge that the Maldives might vanish completely is a bitter pill to swallow. But the aforementioned radio host is correct on one count; Nasheed is a fighter, and he begins gearing up for the Copenhagen Summit on climate control. He sends out researchers, he meets with other world leaders, and he engages in publicity stunts like holding meetings under water. His efforts are nothing if not creative.

 

As is probably obvious, I came out of this documentary with a great deal of appreciation for Nasheed, as least as far as his environmental efforts were concerned. I tend to feel kinship with enthusiastic people, and the president's love for his country was palpable. He was a politician, and this is an overwhelmingly positive portrayal, and I've since read accounts that, after electing him, Maldivians were frustrated with how little things changed. However, given that Nasheed is invested in the survival of small island nations- not just his own, but many others- he has a compelling, sympathetic mission. And Shenk clearly fell in love with the Maldives too; every shot is expertly composed and overflowing with natural beauty. It's difficult to not root for both; democracy and the environment alike.

This is what makes the second half of the movie frustrating beyond belief. 

Although Nasheed's greeted by rapturous crowds in an environmentalist rally, things are quite different on other aspects of the world stage. Nasheed is railroaded by the politicians of the world powers (China and India in particular) and must answer reporters' questions on whether global warming is a conspiracy theory. Maldive's issues are treated as a footnote to history, and sometimes Nasheed is taken to task for being too vehement. The president responds that the Maldives has a culture and history of its own, and it deserves to continue to exist. He stresses the urgency of their problem. He bargains, negotiates, and fails to sleep for days on end. Team Maldives uses every trick in the book to come out of the Copenhagen Summit with an agreement, even if it's not their ideal. They succeed in this mission, but the sobering credits reveal that carbon levels continue to rise, and Nasheed was ousted from office by politicians associated with the old regime.

 As far as I can recall, the word imperialism was never once used in this movie. And yet, here we have the decisions of super powers having disastrous consequences on countries thousands upon thousands of miles away. At one point Nasheed invokes various historical wars, and how the world powers rushed to defend threatened countries at the time. He caught some flack for this, but it seems apt to me. After all, in the course of man's inhumanity to man, certain imperialistic actions have all the immediate impact of a bomb.

But at other times, imperialistic actions are insidious and intractable, much like the act of slowly drowning.