Blueprint for Revolution: How to Use Rice Pudding, Lego Men, and Other Nonviolent Techniques to Galvanize Communities, Overthrow Dictators, or Simply Change the World

by Srdja Popovic

Maldives had a well-earned reputation for brutality, enabled by a perpetual state of emergency and a license to imprison or beat whomever they wanted. Or worse: Gayoom’s goons excelled in devising creative and horrific punishments to visit on anyone who expressed a lick of criticism. Dissenters would be covered in coconut honey and left in the sands for the insects to devour, or handcuffed to palm trees and beaten or raped for hours, or locked inside corrugated metal sheds to bake in the stifling heat for years on some remote prison island. Opposition parties were forbidden, freedom of speech nonexistent. In this environment, opposing Gayoom hardly seemed possible, especially as the regime enjoyed a steady influx of tourism money.