Western tourists renewing vows unwittingly receive malediction in Maldives

A foreign couple who believed they were renewing their marriage vows in a quaint, local-style ceremony in the Maldives were in fact being verbally abused by locals for LOLs. Police in the Maldives are launching an investigation.

"Instead of words of blessing, the celebrant calls the couple 'swine' and 'infidels' in the local language," reports the BBC.

Boing Boing moderator Antinous offers to abuse anyone in Quenya or Klingon for half of whatever the Maldivean pranksters charged.
(thanks, Antinous)

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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daneyul

“Your marriage is not a valid one. You are not the kind of people who can have a valid marriage. One of you is an infidel. The other, too, is an infidel – and we have reason to believe – an atheist, who does not even believe in an infidel religion,” the Minivan newspaper quotes him as saying.

Jesus–those poor people.

I mean, just how many people have to live in a minivan before it actually gets its own newspaper?
nanner

Pulu si bagumba!
Mitch

Remove the religious element and you have hotel workers having a laugh at some rich foreigners who have no clue, and then it becomes funny.

I wouldn’t be so quick to condemn the Maldives over it. The hotel and the government have apologized for it and the Deputy Minister of Tourism has stated that a majority of Maldivans are appalled by the incident.

I wouldn’t judge an entire society on the basis of a bawdy prank by a few hotel workers.
- peterbruells
  
  Hmmâ€¦ Did that. Still not funny.
  
  But I’m German, we don’t do humor.
Paul in Toronto

When you’re basking in the glow of your tropical vacation, it’s tempting to project a sunny personality onto “the locals”. In reality, that’s just another form of cultural stereotyping. You run into a$$holes in every country and every culture. It gets worse in places like the Maldives, a small, poor country overrun by rich Westerners. They depend on tourists for money, but that dependency breeds resentment.
TimDrew

Not that I have much sympathy for the couple (as others have pointed out, cultural snobbery of tourist westerners must be grating to some of the local population)- but geez; you’d think that folks from a place that counts tourism as their largest economic sector would be a little more careful not to get caught.

Or, as peterbruells pointed out,maybe it’s one last chuckle for them as their land is about to go under. I’d give them that, as they have had a hell of a time the past decade, with the tsunami and all.
- Jonathan Badger
  
  Particularly since there are far more subtle ways to diss people you are “serving” — think of the waiters and maÃ®tre d’s at fancy restaurants — I try to avoid such places because I don’t really enjoy “fine dining” (well, that, and paying $50 for an entree isn’t that appealing either). But my point is that the attitude you usually get from the staff is “we know far more about food and wine than you do; why are ignorant yokels like you even wasting our time with your uninspired ordering?”. And yet evidently a lot of customers enjoy that sort of subtle abuse.
ill lich

I believe this is more common than you think.
Anonymous

Agh burzum-ishi krimpatul!
Felton / Moderator

“Oh, oh oh I’m sorry, this is ‘abuse’. You want Room 12-A just along the corridor.”
Rayonic

“Lets have the locals do a little ceremony. It’ll be so *ethnic*.”

The locals were the jerks here, but I don’t have much sympathy for cultural fetishists. They seem to patronize the people they’re… patronizing.
- peterbruells
  
  I agree. They probably wore miniskirts, too, and kinda asked for it, the sluts.
- Niklas
  
  “but I don’t have much sympathy for cultural fetishists.”
  Tell that to Cory and Xeni, those bastardly steampunk culture fetishists! I am a bit surprised she hasn’t replied to your comment yet.
BDiamond

My hovercraft is full of eels.
Anonymous

These locals are geniuses! They show utter disdain and contempt for their own patrons in a country that produces nothing (except fish) and whose largest industry is tourism (according to Wikipedia). How dare those infidel foreigners make a less than 100% commitment to learning the local culture and merely attempt to introduce some local flavor in their ceremony. Shame on them!
agnot

Will somebody please take that poor cat home.
Anonymous

jeez i’m pretty surprised by all the people defending this.

i doubt it would play the same in here if the story was an example of a non-english-speaking chinese couple or a rich saudi couple getting married in vegas and having a roomful of americans insult them without their knowledge.

i guess cultural and/or racial self-loathing sure goes a long way!
- Neon Tooth
  
  i doubt it would play the same in here if the story was an example of a non-english-speaking chinese couple or a rich saudi couple getting married in vegas and having a roomful of americans insult them without their knowledge.
  
  Well yeah it wouldn’t play the same because the Maldives and its relationship to rich Western tourists isn’t the same kind of one “Vegas” really has with anybody. I think ya knew that tho’.
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    Well yeah it wouldn’t play the same because the Maldives and its relationship to rich Western tourists isn’t the same kind of one “Vegas” really has with anybody.
    
    Open any door in Vegas that says Employees Only and you’ll discover that the town is full of wormholes to the Third World. ‘Pendejo’ isn’t Spanish for ‘sir’.
Zadaz

I laughed. I’m still kind of giggling.

Yeah, it was a seriously dick move by the locals but I have zero sympathy for, as Rayonic so aptly puts it, cultural fetishists.

In a similar vein the best thing about learning how to read Japanese has been seeing just how many people have complete gibberish for tattoos. How meaningful can something be if you have no idea what it means?
- Anonymous
  
  http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20101028
malek

I’m not sure why the NPR did not fire this Swiss couple until now?
querent

No way does Antinous speak Quenya.

I’m feeling my geek-peen shrinking….
syncrotic

Given the choice, I’d rather go somewhere I’m hated for being rich rather than for being a pork-eating infidel dog.

I’m actually quite serious… it’s one thing to be the object of envy in someone’s mind – it’s inevitable that, where large wealth differentials exist, some people will be bitter – and it’s a whole other one to be seen as subhuman. Not that I do much resort travel, but I’ll specifically avoid the Maldives.
Ignatz

This gag was used to great effect in the 1995 Peter Falk/ D B Sweeney movie “Roommates”. Instead of a Polish blessing, the snooty mother of the bride wishes that all of her guests should get boils on their asses while they sleep. Hilarity ensues.
Anonymous

Other Maldives turists should come forward, i bet there is a ton of home videos not just of faux wedding ceremonies but also of other verbal abuses that tourists were not made aware of that are also caught on video.
jackie31337

Heck, I’ll insult you in Finnish for free! I didn’t realize there was money to be made here.
Sekino

Manager Mohamed Rasheed told the AFP news agency: “The man had used filthy language. Otherwise the ceremony was OK.”

The photos turned out great!

an atheist, who does not even believe in an infidel religion

This is almost T-shirt worthy.
- Anonymous
  
  I’m going to put this on my business card.
rimstalker

The Maldives are actually quite hostile in general.

I remember something along the lines of it being the 2nd or 3rd worst country in the world when it comes to religious freedom.

Islam is the only official religion of The Maldives. The open practice of all other religions is forbidden and such actions are liable to prosecution under the law of the country. A small but growing number of Maldivians do question their faith, but rarely in a public way.[40] According to the revised constitution, in article two, it says that the republic “is based on the principles of Islam.” Article nine says that “a non-Muslim may not become a citizen of the Maldives”; number ten says that “no law contrary to any principle of Islam can be applied in the Maldives.” Article nineteen states that “citizens are free to participate in or carry out any activity that is not expressly prohibited by sharia or by the law.”
- Lester
  
  What are you citing? Your copypasta left in the [40] for the footnote.
  - peterbruells
    
    He’s quoting from wikipedia.
    
    Well, global warming will take care of that island.
  - rimstalker
    
    yah, sorry about that. Just after submitting I thought it would be better to inlcude the wikipedia link, but I did not see an edit option for my post.
    
    Here is the specific article about the topic, I was quoting from just the Maldives entry.
    
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_religion_in_the_Maldives
- jtegnell
  
  “Article nineteen states that ‘citizens are free to participate in or carry out any activity that is not expressly prohibited by sharia or by the law.’”
  
  I wonder what sharia says about talking openly about a woman’s breasts.
- JoshuaZ
  
  rimstalker, yes and they’ve threatened to have atheists executed before. See for example http://www.examiner.com/atheism-in-los-angeles/maldives-atheist-reverts-to-islam-while-police-custody
Gloster

Cultural fetishists… I mean, why not? What’s wrong with that? Did the people performing the ceremony not get paid for it? I suppose this was (originally) an ordinary transaction between consenting parties. We agree to pay you for this performance and you agree to do the ceremony. I don’t see anything that could be held against the injured party. If the locals didn’t like it, they shouldn’t have agreed to it.
If I order an exotic food I’m not familiar with, do I get no sympathy if the cook spits in it?

Plus it was just a renewal of the vows, without any legal significance, so the analogy with the tattoo is somewhat misplaced.
gwailo_joe

As a burly angry Chinese guy once told me 20 years ago: “Fucking White people. . .they suck!”

I can’t argue with the sentiment.

I’ll also be playing poker at his house the day after tomorrow. . .^^
- dculberson
  
  Oh, yes, racism is so funny!
zio_donnie

LOL We do that all the time in Greece. The big fat greek wedding cousin that translates wishes as insults is totally realistic. Launch an investigation? Haha that’s even better.

Now may i interest you in ancient artifacts?
Anonymous

According to swiss newspapers the couple were from Switzerland and were charged 1300$ for the ceremony!
gwailo_joe

Oh yeah: ash nazg thrakatulÃ»k agh burzum-ishi krimpatul!

Betta recognize before thy shriveled mind be left naked to the Lidless Eye. . .
Brainspore

Maldives: bitter country.
Endives: bitter vegetables.
Dive bars: bitter drunks.

COINCIDENCE!?!?!?
nox

This would be funny if it wasn’t a sign of the religious intolerance and contravention of human rights in the Maldives, where everyone is forced to be Sunni Muslims, atheists die in ‘apparent suicides’, and any Maldivian professing to not be Islamic has to be put under police protection.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maldives#Religion

It’s off my destination list now. At least there’s still Bora Bora.
- AnnieGetYourFun
  
  My fiance was all “We should go! My cousin would love it.” And I was all, “Well, their policies are pretty much like Iran’s but you won’t go with me to Tehran.” And he was like “Iran has shitty weather.” I guess he had a point there, if nothing else.
Anonymous

This is actually an old subject for jokes… I remember this one:
http://www.xtec.es/~lvallmaj/oficina/polis96/quino.gif
The Mudshark

Is that seriously how you draw your customers? IÂ´m just asking because it seems such a professional way to do it.