Awards, Honours and Praise
In May 2009 Nasheed was presented with Coral Cultivation Initiative Award by Huvafen Fushi Resort and Underwater Spa, Maldives in recognition of his active participation in cultivating coral in the resort’s nursery as well as for his efforts in creating greater awareness on the impact of climate change in the Maldives. One month later, the Anna Lindh Memorial Fund awarded Nasheed the 2009 Anna Lindh Award for the role he played in bringing democracy to the Maldives and in recognition of his efforts "to put people and their human rights at the heart of the debate on climate change".
In September 2009 at the global premiere of the "Age of Stupid", Nasheed was presented with a "Not Stupid" Award for his efforts to tackle climate change and for the Maldives' announcement to become the first carbon-neutral country in the world. In the same month, Time magazine named Nasheed to its "Leaders & Visionaries" category within its annual list of "Heroes of the Environment".
On Earth Day 2010 Nasheed was awarded the United Nations' Champions of the Earth Award. He received it at a gala event in Seoul, Republic of Korea, in conjunction with the B4E Business for the Environment Global Summit. According to a press release by the United Nations Environment Programme, the award was in recognition of Nasheed's being "an articulate voice for the vulnerable and the poor facing the challenges of global warming and also a politician who is showcasing to the rest of the world how a transition to climate neutrality can be achieved and how all nations, no matter how big or how small, can contribute". That year, he was also named by Foreign Policy magazine to its list of top global thinkers.
In March 2011 following his official visit to the Republic of Mauritius, he was decorated by President Anerood Jugnauth and was awarded the highest distinct order of merit in the country, the Grand Commander of the Star and Key of the Indian Ocean during the official lunch hosted by Jugnauth at the Château of Réduit.
In a 2011 interview with The Guardian, British Prime Minister David Cameron described Nasheed as 'my new best friend' and said that he, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Nicolas Sarkozy and John Key would be the five world leaders Cameron would invite on his stag weekend.
On 28 June 2012, Nasheed received the James Lawson Award from the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict at Tufts University in Massachusetts, US. The award was given to "recognize his leadership in opposing the long dictatorial regime that lasted before his election and to recognize his opposition to the armed coup earlier this year which forced him from power, and his renewed nonviolent action on behalf of restoring genuine democracy in his country".
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“Vain men delight in telling what Honours have been done them, what great Company they have kept, and the like; by which they plainly confess, that these Honours were more than their Due, and such as their Friends would not believe if they had not been told: Whereas a Man truly proud, thinks the greatest Honours below his Merit, and consequently scorns to boast. I therefore deliver it as a Maxim that whoever desires the Character of a proud Man, ought to conceal his Vanity.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
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