The 24-page report on the trial of Datuk Seri Anwar bin Ibrahim in the High Court of Malaysia observed on behalf of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) by MARK TROWELL QC, August 2010.
THE CORRIDORS OF POWER
Raja Petra Kamarudin
http://www.malaysia-today.net/files/Mark-Trowell-Report-August-2010-IPU.pdf
Mark MacKinnon, The Globe and Mail
There is an uncomfortable pattern to life for Anwar Ibrahim, the charismatic leader of Malaysia’s opposition. In 1998, shortly after he quit the authoritarian government of Mahathir bin Mohamad, he was convicted and jailed on trumped-up sodomy charges.
Six years after that conviction was quashed and he was released from prison – and just as it looked like he and his multi-ethnic coalition might finally oust the long-ruling United National Malays Organization from office – Mr. Anwar finds himself trapped in the most awkward of reruns, once more accused of “consensual intercourse against the order of nature.”
The charges again look to be a thinly veiled attempt to ruin Mr. Anwar’s reputation and sabotage his political career in this Muslim-majority country. The trial to date – dubbed “Sodomy II” in Malaysia’s unsubtle government-controlled press – has produced a succession of lurid headlines about lubricant tubes and stained underwear, while Mr. Anwar and his lawyers have been denied the right even to see the medical records of the man with which he is alleged to have had anal sex.
But instead of letting the scandalous court proceedings force him to the sidelines, the eternally optimistic Mr. Anwar has been using good humour and his ever-present BlackBerry to turn even the most awkward of headlines to his advantage, holding up the charges against him as proof of the absurdity of the system he’s trying to change.
As a lone judge contemplates whether there is evidence to convict Mr. Anwar and sentence him to up to 20 years in prison, as well as a flogging, Mr. Anwar has continued his ferocious assault on a government he derides as repressive and corrupt, blogging from the courtroom and sending cheeky and upbeat 140-character updates to his followers via Twitter.
“Sodomy circus turns into sex opera!” reads one of Mr. Anwar’s mid-trial posts, which linked to a video of a lawyer discussing the lurid details of the case. “Courage of conviction. Que sera sera,” was his response to a fellow Twitter user who worried the energetic 63-year-old was headed back to jail.
The odds do seem stacked against Mr. Anwar, a former deputy prime minister who was once considered the rising star of Malaysian politics. But to hear him tell it, his déjà-vu legal ordeal is evidence that Prime Minister Najib Razak and his party are losing their grip on power, and they know it well.
“They can’t deal with me politically – either my economic programs or policies. They can’t debate me. So they resort to this ludicrous exercise to demonize me,” he said in an interview at the offices of his People’s Justice Party in western Kuala Lumpur, a confident grin fixed on his narrow, goateed face. “We will win the next election and we will change the courts.”
It seems unlikely things will go quite that smoothly. Mr. Anwar’s political career has seen his fortunes change as often and as quickly as the weather in this peninsula thrust between the Indian and Pacific oceans. The leader of a Muslim youth organization during his student days, he shocked his followers by joining UNMO in the early 1980s and taking a succession of cabinet posts in the authoritarian government of Mr. Mahathir, eventually rising to become his powerful finance minister and deputy prime minister.
But the two men never saw eye-to-eye on key issues, and they eventually fell out during the 1997 Asian financial crisis over economic policy and Mr. Anwar’s accusation that cronyism at the top was hurting the country’s economy. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Anwar – frequently held up in the West as an example of a moderate Muslim democrat – was in jail.
Though initially barred from politics upon his release, Mr. Anwar steered the opposition to a surprisingly strong finish in 2008 elections, and – even as the new sodomy charges were being laid –very nearly won the long-sought prime minister’s chair in the aftermath when he called for a vote of non-confidence in Mr. Najib’s government. Mr. Anwar said he had the support of a majority in parliament, including an unspecified number of UMNO defectors, but the vote never happened. Instead, 40 key lawmakers were sent on a government junket to Taiwan during which some were apparently convinced to rethink supporting Mr. Anwar’s bid for power.
The next election, which can be called any time before 2013, is set to be a high-stakes affair in this rapidly developing country of 28 million, which has seen freedom of speech blossom since the 2003 retirement of Mr. Mahathir and the rise of the Internet. Any kind of conviction would keep Mr. Anwar – who heads an improbable coalition that consists of liberal reformers like himself and an Islamist party that seeks to impose Koranic law – on the sidelines for another five years.
Mr. Anwar, a married father of six children, denies the new charges that he had sex with a 25-year-old former aide to Mr. Najib. (The sodomy law, which dates back to the British colonial era, has only been used seven times since independence, with four of those charges being levelled against Mr. Anwar.)
The case recently devolved into further farce when it surfaced that the complainant was having an affair with a member of the prosecution team. Though Judge Mohamad Zabidin Diah acknowledged the affair as fact, he denied Mr. Anwar’s application to have the charges thrown out on that basis.
Mr. Anwar, who counts Al Gore, Nelson Mandela and former Canadian prime minister Paul Martin among his friends, said that while the Malaysian court system would do him no favours, he thinks his case is high-profile enough that the government won’t dare jail him again. “It’s a catch-22 for them. If they put me in jail, they invoke more sympathy, certainly the government will lose … And unlike Mahathir, Najib wants to be seen to be acceptable in the international community.”
Mr. Anwar’s undimmed ambition to be prime minister clearly infuriates his political opponents. Even in retirement, his mentor-turned-nemesis Mr. Mahathir uses his own blog to mock his former protégé and lash back at accusations that the case against Mr. Anwar is trumped up. “Could it be that it was actually the victim of anal rape who decided to tell things as they happened? I would like to say we should wait for the court to decide, but that can take a very long, long time or even never,” Mr. Mahathir wrote recently.
Despite a near-complete ban on his speaking to the official media, Mr. Anwar appears to be winning the public-relations battle, in part because of his savvy online efforts. A poll conducted by the independent Merdeka Centre for Opinion Research shortly after the new charges were filed found that only 11 per cent of the more than 1,000 respondents believed the new sodomy allegations against Mr. Anwar. Two-thirds said they agreed with the statement that the trial was “a politically motivated action to disrupt Anwar Ibrahim’s political career.”
By Azeem Ibrahim, The Huffington Post
It is clear that the trial has been unfair from the start. Every day that it continues is a further blot on the Malaysian judiciary. The charges are tainted, inconsistent, and lacking credibility; the evidence flimsy where it exists; and the process skewed in the interest of the government.
Anwar Ibrahim is the leader of Malaysia's opposition. Since reemerging in Malaysian politics in 2007 he has done well, quadrupling the new opposition coalition's representation in Parliament, winning 47% of the popular vote, and taking control of six of Malaysia's fourteen states and territories in the March 2008 elections. He has become the biggest threat to the sitting government's 53-years of uninterrupted rule.
Perhaps that is why the Malaysian judiciary is pursuing a charge of sodomy against him, again. In 1998 he faced a similar ordeal in the midst of a popular uprising against the rule of then Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed. Viewed as a threat to the ruling party's status quo, Anwar was sacked from his position as Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister, arrested and sentenced to 15 years solitary confinement after a trial many believed was marred by political interference, falsification of evidence, blackmailing, coercion and torture of witnesses, harassment of defense lawyers, and refusal to admit witness testimony favorable to the accused. Anwar's current trial looks to be a repeat of the travesty of justice that landed him in prison last time.
Firstly, there is overwhelming evidence that the charges are a government conspiracy. Just a few days before he filed the police report accusing Anwar of sexually assaulting him, the accuser met the current Prime Minister - Najib Razak, then Deputy Prime Minister. When asked about the meeting, Najib first denied it ever happened, but later changed his story, admitting that the meeting took place, but claiming that it was to discuss scholarship opportunities for the accuser, who is a college dropout. Najib then changed his story again, admitting that the accuser had come to him to complain about the abuse he had received under Anwar. Najib, the son of Malaysia's second Prime Minister, was at the time Prime Minister in waiting. It was he who had the most to lose from an ascendant Anwar Ibrahim and opposition coalition.
In the days before lodging his police report the accuser also met a police officer who had falsified evidence in the 1998 trial. And the current trial is being led by an Attorney General who is believed to have fabricated evidence in Anwar's previous trial.
Secondly, the charge does not match the accusation. The accusations - as detailed in accuser's testimony in court - suggest forced sodomy, effectively rape. By pursuing a different charge from the one made by the accused, the Attorney General is opening himself up to some embarrassing questions. If he believes that Anwar raped Saiful, why not charge him for it? But if he really believes Anwar and Saiful engaged in consensual sex, why only press charges against a popular leader of the opposition, and not also the former intern?
It is likely that he is not charging Anwar for the rape of which he is accused for the simple reason that he knows the charge would not stand. Anwar Ibrahim was almost disabled in 1998 after a near-death beating at the hands of the Malaysian police, is known to have a disabling back problem. It is completely improbable that he could mount an attack on a younger, more agile man. It looks very much like the Attorney General has ignored the charge because he knows that there will be insufficient evidence in court to make it stick.
A third suspicious aspect of the whole affair is the lack of evidence. If the accuser was indeed assaulted then there would be some evidence to prove it. However, forty-eight hours after the alleged incident he was examined twice, once in a private hospital and once more in the Kuala Lumpur General Hospital. In both cases doctors ruled out any possibility of assault or penetration - the minimum amount of evidence necessary for a court to proceed with a trial. Moreover, the lag in time from the alleged incident until the time he was examined leaves wide open the possibility of planting or fabricating evidence.
A fourth reason for suspicion is clear evidence of obstruction of justice in this case. Anwar's defense team and medical experts have yet to receive much of the information they need to do their jobs effectively. Medical reports, CCTV recordings, and even witness statements have all been withheld by the prosecution. The judiciary has systematically denied Anwar's attorneys access to the facts of the case before and during the trial, leaving the defense with one arm tied behind its back.
Lastly, the charges emerged just months after the opposition made unexpected gains in the 12th Malaysian General Elections and in advance of Anwar's threat to call for a vote of no confidence in Parliament and take over the government. There has been a general campaign to discredit and destabilize the opposition in general and vilify Anwar Ibrahim specifically, of which these charges seem to be just another example.
Azeem Ibrahim is a Research Scholar at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, Member of the Board of Directors at the Institute of Social Policy and Understanding and Chairman and CEO of Ibrahim Associates.
for challenging the Muslim world to embrace democracy.
OPPOSITION LEADER | PEOPLE'S JUSTICE PARTY | MALAYSIA
Two decades ago, it would have been impossible to imagine Anwar pulling together rural Malays, ethnic Indians and Chinese, and Islamists into a coherent political bloc. Back then, Anwar was deputy prime minister in a de facto single-party state that espoused preferential treatment for ethnic Malays. It was a policy that Anwar had pushed from his days as a youth leader right up until 1997, when he denounced his patron, then-Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, for corruption. He would spend the next six years in solitary confinement on trumped-up charges for that political betrayal. And he would leave jail in 2004 with a bold message for change in a country now at the forefront of the struggle for democracy in the Muslim world. Today, Anwar's political career is blossoming, despite a new, politically motivated indictment. Abroad, he has become an outspoken advocate of religious tolerance.
He sat down with Foreign Policy to talk about his big ideas:
On Muslim countries and the West: You can't just erase a period of imperialism and colonialism. You can't erase the fault lines, the bad policies, the failed policies, the war in Iraq, and support for dictators. That to me is the reality. But what is the problem? When you … apportion the blame only to the West or the United States. They want to deflect from the issue of repression, endemic corruption, and destruction of the institutions of governance.
On his time in prison: I spent a lot of time reading. I decided to focus on the great works and the classics. Friends from around the world were sending books, but it takes months for [the prison] to vet them. There came a book on the Green Revolution at that time. The officer said, "Anything revolution -- out!" even though it was about agriculture. But the books kept coming. The officers were not even graduates, and [the books] were in English. They would say, "Anwar, out of 10 books, can you send back one?" So I would select something I had already read or something I was not interested in and say, "We should reject this."
On politics: Of course, you simplify the arguments [for politics], but the central thesis remains constant. People say, "Anwar, you are opportunistic. How can you talk about Islam and the Quran here, and then you talk about Shakespeare and quote Jefferson or Edmund Burke?" I say, it depends on the audience. You can't talk about Edmund Burke in some remote village in Afghanistan. Then you go to Kuala Lumpur and you quote T.S. Eliot. If I quote the Quran all the time to a group of lawyers, [they will think] I am a mullah from somewhere!
| Written by John Berthelsen | |
| WEDNESDAY, 24 FEBRUARY 2010 |
The Washington Post Editorial
IN THE PAST two years, Malaysia, which has been a one-party state since it gained independence in 1957, has made remarkable strides toward becoming a democracy. That it has done so is mostly due to the efforts and political talent of one man -- Anwar Ibrahim. So the fact that Mr. Anwar went on criminal trial last week should deeply concern the democratic world. The outcome could determine whether one of Asia's most economically successful countries preserves its stability and embraces long-overdue reforms.
A former deputy prime minister in the ruling party, Mr. Anwar was deposed and jailed in 1998 by former Malaysian strongman Mahathir Mohamad. A manifestly unfair trial followed in which Mr. Anwar was convicted of homosexual sodomy, which shamefully remains a crime in Malaysia. Six years later, the conviction was overturned by a court, and Mr. Anwar resumed his political career -- this time as an open champion of democracy in Malaysia and other Muslim countries.
Mr. Anwar succeeded in forging a coalition of opposition parties, including his own multiracial People's Justice Party, an Islamic party, and a secular party. He has campaigned against the government's toxic policy of racial discrimination, which funnels economic favors to well-connected members of the ethnic Malay majority. In the past two years, his coalition has pulled off a string of stunning victories in state and parliamentary by-elections; it now controls four of 13 state governments. If led by Mr. Anwar, it would have a fair chance of winning the next national election in 2013.
That's one reason it's suspicious that, three months after the state election victories in 2008, Mr. Anwar was once again accused of sodomy. Another is that his young male accuser was seen with aides of Najib Razak, who is now prime minister; Mr. Anwar says he has evidence that the accuser met with the prime minister and his wife shortly before making his charge. A third is that the case has been transferred from criminal court to a higher court whose judges are closely linked to the ruling party.
If Mr. Anwar is convicted, he could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison and would be banned from politics for five years. He is 62. The ruling party no doubt hopes a conviction will cause the opposition coalition to crumble. But it could just as easily provoke a backlash against Mr. Najib or street demonstrations that could destabilize the country. That's why the Obama administration and other Western governments interested in stability in Asia should make clear that the imprisonment of Mr. Anwar would be a blatant human rights violation -- and not in Malaysia's interest.
By Daniel W. Delaware
BANGKOK: Malaysia, always in the shadow of its sparkling city-state neighbour, now seeks, it seems, to draw the spotlight of world attention upon itself but for entirely the wrong reasons.
The lacklustre Hobson’s choice premier Mohammed Najib Tun Abdul Razak, who has been struggling to be taken seriously and continues to struggle mostly, in vain, to try and restore the dwindling fortunes of his party, is behaving like a rabbit caught in the headlights of a fast approaching vehicle.
Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad’s wish to see Malaysia join the first world seems to become more and more of a pipe dream. The good doctor’s feelings towards Mr Najib’s predecessor, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, are well known, and the appetite for interfering with the judiciary is said to have started with the good doctor; so unsurprisingly there has been a tumult of criticism from human rights groups concerning the latest trial, as Anwar Ibrahim’s last conviction was so publicly overturned by Malaysia’s highest court after a lengthy delay.
The question all serious Malaysia watchers are asking is: Why is this happening again? The last bungled attempt to remove Anwar from the political landscape ended in utter ignominy, and the Malaysian state was most certainly the loser. Well, the best guess seems to be the analogy of a drowning man grasping at straws, however hopeless, in order to survive, because as a political strategy another trial is totally bankrupt.
Interestingly, the one factor the plotters appear to have totally overlooked is the present incumbents of the White House and State Department. Both of these current office-holders are unlikely to stay silent if history repeats itself in how Anwar is dealt with. Thailand has recently felt the new realism of the current American administration when the US ambassador in Bangkok wrote a letter to the English-language press deploring the forced repatriation of Hmong refugees to Laos, a most unheard of action in diplomatic protocol.
The Malaysian regime seems to lack the sophistication and good grace to deal with successful opposition as it desperately tries to cling to power. Voters have already punished it at the ballot box and are likely to repeat the process again. A suspect verdict on Anwar will draw nothing but opprobrium from the world at large and pigeonhole the current regime as only slightly more sophisticated than the generals in Burma in how it deals with its opponents, but not that much.—The Nation
Saiful's and Rahimi's statements contradict each other
(The Malaysian Insider) - Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s accuser told the High Court today that he once idolised the Opposition Leader, describing himself as an “Anwar fan”.
Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan was recounting in court today on the third day of Sodomy II his experience when he first met his idol Anwar in March 2008, soon after the general elections that year.
“In March, my friend Rahimi Osman called me to come to his office in Petaling Jaya, Section 16. He had called because he wanted to chat with me and catch up on things.
“While talking at the office, he asked me whether I was employed. When I said that I was not working, he then asked me whether I wanted to become an assistant in Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s office,” said Saiful.
According to Saiful, Rahimi had told him that Anwar was short of office staff owing to the fact that staff members such as Nurul Izzah and Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad were contesting in the elections at that point of time.
Saiful recounted how he was still divided over taking a job there when Rahimi took him to a meeting and introduced him to Anwar.“I was shocked. I had not decided on anything yet when Anwar said, ‘I appreciate your helping us’. It was a signal as if he had accepted me there and then.” Saiful also told the court that he had always idolised Anwar because “Anwar is a charismatic leader.”
BUT THIS VIDEO SAYS THE OPPOSITE (SEE MINUTE 7 ONWARDS)
MELBOURNE, Australia (JTA) -- Malaysia’s former prime minister accused America’s "Jewish lobby" of preventing President Obama from ending the war in Afghanistan.
Local Malaysian media reported that Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, who ruled the Muslim nation between 1981 and 2003, told the Conference for the Support of Al-Quds on Jan. 21 that AIPAC was hindering two of Obama’s key election promises: ending the war in Afghanistan and closing the Guantanamo Bay prison.
“There are forces in the United States which prevent the president from doing some things,” the Malaysian Star quoted Mahathir as saying. “One of the forces is the Jewish lobby, AIPAC.”
Mahathir, long known for his anti-Semitic views, went on to say that Jews “had always been a problem in European countries. They had to be confined to ghettoes and periodically massacred. But still they remained, they thrived and they held whole governments to ransom.
“Even after their massacre by the Nazis of Germany, they survived to continue to be a source of even greater problems for the world,” he said.
Mahathir also said there was “strong evidence” that the 9/11 terror attacks on the United States were staged as an excuse to wage war against Islam.
“If they can make 'Avatar,' they can make anything,” he was quoted as saying.
In response, Australian federal lawmaker Michael Danby, who is Jewish, said that “Dr Mahathir’s comments that Jews had to be periodically massacred are abhorrent and should be condemned. Hopefully within a few months, when there are democratic elections, we will see a modern Malaysian leader in Anwar Ibrahim, who will lead a non-racialist coalition to election victory.”
So, Pakatan Rakyat, beware. Your days in Selangor may be numbered. Umno has given itself until January 2010 to take over the state. And they are doing many things simultaneously to ensure that they succeed.
THE CORRIDORS OF POWER
Raja Petra Kamarudin
Two weeks before the Pakatan Rakyat Perak state government fell I suggested they seek an audience with the Sultan of Perak and request that the Perak State Assembly be dissolved to make way for fresh state elections.
I spoke to Anwar Ibrahim about it and he told me that my anxiety is unfounded because he had already spoken to Lim Kit Siang and Kit Siang had assured him that the problem with Hee had already been resolved and that everything is under control.
I was, however, still adamant that they should request permission for the dissolution of the Perak State Assembly while they still controlled the majority in the Assembly. Once they lose this majority the Sultan need not consider Pakatan Rakyat’s request because Pakatan Rakyat will no longer be the Perak state government.
As long as Pakatan Rakyat is still the government the Sultan will have no excuse to turn down Pakatan Rakyat’s request. Even if he did turn down the Pakatan Rakyat request to dissolve the Perak State Assembly he will have no legitimate reason for doing so and it would be very obvious that the Sultan is a tool of Umno and he would appear like a slime-ball.
Anyway, that is now all water under the bridge and we now all know that the Sultan was bribed to bring down Pakatan Rakyat plus he was blackmailed with the Nazrin succession issue. In short, they gave the Sultan both the carrot and the stick and like any donkey subjected to the carrot-and-stick treatment Tuanku was meekly led by the nose.
But there are other things I wrote about and which I cautioned Pakatan Rakyat to be alert about. Pakatan Rakyat may control the majority in the Selangor State Assembly. But this does not mean it is in control of the state government.
Many within the Selangor state agencies and government departments are Umno loyalists. They were in fact placed there and promoted because of their links with Umno. So, while Pakatan Rakyat may control the top, it will never be able to control the bottom. In short, the head will move in one direction and the body in the opposite direction.
And the first thing that Khir Toyo did when Selangor fell to the opposition (other than to shred all the evidence of wrongdoing) was to instruct the Selangor state agencies and government departments to sabotage the Pakatan Rakyat government. And this is what they are doing, every day of the week. Thus the ‘funny things’ that are happening in Selangor including the beer issue and the arrest of the ex-Perlis Mufti and the temple demolitions and whatnot.
You could say that not only is the head moving in opposite directions from the body but the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing as well.
And this is how they will eventually bring down the Pakatan Rakyat government in Selangor -- by creating discontentment by doing a lot of ‘unpopular’ things to make life difficult for the people -- which will result in the voters becoming disgusted with the opposition and eventually kicking them out like what happened in Terengganu in 2004 after only five years of an opposition government.
I warned Ronnie Liu about this. And Ronnie Liu’s EXCO portfolio is the most controversial and difficult portfolio of all as it deals with local councils and whatnot, where most of the problems lie.
All they need to do is to not repair the roads or collect the rubbish or replace the burned out streetlights or repair the busted water pipes and the people will become agitated. It just requires sabotaging the ‘small things’ and the people will fuck the state government good and proper. It is really not that difficult to sabotage the Pakatan Rakyat state government when you only control the top but have no control over the bottom.
Many Chinese businessmen in Selangor are exasperated. Corruption is as high as ever. Nothing has changed since Pakatan Rakyat took over. The Umno warlords still control the land office and local councils and whatnot. If you want approval for your projects, licences, permits, or whatever, you need to talk to the Umno warlords. If you deal through Pakatan Rakyat and bypass the Umno warlords your project or application gets jammed.
The Chinese businessmen have discovered, to their horror, that they still need to seek out the Umno warlords and pay off huge sums of money to these Umno warlords if they want ‘smooth running’ of their businesses. Even when they go meet the Pakatan Rakyat people the Chinese businessmen find that the Pakatan Rakyat people can’t do a damn thing. The Pakatan Rakyat people can make phone calls to this person or that person but nothing will happen. But if the Chinese businessmen go meet the Umno warlords and pay the required ‘fees’ then everything will be settled.
Let me make this very clear. Pakatan Rakyat is NOT running Selangor. Umno is. So, if you want things to happen, forget about going to see the Pakatan Rakyat people. Go seek out the Umno warlords and pay some money, a lot of money, and everything will be plain sailing.
No, the dog does not wag the tail in Selangor. The tail wags the dog. Speak to any Chinese businessman doing business in Selangor and they will tell you this.
Umno has told ‘their people’ in the Selangor state agencies and government departments that by January 2010 Barisan Nasional is going to take back Selangor. So everything is now on hold. All applications and approvals and whatnot are being jammed until Barisan Nasional takes over. And the Pakatan Rakyat state government, those people at the top, are powerless to get things moving.
When you go and meet the people in the Selangor state agencies or government departments they will tell you to fuck off. Even if you complain to the Pakatan Rakyat people at the top all they can do is make phone calls. And the more you get the Pakatan Rakyat people to push the more you will get stuck. It is like driving in the mud. The more you accelerate the deeper you get bogged down.
So, January 2010 is supposed to be the date that Barisan Nasional takes back Selangor from Pakatan Rakyat. This is what Umno is telling their people in the state agencies and government departments.
Further to that, many within the Pakatan Rakyat government are going to find themselves facing all sorts of criminal charges, corruption charges included and Anwar Ibrahim included. Umno has asked its election machinery to get ready to face at least ten new by-elections as there are going to soon be ten empty seats.
Further to that, Barisan Nasional has many moles or sleepers within Pakatan Rakyat, in PKR, PAS as well as DAP. Yes, DAP included. These sleepers or moles will be activated at the right time like what happened in Perak. And that will be the end of the Pakatan Rakyat state government in Selangor.
So, Pakatan Rakyat, beware. Your days in Selangor may be numbered. Umno has given itself until January 2010 to take over the state. And they are doing many things simultaneously to ensure that they succeed. We warned you about Perak and you laughed. Now we are warning you about Selangor. Still want to laugh? You lose Selangor like you did Perak and this time I am really going to fuck you through and through. And this is no threat. This is a promise.
There are many who whacked Anwar Ibrahim for refusing to be subjected to a DNA examination. “If he is innocent of sodomy why refuse?” they ask. “Let the DNA test clear the matter,” they say. Then Anwar can prove he is innocent. Actually, it is not that simple. DNA evidence can be fabricated, as scientists in Israel have now confirmed. Anwar is safer telling the Malaysian police to go fuck themselves.
NO HOLDS BARRED
Raja Petra Kamarudin
The US made it clear it viewed the latest sodomy charge against Anwar as a sham charge similar to the first one back in 1998. And you respond by grumbling about people linking Najib to the Altantuya murder and about how you turned down a bribe?
THE CORRIDORS OF POWER
Raja Petra Kamarudin
On Thursday (May 14), at a joint press conference after meeting with United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington DC, Anifah was asked about the fresh sodomy charge against Anwar, which State Department had earlier said was politically motivated.
“He said that he will form the government on September 16 and he had changed the dates many times. And he was trying to entice members of parliament (to defect),” said Anifah, who is the brother of Sabah Chief Minister Musa Aman.
“And I was personally offered to jump into the opposition and offered a very lucrative position – it’s like a deputy prime minister (in the Pakatan government). And this is not known to the world at large.”
Anifah defends Najib on Altantuya
At the press conference, Anifah also defended his boss, Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, who was accused of being linked to the murder of Mongolian national Altantuya Shaariibauu.
“And insofar as Anwar Ibrahim is concerned – we know him very, very well. Most of the things (allegations) are untrue; for example, like the involvement of our honourable prime minister and the murder of a Mongolian citizen. And he has repeatedly said before the elections that he will provide evidence and yet, until today, he has not given anything.”
Expressing shock over Anifah’s allegations, Anwar chided the minister for faring poorly in his international debut as foreign minister, which he said reflected his inexperience and immaturity.
“I have spoken to Anifah only once on the phone and that’s it…,” said Anwar after a meet-the-people session in his Permatang Pauh parliamentary constituency.
“I never offered the DPM post to him for him to defect. The issue indeed was never raised. He was never qualified for such a position anyway. Perhaps it was his dream to become deputy prime minister.”
He suggested that the minister was perhaps overawed and overwhelmed by the occasion. “After all, being a new minister before an international audience for the first time, he was probably prompted to impress his new political master,” chided Anwar, confirming that he would soon be filing a civil suit against Anifah for defamation.
“As the matter would be in court, I prefer not to comment further on the issue,” he said, adding that Anifah was seeking to tarnish his image abroad.
Malaysiakini
By Ian Buruma (The New Yorker)
KUALA LUMPUR, May 15 — Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s voice was barely audible above the background din of chattering guests and a cocktail-bar pianist at the Hilton Hotel in Kuala Lumpur.
Anwar — who had rebounded from six years in prison on corruption and sodomy charges to become the best hope for a more democratic, less corrupt Malaysia — speaks softly. He is still under constant surveillance, he said.
Sensitive political business has to be handled in other capitals, Jakarta, Bangkok or Hong Kong. Security is a constant worry. Intelligence sources from three countries have warned him to be careful. “I’m taking a big risk just walking into this hotel to see you, but what can I do?” he murmured. “It’s all too exhausting. But, you know, sometimes you just have to take risks.”
This was the same Anwar Ibrahim, one struggled to remember, who was once at the heart of the Malaysian establishment: the Minister of Culture in 1983, the Minister of Education in 1986, the Minister of Finance in 1991 and a Deputy Prime Minister in 1993. He was poised to succeed Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad. And then he got overconfident. Starting in the summer of 1997, when the Malaysian currency and stock market lost more than half of their value in the Asian financial meltdown, Anwar did something that Dr Mahathir found unforgivable.
Even as the prime minister was imposing capital controls and blaming “rogue speculators,” such as George Soros, for the crisis, Anwar launched an attack on “nepotism” and “cronyism” in his own party, Umno, which had been in power since independence. The “cronies” included members of Dr Mahathir’s family. While Dr Mahathir tried to bail out banks and corporations run by his allies, Anwar talked about transparency and accepting some of the International Monetary Fund’s recommendations for liberalising the economy.
Dr Mahathir does not like to be contradicted. In 1998, Anwar was removed from the Cabinet and from Umno. He was charged with corruption, and with sodomising his speechwriter and his wife’s chauffeur, and convicted. Under Malaysian law, “carnal intercourse against the order of nature” carries a sentence of up to 20 years. Anwar denied everything and took to the road, addressing crowds all over the country. When he was barred from speaking in halls, he spoke in mosques or parking lots, standing on top of trucks or cars. “The government is trying to keep the people away from me,” he declared. “I am not afraid. No matter what happens, whether in prison . . . I will still strive, I will still fight, I will not step down.” While awaiting trial, Anwar was badly beaten by the chief of police, and he says that attempts were made to poison him.
After his arrest, Anwar says, Dr Mahathir gave a slide show for his Cabinet colleagues, to justify the purge of his former heir apparent. There were photographs of current and former US officials — Robert Rubin, William Cohen and Paul Wolfowitz — along with the World Bank president James Wolfensohn. “These are the people behind Anwar,” Dr Mahathir explained. (Dr Mahathir denies showing any pictures but allows, “I informed the Cabinet about Anwar’s associates.”)
Nobody was likely to miss the implication; Dr Mahathir has clearly stated his conviction that “Jews rule this world by proxy.” At the Hilton, Anwar, who started his career as the president of the Malaysian Muslim Students Union, and is a devout Muslim, shrugged. “They say I’m a Jewish agent, because of my friendship with Paul,” he said. “They also accuse me of being a lackey of the Chinese.” His eyebrows twitched in a gesture of disbelief, and he emitted a dry, barking laugh.
When Anwar was released from prison, in 2004, after six years in solitary confinement, he announced that he would return to politics. Last year, Dr Mahathir was asked by a reporter whether he thought Anwar would ever be the Prime Minister of Malaysia. Dr Mahathir replied that “he would make a good Prime Minister of Israel.” So far, it looks as though Dr Mahathir has underestimated his man. Anwar was returned to Parliament last year in a landslide. His coalition of opposition parties — which includes DAP and PAS, as well as his own PKR — has taken more than a third of the seats in Parliament, and several state governments. In the next general election, possibly as soon as 2010, Anwar Ibrahim may well become the Prime Minister of Malaysia.
To make sense of Anwar’s rise, fall, and rise, it helps to know something about the role of race and religion in Malaysia. The country’s population is more than half Malay, defined by ethnicity and the Muslim faith, but large numbers of Chinese (now about a quarter of the population) and Indians (seven per cent) arrived in the 19th century, when the British imported coolies from China and plantation workers from India. Tensions arising from this mélange — and, in particular, the fear held by Malays that they will always be bested by these minorities — have gripped Malaysian politics since the country achieved independence from the British, in 1957. In recent years, the situation has been further complicated by a surge in Islamic fervour among many Malays.
Dr Mahathir, whose father had some Indian ancestry, had always been obsessed with race, and the modern era of Malaysian politics can be traced to his book “The Malay Dilemma,” published in 1970, a decade before he came to power. It is a distillation of the kind of social Darwinism imbibed by Southeast Asians of Dr Mahathir’s cohort through their colonial education. The Malay race, the book argues, couldn’t compete with the Chinese for genetic reasons. Whereas the Chinese had been hardened over the centuries by harsh climates and fierce competition, the Malays were a lazy breed, fattened by an abundance of food under the tropical sun. Unfettered competition with the Chinese “would subject the Malays to the primitive laws that enable only the fittest to survive,” Dr Mahathir warned his fellow-nationals. “If this is done it would perhaps be possible to breed a hardy and resourceful race capable of competing against all comers. Unfortunately, we do not have four thousand years to play around with.”
And so the Malays had to be protected by systematic affirmative action: awarded top positions and mandatory ownership of business enterprises, along with preferential treatment in public schools, universities, the armed forces, the police and the government bureaucracy. Otherwise the “immigrants,” as the ruling party still calls the Chinese and the Indians, would take over. “The Malay Dilemma” was immediately banned for being divisive. The country was still reeling from the race riots of 1969, when, after a predominantly Chinese party enjoyed an election victory, hundreds of Chinese were attacked by Malays. Killings led to counter-killings. Such intergroup tensions were hardly new: ever since Britain left its former colony, political parties have used ethnic resentments to gain votes, while PAS sought to turn Malaysia into an Islamic state. Presiding over this fraught mosaic of ethnic and religious politics throughout the nineteen-sixties was the aristocratic Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman — until, in the fall of 1970, he was brought down by the brand of Malay nationalism advocated in Dr Mahathir’s book.
Despite the ban, activists succeeded in distributing copies to nationalistic Malay students. One of them was the young Anwar Ibrahim, then president of the Malaysian Muslim Students Union. Over the decade that followed, Anwar and Dr Mahathir steadily gained influence. By 1981, Dr Mahathir was prime minister. A year later, Anwar, who could easily have joined PAS, was brought into the government to help put Dr Mahathir’s ethnic theories into practice through the so-called New Economic Policy. He continued to do so until the late 1990s, when the consequences had become too blatant to ignore: a bloated (in all senses of the word) Malay élite was raking in more and more of the country’s wealth; educated young Chinese and Indians were leaving the country in droves; and poor Malays were being kept in a state of fear by the propaganda in public schools and in the state controlled press. Without their special status, the Malays were told, they would be at the mercy of those rapacious, dominating Chinese “immigrants.” Meanwhile, Dr Mahathir’s rule had grown increasingly autocratic. In 2003, he was succeeded by the more amiable Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who promised reform but delivered little. Tan Sri Abdullah Ahmad, a confidant of Dr Mahathir’s, told me that, if anything, corruption has grown worse. “They’re making hay while the sun still shines.”
To challenge Umno’s ethnic policies is still to court serious trouble. I met Professor Lim Teck Ghee, a former World Bank social scientist, at a restaurant in Brickfields, a largely Indian section near the central station of Kuala Lumpur. A soft-spoken man, peering sadly through his glasses, Lim was the director of a leading economic think tank until he published, in 2006, a careful analysis showing that Malays, far from being dominated by the Chinese, actually owned more than 45 per cent of corporate equity in publicly-listed companies. He was quickly vilified for being “anti-national,” and he resigned his post.
Lim was one of several people I spoke to in Malaysia who used the word “apartheid” in describing his country. “The ethnic situation has become much worse,” he said, especially since Malay nationalism took a strong Islamic turn in the late 1980s, when Umno was challenged by PAS. The Islamists got a boost from the Iranian Revolution, and actually took power in Kelantan in 1990. To preëmpt the Islamists, Umno, ostensibly a secular party, wedded its ethnic nationalism (which was decidedly not a feature of PAS) to religion: Muslims were no longer supposed to drink alcohol; women were encouraged to wear head scarves (tudung); easygoing Malay Islam took on the harsher tone of Wahhabi purism.
The increasing conservatism of Malaysian Islam probably stems from insecurity and envy, more than from religious values. Lacking the powerful cultural and historical traditions of the Chinese and the Indians, Malays have been vulnerable to the inroads of Saudi-style Islam. It gives them an identity, a sense of belonging to something stronger than their village traditions. Meanwhile, in Lim’s view, educated Malays have been too timid to resist, whatever they might do or say in private. “I’ve seen it happening with my progressive university friends,” Lim said. “Wives take to wearing the tudung, the daughters cover up. Their passivity, their silence, is very bad for the community, because it allows the ultras to set the agenda. Islam has become more and more conservative. Muslims can no longer go to non-Malay restaurants or visit the houses of non-Malay friends. Tensions have grown. We’re reverting to the colonial situation, where the different races only meet in the marketplace.”
Lim’s children have already left the country; a daughter is in Seattle, a son in Sydney. He sighed. “Even young Malays are leaving,” he went on. “They can’t stomach the hypocrisy, the dishonesty.” Then he said something that I would hear, over and over, from many others: “The sad thing is that Malaysia could have been so good — we could have been a model of multi-ethnic harmony.” A sense of disappointment was palpable in most conversations I had with Chinese and Indian Malaysians, not least among those who once supported the privileging of Malays, in order to redress colonial imbalances and raise the prospects of the rural Bumiputera, the “sons of the soil.” It was also clear that such disillusionment can easily turn to hostility.
I saw Dr Mahathir, whose views are still widely read on his daily blog, Che Det, at a demonstration protesting the Israeli attack on Gaza. As I arrived at the Bangsar Sports Complex, he was finishing his diatribe against “the Jews” and “Jewish atrocities,” wildly cheered by groups of schoolchildren in Palestinian-style scarves and black tudung. They disappeared as soon as the former prime minister, smiling a little menacingly at the young, left the scene. Later, I read in a newspaper that the government had planned to mobilise “about five million pupils and 360,765 teachers from more than 10,000 schools,” to protest against what posters in the Bangsar Sports Complex termed “Holocaust II.”
I looked around the now depleted hall, and was puzzled by posters that read, in Malay, “Stop the atrocities against us.” I turned to an elderly Chinese-looking gentleman sitting behind me. “Who is this ‘us’?” I asked. With a sly grin, he replied, “Don’t you know? It means the Malays.” What atrocities had the Israelis perpetrated against the Malays? “Palestinians, Malays — they’re all Muslims,” the old man said. He shifted his chair closer. “I’m just here to observe,” he said, lowering his voice. “I’m not pro-Palestinian at all. I have Jewish friends, you know. Lend a hundred thousand dollars to a Jew and you’ll always get it back. Lend it to a Muslim and he’ll cheat you, for sure. They’re all liars and cheats, the Muslims.”
Anwar’s daughter, Nurul Izzah, then entered the hall. The sports complex happened to be in her constituency. She had been elected as a member of Parliament for PKR in 2008. Izzah had not been especially eager to be a politician, having just given birth that year. But when Anwar was imprisoned, and his wife, Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, took his place as an opposition leader, politics became something of a family enterprise.
Nurul Izzah, now 28, is popular, especially among the young. She has her father’s gift for public speaking, and is remarkably beautiful. She got up on the stage and shouted slogans in English about Israel being founded on bloodshed. When she sat down, she whispered to me, “Did you notice how they took away the microphone?” Referring to the official media, she said, “That’s how much they love me.” The vigorous government campaign against Israel had taken the opposition by surprise, and she felt that she had to make a statement. But the government evidently did not wish to share its Muslim solidarity with the opposition.
I asked Izzah when she started wearing a tudung. “Since I was 18,” she replied. Later that year, her father was jailed. “In the darkest hours, you turn to God. We were never forced into wearing the tudung. It was my decision. My father was alarmed.” In fact, Izzah was sent to a Catholic convent school outside Kuala Lumpur, and studied international relations at Johns Hopkins. Her best friend is a half-Welsh Catholic. “I can’t remember many verses of the Quran,” she said, with a polite giggle, “but I felt it was my duty as a Muslim to wear the tudung. I did face some challenges.” As a student, she told me, “My crowd was mostly liberal. So friends sometimes felt uncomfortable. Couldn’t go clubbing and that sort of thing.”
Nurul Izzah was asked to run for office, she explained, “because it was important for the PKR to have a young generation that supports multiracial politics. But, you know, to run for the opposition is suicidal for a future career in this country.”
Despite what must have been a very difficult childhood, she had a refreshing lack of bitterness, and spoke with a sense of humour, even a guarded optimism. I had noticed this quality in others of her age, including Chinese and Indians, who were working for NGOs, writing blogs, or organising local communities. Some have backgrounds in the community: I met Indian and Chinese politicians who started in labour unions. Others have studied abroad and decided to return, as activists or journalists. The most popular blogger is the half-Welsh, half-Malay scion of a royal family. The two founders of Malaysiakini, the country’s best online news site, met as students in Australia. Some are religious; many are not. But everyone, even Lim Teck Ghee, a staunch atheist, seems to agree that the chances of Malaysia’s becoming a more democratic, less racialist society depend almost entirely on the former Muslim student leader who helped institutionalise Malay nationalism: Anwar Ibrahim.
His arrest in 1998 was probably the making of him as an opposition leader. It came at a time when Malaysian society was beginning to open up, especially on the Internet. One of Dr Mahathir’s ambitions was to make Malaysia into an Asian Silicon Valley. Foreign companies were invited to invest in a “Multimedia Super Corridor” between the new international airport and the twin Petronas Towers (also known as Dr Mahathir’s Erections), which rise like gigantic pewter cocktail shakers in the centre of Kuala Lumpur. An international committee of experts, including Bill Gates, advised Dr Mahathir that, if he wished to attract foreign investment, censoring the Internet would be unwise. As a result, Malaysian readers now have access to news and commentary that is independent of the government.
Steven Gan is one of the founders of Malaysiakini.com. Inspired by Anwar’s call for reformasi, political change, he launched the site with his partner, Premesh Chandran, in November of 1999. On the night of Anwar’s arrest, 10,000 people had turned out to listen to his speech against bribery, ethnic discrimination, and rule by decree. Reformasi became the rallying cry of all those who felt disaffected by the corrupt autocracy that Malaysia had become. Every Malaysian able to go online knew what Anwar said when he was sentenced at his trial: “I have been dealt a judgment that stinks to high heaven. . . . The corrupt and despicable conspirators are like worms wriggling in the hot sun. A new dawn is breaking in Malaysia. Let us cleanse our beloved nation of the filth and garbage left behind by the conspirators. Let us rebuild a bright new Malaysia for our children.”
“When we launched Malaysiakini, we had 500 readers,” Gan told me in a sidewalk café near his office. “By the time the decision went against Anwar in the sodomy trial, we had 300,000.” Malaysiakini, which has paid subscribers, actually makes a profit. One of the effects of Malaysiakini — and of a number of immensely popular bloggers, such as Raja Petra Kamarudin and Haris Ibrahim — is the emergence of a genuinely multi-ethnic debate. Raja Petra is the aristocrat, related to the Sultan of Selangor. Haris is a half-Malay lawyer. Another influential figure is Jeff Ooi Chuan Aun, a Chinese IT consultant turned politician. Divisions that exist in daily life seem to fade away online. Malaysiakini is published in English, Malay, Tamil, and Chinese. “Malaysiakini has provided a platform for different communities to express themselves on sensitive issues, like NEP, Islam, human rights,” Gan says. “More non-Malays are finding their voice. They no longer feel they need to leave their country.”
The demonstration on the night of Anwar’s arrest was largely a Malay affair; it took a little longer for the minorities to stir in public. Indians had largely supported the ruling Barisan Nasional, which was led by Umno and backed by the MIC. This changed in November of 2007, when thousands of Indians marched in the streets to deliver a petition to the British High Commission, insisting that the British take responsibility for the treatment of Indians under colonial rule. It was really a stunt to protest against ethnic discrimination. But the petition never reached the High Commissioner: soldiers and riot police with water cannons and tear gas cracked down on the protesters with maximum force.
“I shall never forget that day,” Charles Santiago, an MP who took part in the protests, told me. “There was pent-up frustration there before, but that day something snapped.” The frustration had many sources: blocked job prospects, discrimination in education and property ownership, destruction of Hindu temples, young Indian men dying mysteriously in police stations and prisons. “The point of the petition was to raise consciousness among Indians about their rights, to embarrass the government,” Santiago explained. “But the crackdown was so heavy-handed that even the Chinese became sympathetic to our cause.” It was the first time, Santiago said, that “people of all stripes, rich and poor, went into the streets to make a point — this is what broke the back of Umno.” The MIC lost heavily in the March 2008 elections, as did the MCA. Many Indians and Chinese voted for Anwar’s PKR.
But the most important transformation over the past decade probably occurred in the mind of Anwar himself. He had long been critical of government policies, but almost up to the time of his arrest he was still regarded as a rather arrogant Umno man. I tried to picture the haughty technocrat as he smiled at me in his daughter’s sparsely furnished office at the PKR headquarters. All I saw was a charmer, whose fine dark hair, snappy spectacles, and black goatee gave him the air of a jazz-loving hipster of the 1950s. Even at his own party headquarters, he spoke softly, sometimes in a whisper, aware that anything he said was likely to be overheard.
I asked him whether he had expected Dr Mahathir — a man he had known for more than 30 years — to treat him so harshly. “Yes and no,” he replied. “I didn’t think he’d go that far. I’d seen him destroy opponents, but always short of using physical abuse.”
The 1998 trial was a humiliating spectacle, with elements of dark comedy: a mattress with semen stains produced as evidence in court; police claims that Anwar had beaten himself up by pressing a glass onto his own face. Years of solitary confinement provided much time for thought. “Prison life is such that you have to impose a punishing discipline on yourself,” Anwar told me. “Otherwise, you become lethargic, or a psycho.” Deprived of books for the first six months, Anwar was eventually allowed to read Tocqueville, Shakespeare, Confucius, the Indian and Arabic classics. He also received a subscription to The New Yorker. But there were times when he would have given anything to hear a human voice, even to be scolded by a guard. Family visits were always brief. His children would sing old pop songs to him. Anwar looked wistfully out the window as he sang the first bars of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way.”
The experience seems to have made him a humbler man. In an interview given three months after his release from prison, he told writer Eddin Khoo, “To be frank and honest, I cannot absolve myself entirely of the excesses of (Dr Mahathir’s) administration. There were some things that were beyond our control, other things we simply did not have the courage to address at that time.”
A retired Indian civil servant told me about hearing Anwar speak in the district contested by his daughter in 2008. It was near midnight and pouring down rain, yet more than 1,000 people waited until Anwar arrived, on the back of a motorcycle, drenched. When he spoke, the crowd fell silent, listening to every word. Then, suddenly, a number of Indians began to shout, in Tamil, “Makkal Sakti!” — “People Power! People Power!” And the Malays and Chinese repeated it after them, louder and louder — an unusual demonstration of multi-ethnic solidarity.
Anwar was arrested again, in the summer of 2008, for “sexual assault” on a strapping male aide, but it made no difference to his popularity. Allegations of sexual misconduct had become so clearly political that few people believed them, and the legal proceedings were farcical. Anwar was seized near his home by 20 commandos in balaclavas. The putative victim, who remains under “police protection,” is rather strong to be overwhelmed by the much less physically imposing Anwar. The aide swore in a mosque, over the Quran, that he was speaking the truth. When an imam later claimed that he had been forced by superiors to witness these proceedings, he was dismissed. The offence was then changed from “sexual assault” to “consensual sex against the order of nature,” even though the aide has yet to be charged. Anwar is not worried. “They just used it to embarrass me, but it did no good,” he said. “They lost the elections anyway.”
Anwar has not entirely shed his tendency towards arrogance. Weeks after the opposition won its victory in March 2008, he announced that he was ready to take over the government that year. This was premature. It’s true that the Barisan Nasional government no longer commands a two-thirds majority in Parliament, but there are many problems to overcome before Anwar’s coalition of opposition parties is ready to rule the country. It could be another year or two before the next general election. And the current prime minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, has the image of being a more ruthless operator than his predecessor, the ineffectual Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.
Najib has been involved in a scandal of his own. A young Mongolian model who was a former mistress of a political crony was found blown to pieces in a jungle clearing near Kuala Lumpur in 2006. At first, it looked like a sordid case of blackmail: she wanted money from her lover, and he, in desperation, had her killed. Then things got more complicated. The men convicted of killing her were police officers in charge of security for top officials. The blogger Raja Petra signed a “statutory declaration” alleging that Najib’s wife had been at the scene of the murder. He has since been charged with criminal defamation. Najib has denied any wrongdoing. For the two main contenders of leadership of Malaysia, the truth of the matter might prove to be less important than the public perception. The fact that Anwar appears to be less vulnerable than Najib suggests that the Malaysian public is more inclined to believe a popular blogger than their unpopular prime minister.
One man who is desperate for Najib to succeed is Dr Mahathir. When I spoke to Dr Mahathir’s confidant Tan Sri Abdullah Ahmad, who is a veteran Umno political operator, about his party’s fortunes, he sounded gloomy. Umno, he told me, is like Chiang Kai-shek’s corrupt nationalists in Shanghai in the 1930s. He ticked off the party’s many ills on his fingers: “corruption, ostentatious living, abuse of power, rank stupidity at the top . . .” So was Anwar going to win? “He will if Najib fails to deliver great changes,” Abdullah Ahmad predicted. “Najib wants to, but he can’t. He’s surrounded by corrupt people.”
It’s not clear that Najib wants to make big changes, despite recent speeches denouncing corruption in Malaysian politics. Anwar does, but it’s unclear whether he will be able to. The entrenched interests — Malay bureaucrats, army officers, policemen, judges, businessmen, and politicians — will fight to hold on to their privileges. When I asked Anwar about this, he said that such resistance could be managed by reformulating the quotas rather than abolishing them. “Affirmative action would still be acceptable, but based on need, not on race,” he said. “I tell PAS that Malays won’t lose out. But there are poor Indians, and poor Chinese, too, who should be helped.”
Class rather than race, then? Anwar laughed. “I don’t like the word ‘class,’ ” he said. “I’m not a Marxist.” He paused, and added, “But Adam Smith mentioned equality many times in his books, too.”
An advantage of replacing the rhetoric of race with that of class is that all opposition parties can agree on the ideal of equality. Religion is a more contentious matter. How to reconcile the Islamists and the secularists? Anwar prefers to finesse the problem, by “concentrating on what we have in common, not what divides us.” But PAS has stated its desire to introduce hudud laws for Muslim citizens — punishing criminal offenses with stoning, whipping, and amputation. Secularist partners in a federal government would find that hard to accept. “Any party should be free to articulate its ideas,” Anwar says. “But no issue should be forced on non-Muslims. When I argue with Muslims, I cannot sound detached from rural Malays, like a typical Malay liberal, or sound like Kemal Atatürk. I would not reject Islamic law out of hand. But without the consent of the majority there is no way you can implement Islamic law as national law.”
I mentioned the case of a young Malay woman who no longer believed in Islam and wanted to marry a Christian. To do so, she would have to change her religious status. The secular authorities ruled that this was a matter for the Islamic court, but, of course, no Islamic court (whose authority she, as a non-believer, no longer recognised) would ever accede to apostasy. Her predicament has become a test case on the issue of Malay identity. After receiving death threats, she is now in hiding.
Anwar rolled his eyes. “Islamically, it is indefensible that all Malays should have to be Muslims,” he told me. “Not all Arabs are Muslims, after all. But this case has become too political. It is better not to dwell on this issue. We should deal with poverty, rule of law, democracy. . . .” I must have looked unsatisfied. “Look,” he said, “I have Malay friends who no longer believe, who drink. But they don’t make an issue out of it.”
I decided to visit Kelantan, where PAS has been in power since 1990. Islamic laws have been introduced there for Muslims, though they are not always enforced. Muslims cannot drink alcohol. The lights must stay on in movie houses, and only morally acceptable films can be shown. (Some movie houses have gone out of business.) But nobody has been stoned for adultery or had limbs amputated. I drove across the country, through a succession of palm-oil plantations, in the company of Datuk Zaid Ibrahim, a wealthy liberal Malay lawyer who had resigned his post as minister of legal affairs in the Prime Minister’s office on a matter of principle — the first Malaysian Cabinet minister to do so. He was against the arrests of political opponents, including Raja Petra, under the Internal Security Act.
We had met on a Sunday night in Kuala Lumpur a week before we embarked on our trip north. Zaid was happy, because PAS had scored an important by-election victory in Kuala Terengganu, dealing another blow to the Barisan Nasional. He decided to celebrate the success of the Islamists with a lavish dinner in a fine restaurant. “A good result,” Zaid murmured, raising his glass to the men who wanted an Islamic state.
Although PAS won in the city, the Terengganu is still in Barisan Nasional hands. “Look at those buildings,” Zaid said, as we drove through Terengganu on the way to Kelantan. We passed a vast stadium, a huge new airport, a gigantic new mosque, a convention centre, a university, an “integrity institute.” All around these grandiose testimonies to human greed (and generous kickbacks) were typical Third World shantytowns: wooden shacks with corrugated iron roofs. “There is no money to be made out of building proper sewage systems or water supplies,” Zaid observed, with the dry chuckle of bitter experience.
Kelantan has hardly any huge buildings. Everything in the state capital, Kota Bharu, near the border with Thailand, is built on a modest scale. I met the PAS vice-president, Husam Musa, at the party headquarters. Husam, an economist by training, is not an imam but one of the new breed of professionals in Islamist politics. He was polite, if a little defensive. On the question of an Islamic state, he said this goal was often misunderstood: “We don’t mean a state ruled by clerics but one guided by the holy books. Without the books, we’d be like Umno and just grab the money. The difference between us and them is that we believe we will be judged in the afterlife.”
He said that Islam was “pro-progress,” and that American democracy was a good model. (“Unfriendly people will accuse me of being pro-American for making this statement.”) He also said that discriminating against ethnic minorities was “un-Islamic,” as was government corruption. “People should be treated the same, and that includes the freedom of religion,” he said.
What about Muslims — were they free to renounce their faith? He averted his eyes. “I have my own opinion about that, but I will reserve it,” he said. “Media in Malaysia will interpret it in the wrong way. Everything here is turned to politics.” He used “politics” as a pejorative term. “I am not a politician,” he said. “I’m a Muslim activist.”
Few people in Kelantan, even the Chinese, openly complain about the PAS government. Non-Muslims don’t feel hampered by religious rules that don’t apply to them, and the lack of corruption is widely acknowledged. Still, given the chance, many young people leave for Kuala Lumpur. Several young Malays told me that it was “no fun” living in a place where you can get arrested for buying a beer. “This is a place for old men,” an unemployed building contractor said. “They can sit around and pray all day.”
The real Malay dilemma today is that democrats need the Islamists: Malay liberals and secular Chinese and Indians cannot form a governing alliance without religious and rural Malays. And the only serious contender who can patch over the differences between secularists and Islamists for the sake of reform is Anwar, a liberal Malay with impeccable Muslim credentials. “He is our last chance,” Zaid told me, as he celebrated the victory of PAS in Kuala Terengganu. When I repeated this to Anwar, he looked thoughtful and said, “Yes, and that’s what worries me.”
Fri, Feb 5, 2010