ANWAR: A MAN OF EXTRAORDINARY DESTINY (repost)

It never ceases to amaze me when perfectly intelligent folk keep parroting unoriginal notions acquired from coffeeshop gossip and loose talk over a few beers. How many times have I been told by those supposedly in the know that “Anwar can’t be trusted. He’s a chameleon.”

Dammit… look at that bunch of utter nincompoops strutting around the corridors of power today: anal-retentive Umno stereotypes like Abdullah Badawi, Najib Razak, Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor, Syed Hamid Albar, Muhammad Muhammad Taib, and Khir Toyo… DO YOU TRUST THESE CREATURES? They can’t even speak in public without sounding like robots or reading from scripts! Anwar is human and passionate and you can sense a burning intelligence in his eyes.

Okay, back in the mid-1970s when I first read about this hotheaded leader of ABIM (Muslim Youth Movement), I went ho-hum. Back then Anwar Ibrahim was your archetypal ethnocentric nationalist sporting the mujahideen goatee - but at least he was outspoken on issues affecting the rural poor, and that got him into jail. Seeing his leadership potential, Mahathir persuaded Anwar to join Umno and got him spewing forth the expected foam about bangsa and ugama. I confess that in 1989 I actually did a caricature of him and labeled it "Anal Ibrim" little suspecting that within a decade Anwar would be plagued by that very word. And I'm still troubled by a rumor I once heard, naming Anwar Ibrahim as the minister who came up with the wicked idea to convert the dysfunctional Jabatan Hal Ehwal Orang Asli (Orang Asli Affairs Department) into a tool for converting the Orang Asli to Islam and assimilating them into the Malay mainstream.

Well, I don't know if there's any truth to that accusation - but even if it were true, that was back in 1990, and the man has suffered six years in prison for that reprehensible gaffe. You could say Anwar has paid all his karmic dues. Let's delete Anwar's slightly murky past when he was Umno deputy president and Dr M's hand-picked protégé, and take a closer look at what happened around the time of the currency depreciation in mid-1997. A bunch of young Turks in Umno were pushing Anwar to the forefront as a potential heir to the throne, goading him to attack Mahathir on the corruption front, the old man's weak underbelly. The Mamak didn't like that one bit - and neither did his former finance minister, Daim Zainuddin. Anwar was given the option to hand in his resignation - or face extreme vilification and political damnation.

Anwar, unlike other DPMs, refused to yield to Mahathir’s awesome might and megalomaniacal ego. Anwar fought back when he could have cut his losses by taking up a diplomatic or academic post abroad, returning quietly to the Umno fold a few years later like Musa Hitam.

On September 2nd, 1998, Anwar Ibrahim underwent a radical transformation from Umno bigwig to political renegade - he literally took on the mantle of a messianic cult hero when Malaysia urgently required one. I’ve watched him closely since his sacking and subsequent arrest - and he has performed impeccably as a spiritual warrior and icon of righteous resistance. Over six years of incarceration Anwar maintained his dignity, focus, perseverance and humanity - and that’s when the beautiful, strong women in his life rose to the occasion.

No man who has seen his wife and daughter go through so much on his behalf would ever behave like a male chauvinist pig; he would have a healthy respect for the feminine principle. This is what I see in Anwar and that is why I have publicly hailed him as Malaysia’s best hope at this critical juncture in our political evolution.

Anwar has every quality that marks him as a man of extraordinary destiny. I trust him as much as I trust myself - and because I fear him not, I would walk up to him and tell him to his face if ever I felt he was turning into a tyrant. As a former victim of Dr M's tyranny, Anwar would never want to go down that ignominious road.

In 2001 while overnighting at a friend's house, I flipped through a copy of Anwar Ibrahim's Asian Renaissance I found in his library. Anwar came across as somebody I could imagine having a damn good conversation with on a one-to-one basis. But what most impressed me and turned my views around on politicians in general and Anwar in particular - was the bibliography at the end of the book which listed - among a broad spectrum of classics including the sublime poetry of Rabindranath Tagore - the Tao Te Ching. Now, anybody who can claim to have read that supreme masterpiece in pithy, organic wisdom is welcome in my household anytime. And if he decides to run for high political office, I'd put my money on him. These are no ordinary times we are living in. Successfully navigating the uncharted political seas immediately ahead calls for an extraordinary helmsman - one who has survived the worst storms!

[Here's an inspiring perspective on Anwar Ibrahim by Charles R. Avila that was uploaded today on Din Merican's blog.]

APPENDIX A

Wednesday, 30 July 2008

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER
Malaysia Today

At 2.30pm on Wednesday, 25 June 2008, Senior Assistant Commissioner (SAC) II Mohd Rodwan Mohd Yusof met Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan in room 619 of the Concorde Hotel in Kuala Lumpur. Prior to this secret meeting, Rodwan and Saiful spoke on the phone at least eight (8) times.

Three days later, at 2.00pm on 28 June 2008, Saiful went to see Dr Mohamed Osman Abdul Hamid of the Hospital Pusrawi to ‘complain’ that he had been sodomised by ‘a very important person’ and that he wished to lodge a police report. The doctor, however, found no traces or evidence that he had been sodomised and suggested, for purposes of the police report, that Saiful go to a government hospital.

Who is Rodwan, other than the fact that he works for the IGP and is known as the police chief’s bagman and go-between with the organised crime syndicate that controls all the drugs, prostitution, loan-sharking and gambling rackets? Well, read the following archived reports to get a better understanding of this scumbag and slime-ball named Rodwan. Maybe then you can understand why he met Saiful in a hotel room three days before the sodomy allegation against Anwar Ibrahim exploded.

APPENDIX B

This comment was posted 30 July 2008 on Susan Loone’s blog:

Susan,

I would like to write the following statement in the name of GOD whom I believe.

I am a government doctor in the rank of consultant working in Hospital Kuala Lumpur (HKL). I know personally the doctors who examined Saiful on that day - 28 June 2008.

The so-called medical report mentioned in the NST is a fabrication or imagination by the UMNO paper. There is no such medical report submitted to the polis yet.

When examining Saiful, the specialist could not find any signs of Saiful being sodomised. Saiful was very cheerful, unlike real sodomised patients who will usually be very sad and disturbed.

Saiful was subsequently admitted to the ward and observed for a day. He was completely well in the ward and not emotionally disturbed.

Please let RPK know of this.

Thanks.

[First posted 30 July 2008] 

People of Sarawak, Free Yourself from the Clutches of The Beast!

Taib Mahmud, Chief Minister of Sarawak since 1981, owns rapacious corporations like Naim Cendera and Cahya Mata Sarawak. Taib refuses to answer questions thrown at him regarding his wealth. His long reign as "Robber Baron of Sarawak" has become synonymous with ecocide and ethnocide on a massive scale.

From the Malaysian History blog, 30 July 2007:

WINNING OVER SABAH AND SARAWAK

INITIALLY the leaders of Sabah (then British North Borneo) and Sarawak were opposed to Malaysia or at best gave it a lukewarm welcome after it was proposed by Tunku Abdul Rahman on May 27, 1961 at the Foreign Correspondents Association in Singapore.

“Let us become independent first and then we will decide whether to join Malaysia or not,” said Tan Sri Ong Kee Hui, the Kuching mayor and leader of the Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP), formed in 1959.

Other prominent Sarawak leaders like Datu Abang Haji Openg – later the first local governor – and Abang Mustapha Abang Haji Abdul Gapor who are also members of the Council Negeri, considered the oldest legislature in the country, were unanimous in their opposition to the Tunku’s plan.

In Sabah, Tun Fuad Stephens (then Donald Stephens), a newspaper publisher, a member of the State Council and Huguan Siou (paramount leader) of the Kadazan/Dusun people, shared the same view as Ong. “We must not be seen as changing colonial masters,” was the response of the United National Kadazan Organisation (Unko), a party Fuad formed with Keningau

They contacted leaders from the other territories to see whether they should revive the idea of a federation of Borneo states of Sabah, Sarawak and Brunei instead.

Many of the leaders believed that Malaysia’s formation was not really meant to benefit the people of the two territories but more to provide a solution to solve the problems of Britain, Malaya and Singapore.

Britain needed to withdraw from the East but it could not just up and go without ensuring its former colonies’ survival. Malaya wanted to increase the number of bumiputras to ensure that their numbers were bigger than the others. Singapore, threatened by communists, wanted security.


The leaders opposed the plan because they feared their people would be at the mercy of the commercially superior Chinese whose numbers would increase with Malaysia, and they also feared that they would eventually be sidelined by the more politically sophisticated Malays.

They also worried that their culture and polity would be gradually eroded. Thus, discussions were held on such issues as religion, education and finance where early assurances on these matters were made. Most of the discussions centred on the Sabah All-party 20-point memorandum and the Sarawak 18-point memorandum containing matters the two territories wanted to safeguard. But mostly the focus was on religion, constitutional safeguards, immigration, special position of the indigenous people, language, education and fiscal arrangements.

But even while discussions were still at the early stages, more and more leaders and their people gradually began to voice support for the plan.

[Read the rest here.]



From Malaysiakini, 26 August 2008:

THE SARAWAK DAMS: Multiple follies
Kua Kia Soong | Aug 26, 08 12:53pm

The recent announcement that the Sarawak government intends to build 12 more dams in Sarawak apart from the ill-fated Bakun dam is cause for concern.

It is a cause for grave concern. Malaysian tax payers, Malaysian forests and Malaysian indigenous people will again be the main victims of this misconceived plan.

The stop starting since the damned project was first proposed in the seventies, the proposal and abandonment of the aluminium smelter, the upsizing and downsizing of the dam, the inclusion or exclusion of the undersea cable project are all symptomatic of a wanton disregard for planning. Let me remind Malaysians of the ludicrous inconsistencies of official policy on this damned project.


In 1980, the Bakun dam was proposed with a power generating capacity of 2400MW even though the projected energy needs for the whole of Sarawak was only 200MW in 1990.

The project was thus coupled with the proposal to build the world’s longest (650km) undersea cable to transmit electricity to the peninsula. An aluminium smelter at Bintulu was also proposed to take up the surplus energy.

In 1986, the project was abandoned because of the economic recession although then Prime Minister, Dr Mahathir Mohamad announced just before the UN Conference on Environment & Development in Rio that this was "proof of Malaysia’s commitment to the environment".

In 1993, with the upturn in the Malaysian economy, the government once again announced the revival of the Bakun hydro-electric plant project.


To cushion the expected protests, the then Energy Minister S. Samy Vellu gave Parliament a poetic description of a "series of cascading dams" and not one large dam as had been originally proposed.

Before long, it was announced that the Bakun dam would be a massive 205-metre high concrete face rockfill dam, one of the highest dams of its kind in the world and it would flood an area the size of Singapore Island.

The undersea cable was again part of the project. There was also a plan for an aluminium plant, a pulp and paper plant, the world’s biggest steel plant and a high-tension and high-voltage wire industry.

Then in 1997, with the onset of the Asian financial crisis, the Bakun project was put on hold for the second time. But the scandal was, while the anthropologists in all Malaysian universities were sound asleep, the government proceeded to remove 10,000 indigenous people made up of fifteen different ethnic groups from their ancestral lands.


All this happened while the project was on hold and Malaysians shouted "Malaysia Boleh!"

In 1999, after the economy had recovered, the government again announced that the project would be resumed, albeit on a smaller scale of 500MW capacity.

Before long in 2001, the 2400MW scale was once again proposed although the submarine cable had been shelved. Today, we read reports about the government and companies still contemplating this hare-brained scheme which is now estimated to cost a whopping RM21 billion!

Not only that, we now hear that 12 more hydroelectric dams will be generating a total capacity of 7000MW by 2020 – an increase of 600 percent from its current capacity!

Who pays?

Ultimately it will be the Malaysian consumers who pay for this expensive figment of the chief minister’s wild imagination. Enough tax payers’ money has been wasted - Sarawak Hidro has already spent some RM1.5 billion on the project.

The human cost has been immeasurable - 10,000 indigenous people have been removed from their ancestral lands in 1998 even while the project had been shelved.

If the prime minister really wants to know the state of the Malaysian energy industry, he should ask for independent audits on every power station in the country. These should preferably be done by reputable international audit authorities from outside Malaysia.

We are told that TNB is now selling off property, power stations are not working at full capacity and that the electricity industry is hugely indebted.

Right now, the country is being fed conflicting reports about energy demand. There is supposed to be a 43 percent oversupply of electricity capacity in peninsula Malaysia.

Experienced Bakun dam watchers will tell you such conflicting and mutually contradictory assertions have been used by dam proponents to justify every flip flop of this misconceived project.

Apart from the economic cost and the wastage, how are investors supposed to plan for the long-term and medium term? What is the long-term plan for Bakun? Can Bakun compete with the rest of the world or for that matter, Indonesia?


Aluminium smelters to take up the bulk of Bakun electricity have been mentioned ever since the conception of the Bakun dam project because they are such voracious consumers of energy.

Even so, has there ever been any proper assessment of the market viability of such a project with the cheaper operating costs in China?

Does it matter that the co-owner of one of the smelters is none other than Cahya Mata Sarawak (CMS) Bhd Group that is controlled by Chief Minister Taib Mahmud’s family business interest?

Scandalous flaws in planning

Clearly, Bakun energy and Sarawak’s tinpot governance do not inspire confidence in investors. First it was Alcoa, and then Rio Tinto also had second thoughts about investing in Sarawak.

Concerned NGOs have all along called for the abandonment of this monstrous Bakun dam project because it is economically ill-conceived, socially disruptive and environmentally disastrous.

The environmental destruction is evident many miles downstream since the whole Bakun area has been logged by those who have already been paid by Sarawak Hidro.

The social atrophy among the 10,000 displaced indigenous people at the Sungei Asap resettlement scheme remains the wicked testimony of the Mahathir-Taib era. The empty promises and damned lives of the displaced people as forewarned by the concerned NGOs in 1999 have now been played out.

The economic viability of the Bakun dam project has been in doubt from the beginning and the new scheme to build 12 more dams merely represents multiple follies and a scandalous flaw in planning.

DR KUA KIA SOONG is director of Suaram.

[First posted 6 September 2008]

THE ANWAR PROPHECIES (from Malaysiakini)

[I'm cloning this clearheaded opinion piece by Joe Fernandez published in Malaysiakini for the benefit of those who still haven't subscribed.]

THE ANWAR PROPHECIES DISSECTED

Joe Fernandez | Sep 5, 08 12:05pm

They are still at it everywhere, at the teh tarik stalls, the warongs and kopi tiams, reliving the magic moments of Aug 26 in Permatang Pauh much like in the days when Tambunan in Sabah burst into the national headlines in 1984 and precipitated the fall of the Berjaya government.

Now, the wheels of fortune have turned once more and the worst nightmare of Umno has come true for the brigade of furious nail-biters in the party despite the sodomy II charges, "security" roadblocks on polling day and bizarre attempts to bus in phantom voters and an extended period of vote-counting.

The sons of the opposition MP, Gobalakrishnan, who spotted a phantom busload were even beaten up in public by the overzealous police on duty for their father’s act of public spiritedness.

Now, there are more than a few moments of disquiet these days in the corridors of power over a possibility that the powers-that-be had earlier dismissed as an elaborate opposition spin, even as they went into panic mode and kept pushing buttons at random.

Now, the tables have been turned, and it seems that it’s the spin of the government party machinery which seems to be spiraling out of control at the expense of the economy: savings and investments are down; jobs are slow; and prices, except that for the shares, keep moving north. There’s much to be said for the honest truth, decency, common sense and the realm of the possible in the art of political communication.

PKR (Parti Keadilan Rakyat) Advisor Anwar Ibrahim had prophesized - predict being too mild a term - that he would take his seat in parliament as the opposition leader, opposite the prime minister and look into his eyes. His prophecy has now come true in the aftermath of Aug 26 when he took the Permatang Pauh seat which his wife, party chief Azizah, had kept safe for him through the ten long years when he was a lonely voice in the political wilderness.

What now? Will Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi blink, hang his head in shame or avert his gaze and squirm in his chair. This must be the most uncomfortable seat in the august house for now. From the opposition leader’s seat to the Prime Minister’s chair, it’s just a short hop, skip and jump away when the games of musical chairs begin.

Up to the MPs now

Members of parliament, the whispers along the grapevine goes, can now decide who they want as prime minister: Abdullah, who lost his home state, or Anwar who ironically is from the same place.

There’s already a father-and-daughter team here since eldest daughter Nurul Izzah, Puteri Reformasi, is in parliament as the member for Lembah Pantai. She easily wrested the Kuala Lumpur Federal Territory seat on Sat 8 March from Umno Wanita deputy Sharizat who has been given a new lease of life as Special Advisor to the PM on Muslim Women’s Affairs despite an existing Ministry for Women. shahrizat abdul jalil

True, the sodomy II charges – conspiracy is another term used - hang like the proverbial sword of Damocles over Anwar’s head. All this will be academic if and when the opposition alliance, Pakatan Rakyat (People’s Pact), seizes the reins of power in Putrajaya by Sept 16, Malaysia Day, as predicted – prophecy being too strong a term for now - on the reformasi (reformation) theme of "Forgive, Not Forget."

Critics see a contradiction in terms here and forsee an accounting of scores under a Pakatan-led federal government. Anwar has pledged that there won’t be any acts of revenge – "although there must be a proper accounting", he said - but has admitted it was getting increasingly difficult to draw a line between "a proper accounting" and "an accounting of scores," "since the government continued to pursue him with a vengeance."

Ironically, it was not so long ago that IGP Musa Hassan, oblivious to the difficulties that it caused the man in the street, had parliament cordoned off for a five kilometer area to prevent Anwar from making an appearance. This was after obtaining an unprecedented court order, to arrest him if he appears within the five kilometer limit, amidst swirling rumours that police were hunting him down like a common criminal over allegations of sodomy.

Anwar’s house in Bukit Segambut is within the five kilometer limit and this fact alone must raised serious questions on the professionalism and competence of the police – "among the best in the world, if not the best", according to Musa Hassan - and cast severe doubts on the ability of the judiciary to properly scrutinize any application placed before them.

It is hard to dismiss that August 26 was poetic justice and the run-up may have had something to do with the IGP going into emergency surgery with a heart condition. Had his maker been kinder, he would have been spared the embarrassment and sheer humiliation that is sure to follow in the days, weeks and months ahead.

There was the case of one of his recent predecessors who did a spell in jail for beating up Anwar and giving him the infamous blue-and- black eye – Mahathir then explained that Anwar had punched himself to get public sympathy - which has now become the PKR logo.

If August 26 sealed the fate of the Umno-led Barisan Nasional government, after the electoral triumphs of March 8 - when Pakatan took 82 seats in the Dewan Rakyat, four states, one Federal Territory, and retained Kelantan - how will the finishing touches come for September 16?

What next?

What other prophecies are in store for the people?

Is Anwar Ibrahim entering parliament as the opposition leader on Thursday, August 28, the first step towards the September 16 "Revolution", the third political tsunami, that he has been pledging ever since the opposition alliance unleashed the first on Saturday, March 8.

Many Umno leaders, rattled by August 26, are casting nervous glances over their shoulders while others continue to pooh-pooh the idea that an even bigger calamity is in store for them down the road in the not too distant future. Both Umno vice-president Muhyiddin and Kelantan political warlord Tengku Razaleigh are among the former.

There is a distinct divide in the corridors-of-power between those who don’t dismiss the possibility of Sept 16 outright and those who, critics say, continue to be in "a state of denial."

The prime minister, not surprisingly, doesn’t see Permatang Pauh as indicating a trend nationwide. This is the same man who discounted "the Anwar factor" on the eve of the March 8 polls, adding he had forgotten all about Anwar. He spoke too soon. In hindsight, had Anwar qualified to run for public office on March 8, Umno and BN would have been consigned to the dustbins of history sooner rather than later.

Abdullah’s deputy Najib, plagued by continuing controversy, swears that Umno’s two-year transition of power plan is on track and vowed to take office in mid-2010. Is he speaking too soon as well?

Cynics note that there appears to be a lack of warmth in the relationship between the two men and add that anything can happen in two years. "Even a week is a long time in politics," point out the cynics, echoing a longtime truism on politics.. There is a theory making the rounds that both men, in fact, don’t really trust each other at all and work behind the scenes to undermine each other.

"It’s their common fear of Anwar that holds them both back from going for each other’s throats," says a former branch secretary of the Umno Bukit Bintang before it was declared unlawful by Justice Harun Hashim in the late ‘80s. "Najib sees Abdullah as an usurper. Abdullah sees no reason why he must have Najib as his deputy or even less reasons why he must hand over power to that man of all people."

Seven reasons why

In general, seven factors are driving the Sept 16 phenomenon: the Indian community; the Chinese; Malaysian Borneo; the Malay grassroots; BN component parties; the arrival of political ideology; and the desire among ordinary Malaysians to see real political and other changes in Malaysia:

1) The Indian community’s almost total withdrawal of support for Umno. The community is the deciding factor in 67 of the Parliamentary seats in Peninsular Malaysia. The community has belatedly realized that they have been squatted on by the system and the government over the last 50 years.

2) The Indian "desertion" has had spillover effects on the Chinese community. The Chinese have traditionally looked to Indian leadership in trade unionism, NGOs and the law.

3) Malaysian Borneo sees March 8 as presenting them with a historical "window of opportunity" to correct longheld grievances and win a more equitable share of the federal government.


4) Increasing disenchantment among the Malay grassroots over the Umnoputra syndrome, i.e. few among the elite and their hangers-on and fat cats living it up at their expense.

5) Rapidly dwindling enthusiasm among BN component parties for the Umno leadership; the irrelevance of the race-based politics of the BN vs Hindraf’s (Hindu Rights Action Front) emphasis on equal rights, makkal sakthi (people power) phenomenon; PKR’s ketuanan rakyat (supremacy of the people).

6) The call by the Islamists of PAS for the race factor, forbidden by Islam, to be kept out of politics; and DAP’s (Democratic Action Party) call for a Malaysian Malaysia.

7) The desire among Malaysians everywhere for a reformation of national institutions which have been eroded and compromised over the last 50 years and especially in the last two decades.

In Singghei, thirty minutes by road from Kuching, a weather-beaten old Bidayuh villager sums up: "We no longer want the BN. We want a change. That’s why we support Anwar Ibrahim. He’s standing up against all these big people who have been in power for so long. We have been taken for granted all these years. We need to think of what we are going to leave behind for the future generations."