Countdown to regime change in September

Can Anwar Ibrahim really be our next Prime Minister?

That’s the wonder of many Malaysians living overseas. But being generally cynical of concrete changes ever happening - that’s why they left home, many who have siblings and parents still living in Malaysia are keenly tracking Malaysiakini and Malaysia Today for any signs of change.

To my 80-year-old mother in Penang - Anwar’s state of birth - she is somewhat anxious how the former DPM will turn out as PM? With her perception of Anwar’s past as a fiery youth leader of ABIM in the 1970s still fresh in her long-term memory - and much of it shaped for her by the Chinese press and coffee-shop gossips - she is not overly optimistic.

Understandably, she says she fears Anwar, being chameleon-like, may stoke the ambers of Islamic religious zeal, turning Malaysia into a fiery Islamic state. Shudders. For Malaysia’s sake, I hope my mother’s intuition is wrong.

I have over the past weeks received email alerts and stories about politics and peccadilloes back home. Which is standard fare that one reads online about Malaysian politics. Same old things.

But, what’s different in tone, lately from my email pals is their apparent concern, laced with a tint of sardonic excitement for a plausible regime change back home. Most asked me, "What do you make of this? This looks terrible."

One story I received was by John Berthelsen (‘Malaysia’s legal pursuit of Anwar Ibrahim is destroying the country's reputation’, Asia Sentinel Consulting, July 21, 2008). Berthelsen noted the farce in the government’s determination to convict Anwar of ‘forcible sodomy’ while blatantly ignoring the two sworn declarations that link the Deputy Prime Minister, Najib, and his wife, Rosmah, to the murder of Mongolian model, Altantuya.

Numerous interpretations of the ‘truth’ and theories of the Najib-Altantuya and Anwar-Saiful stories are doing its rounds on the net. Despite the stark gravity of criminality between explosive murder and forcible sodomy, Anwar has attracted sharper media focus in Australia most of it favourable - than Najib-Altantuya’s case.

Since March 8, Anwar’s political facelift has certainly spotlighted in Australia, the latest of three interviews was aired on SBS Dateline on Sept.5 and a lead story in the Sydney Morning Herald’s world news page o n Sept.11?

In an interview with Dateline last year (April 18, 2007) Anwar was asked what drove him to keep getting back into (political) trouble.

"It’s not a question of getting into trouble," Anwar said. "I mean, I don’t have a choice. I am committed to the reform agenda. I have given this pledge and I must remain consistent."

Indeed, a cursory read of Anwar’s past public statements shows a principled consistency. Could he have been gutsier in pushing his reform agenda when he was in government from 1982 to 1998. That’s a mystery.

Journalists who have attended Anwar’s press conferences may find a reason to feel optimistic with the media scene if a regime change happens sometime this month. I had attended a few as a reporter with Business Times in the late 70s.

Anwar notes in his book "Asian Renaissance" (1996) that the cultural and intellectual reawakening of Asians (and Malaysians) will begin to evolve only when the mind and intellect is free of internal insecurity and independent of external constraints.?

Thus, his allusion in his public speeches to the writings of Shakespeare, philosophies of Confucius, Santayana, Mandela and, among the Latin intellectuals, Colombian journalist and Nobel Laureate for Literature, Gabriel Marquez known for his socialist views.

In an interview with Time Australia (June 10, 1996) Anwar was quoted as saying:

"I have a minority view (about press freedom) here (in Malaysia). My principle is an informed citizenry is a responsible citizenry. We want a responsible citizenry so there must be respect for the freedom of the press ... I reject the notion that a free press is alien to Asian society. All the great sages of the past were great because they were able to write and publish freely. All our great freedom fighters ... were able to be great because they believed in freedom and they were able to use the media to articulate their positions."

Speaking at the Confederation of Asean Journalists Conference in Kuala Lumpur on March 20, 1996, Anwar reminded journalists they should serve as a "vehicle for the contest of ideas and cultivate good taste ... Asian societies are at a state of development where they are in greater need for a vigorous journalism.? We still have to root out corruption and abuses of power in its many forms".

Today, Anwar remains stridently critical of the country's media laws and the government's ‘soft authoritarian’ excesses and paranoiac dictates on what journalists can or can’t write about.

Speaking to SBS Dateline, he reminded Australian viewers that "there are a lot of restrictions (in Malaysia) - I can’t enter any university in the country, permits had been denied, no report in the mainstream media controlled by the government".

As an outsider looking in from afar, I’m counting down to a new Malaysia Day. If Anwar does win a no-confidence vote against Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi, the prospects of a softer hand on the media are indeed alluring.

And if fortune shines on us all, the laws that impinged on Anwar’s political activism during the 1970s may alas be put to rest in the history pages, such as:

Universities and University Colleges Act:

This was enacted in 1971 as an administrative guideline, but an extra clause was added in 1975 following a spate of student street demonstrations in 1974, in which I took part as a student in USM Penang - the year that Anwar was arrested under the ISA for leading anti-government demonstrations against impoverished conditions among the Malay farmers in Kedah and Perlis.

The UUCA forbids students and academics in publishing articles or publicly challenging the government. It prohibits organized movements and bans political speeches on campus. Outspoken academics have had their contracts terminated or unrenewed under the Act.

Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984, amended in 1987:

Domestic and foreign publications are required to apply for annual permits to continue business. Renewals depend on how compliant the press had been. Today’s media generation of protocol and social news at the expense of critical discourse is a legacy of the PPPA.

Sedition Act 1948:

This act is often ambiguously exercised to silence and black mark dissenters as ‘undesirables’. This act is more often applied to opposition parties in the lead-up to each state and federal election, and less so to ruling party officials making similar racial statements like voting for the opposition would be disastrous for ethnic Malays. Which is nonsense when Malays today account for more than 60% of the population.