Re: [beritamalaysia] Anwar may not be Malaysia's political messiah

As a matter of curiosity, has AAB or, for that matter, Najib, been
put under the same fine microscope that Anwar's being subjected to?
Or, as with MM, since we expect little, we are grateful for little
mercies (which evidently happened in 2004 with AAB)?

Really, while the frisson in the air is palpable and welcomed, what
proportion of Malaysia's population looks to Anwar as a "political
messiah"? I think most Malaysians are realists and aren't quite as
carried away as -- to indulge in anti-intellectualism for once --
"the chattering class".

We face a difficult situation, made more difficult by that 22-year
premiership of Mahathir and the 4-years of incredible incompetence
and a resurgent NEP. We face a situation with no one, bar Anwar, of
real leadership quality, seen as the ability to hold together a
delicate historical balance that offers us a chance to move on. Can
anyone countenance a Najib premiership with equanimity, or, a
Muhyiddin? Do we really want to dust off the cobwebs and bring
Razaleigh back? Putting it this way forces us to recognise the
situation we are in.

So, having gotten ourselves -- and, yes, we do bear a collective
responsibility as, all said and done, we did vote the BN in time and
again, and some might well remember the exchanges of early 2004 on
this list, and now we voted in the Pakatan -- into this situation,
what do we do? Keep carping at Anwar for this and that? Or, seize the
opportunity that, for better or worse, Anwar -- and yes, it must be
acknowledged his personal triumph -- has given us? Does anyone
seriously believe that absent the man, we would be in the present
happy (I think most would agree) circumstances? Did anyone, in their
wildest imagination, ever think they would live to see the day where
a Malay leader, in the heart of Kg Baru, would lead a crowd in
rejection of UMNO's 'ketuanan Melayu', in a chant of 'ketuanan
rakyat'?

Thus, rather than keep trying to find ways and means of discrediting
the man, might it not be more worthwhile to find ways and means by
which we can seize hold of the opportunities to re-fashion some of
the institutions in our society, to advance the political culture
that we have so tentatively set into motion, to break with the bad
habits of old?

This has been a hard-won victory. It comes once in a while in the
history of any nation. But it is also a very tenuous one, very: a
small swing of 2% of the voters will see the BN roar back in to
power. And UMNO and the BN is wasting no time playing up the fears,
bogeys and demons of old to get people back into submissive line.
Except that if they do roar back into power, it won't be a return to
the status quo ante.

So, as one clever 19th century man once wrote: we make our own
history; however, we do not make it in circumstances of our own
choosing, but in circumstances given to us.

We can run around chasing phantoms of our imagination such as
"political messiahs". We can run around to make what are currently
impossible demands whether of overt rejections of syariah or of
Article 153 (as the Gerakan think-tanker of some 10 years standing,
Khoo Kay Peng, would have the Pakatan do; don't ask what he advised
Gerakan to do in those 10 years!) or we can actually sit down to
figure out how to make the best of the circumstances that have been
given to us, and in which we have acted.

Thank goodness the person-in-the-street has shown more insight and
thought, as when they reacted in outrage at Uncle Kit's attempted
boycott in Perak.


At 9:58 AM +0800 4/15/08, Uncle Yap wrote:
Anwar may not be Malaysia's political messiah
Helen Ting April 15, 2008