The US elections is important to Malaysia because the Prime Minister has decided Mr Gore's victory is inimical to his and Malaysia's political health. But it is Mr Bush who would the Prime Minister's nose out of joint. The Republicans are more gung ho about Human Rights and globalisation, and could throw the Prime Minister out of kilter than Mr Gore's Democrats. It would take a strong position of Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim's predicament than the Democratics. Mr Bush's Republican father president bombed Baghdah, not the Democrats. Bush Junior would follow lhis father's lead. Mr Bush's vice president, Mr Cheney, is close to He Who Must Be Destroyed At All Cost. And it was a Republican, Mr John Sunnunnu, a presidential assistance of the senior Bush who introduced the Prime Minister's nemesis to the Washington crowd.

Official Singapore understands the problem. It now decides that what the Singaporean lacks is critical thinking. The education system is revised, says the education minister, Mr Teo Chee Hean, to promote thinking skills (not that it is the skills not the thinking that is emphasised!), independent learning and creativity. "It does not make sense," he says, "if the students are then not tested on those skills, which we consider important." Rote-learning is the norm. No attempt is made in school to encourage critical thinking. The Singaporean who thinks critically about Singapore's problems, political or otherwise, that comes into conflict with authority would have a rough time indeed. The Singapore Hong Lim Green Free Speech corner encourages not free speech but to tell the world of its existence, a small concession to Human Rights pressures. It does not change anything. Singapore is still a society in flux. The modern sector sits atop a cultural and religious cauldron which while adapting to the norms of what the government wants it to do nevertheless makes the government nervous. This proposal for critical thinking is in line with a national agenda, as a digit in the world economy than for personal satisfaction or design. What use is critical thinking if it is only for the furtherance of national policy and not as a desirable strength of citizenship? In other words, can authoritarian governance go hand in hand with a critical citizenry?

The Free Anwar campaign however could place leaflets in the meeting room calling for the release of the former deputy prime minister from prison. These were removed. But as the potential investors left the meeting, members of the entourage passed out folders with bumpf about Malaysia's investment rules and other details. Or so it was thought. It was only later that she and her officials discovered that the bumpf handed out was pro-Anwar anti-Malathir arguments not to invest in Malaysia, what with Human Rights violations and the absence of judicial independence and integrity. Who were the two people? No one knows. Were they in the delegation from Kuala Lumpur? No one knows. Were they ever seen after that? No. Did the government get a black eye in Boston from the Anwaristas? An unqualified Yes.

The Prime Minister suggested the only free date he had. But the uninterest among its members -- several I know bought tickets with no intention to attend; others flatly refused -- forced the Prime Minister's office to turn victory into defeat. Plans were hatched for a packed hall. And backfired. When the guest, especially when he is the Prime Minister, must ensure a packed audience to a dinner in his honour, something must give. And did. The stark reality that loyal senior retired Malaysian civil servants -- all right PTD Alumni, if you like -- may not as loyal to him as the Prime Minister desired foretold the reality. At the Royal Selangor Club last Wednesday, the day before the dinner, several of the "Alumni" thought I had gone bonkers for asking if they would attend! But the Prime Minister, by not attending, destroyed his expectations of support from within the administration and the establishment. He was roundly criticised at a meting he had with senior civil servants at Putra Jaya after the November 1999 general elections. He has left for the United Kingdom to face more vocal opposition at his Cambridge University Malaysia Society-organised speech on "Malaysia in the New Millennium" from European Human Rights and environmental NGOs. He ran into heavy weather during his visit to Chicage last month, when pro-Anwar demonstrations destroyed his equanamimity.

Has Malaysia prepared itself strategically and tactically for whatever happens in Indonesia? The fissiparous pressures in Acheh, Mollucas, Ambon, West Papua and elsewhere coupled with Western criticism of Human Rights abuses, many, especially Westerners, believe, would fragment Indonesia into half-a-dozen or more mutually exclusive states at war with each other. The Singapore Senior Minister, Mr Lee Kuan Yew, during his visit here, could not understand this Malay unconcern at this development and asked an old friend incredulously: "You mean the Malays would accept Indonesian hegemony over them?" But it is more than that. What happens in Indonesia after the fall of President Suharto is the normal power play when a dynasty falls. Those who lived through Confrontation and 1965, when the failed Gestapu coup brought General Suharto to power see President Suharto's predicament no worse than President Sukarno's under him.

These approaches, besides giving speakers an opportunity to visit exotic capitals, cannot succeed. For three reasons: the political motivation stems from internal difficulties; it is not the journalists nor newspaper editors or owners who want press councils, but the government, which in the Third World, reacts when stung by external criticism; no story that would upset any member country would be excised by the country concerned. The press council further must, in general, support the official view of any complaint. Two examples from Malaysia would suffice: the de facto justice minister, Dato' Seri Rais Yatim, welcomed the a press council but insisted the old laws that kept journalists on a short leash would be retained. The government-sponsored Human Rights body, Suhakam, chaired by a former deputy prime minister, Tan Sri Musa Hitam, is now criticised for statements it made, in the Anwar Ibrahim affair, which challenged the official view. Official interest in these bodies is in inverse proportion to its popularity with the masses.

Three contradictory strands stand out in the East Timorean imbroglio. One is the abnegation of sovereignty to international forces on allegations of Human Rights abuse, the other, undiscussed, to maintain East Timor firmly in the worldwide chain of Western satrapies to ensure its geopolitical grip. The third in which Australia tries to worm itself in Southeast Asia as the West's henchman in the region which by going into Timor as the dominant of the peacekeeping troops ensured hostility not only in Indonesia but elsewhere in the region. There is a fourth which can be ignored: ASEAN's hands-off policy; ASEAN, after all, is under no obligation to view the matter in other than its own geopolitical interest. The Malaysian Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, addressed the first at the United Nations yesterday and touched on the second. But it is the United States need to ensure a presence in East Timor outside of civilian control that ensured the UN peacekeeping forces. But should UN peacekeeping forces have the right to abnegate sovereignty on allegations of Human Rights abuses? Assuming that is accepted, should the troops come from the one country the host country has problems with, in this case Australia? Would, if the tables were reversed, Australia allow Indonesians to lead a UN peacekeeping force? The presence of Australia in East Timor has brought bilateral strains with Indonesia, something that would not go away easily. It also revealed Australia's desire to be the West's bully boy in Asia. The resulting furore forced a diplomatic change in the policy, but the intentions remain rooted in its psyche.

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