In Malaysia, the opposition is seen as a useful check on the National Front. And they have grown in members who are united in hate: they hate a leader in UMNO, and all those who hate him, but not UMNO, rush to swell its ranks. It seems at first sight a party to watch, but it is united in hate. But when the principle hate figure removes himself, and is no longer an issue, whoever takes over UMNO sweeps the board. This is what happened in the 2004 general election. There was a surge out of UMNO as Tun Mahathir Mohamed continued to dominate the party. Those who moved out continued to love UMNO but did not like its then president. KeADILan, now Parti Kadilan Rakyat after it merged with Parti Rakyat Malaysia. The Reformasi demonstrations were the larger because many of those in it did not like the UMNO president. When Tun Mahathir resigned abruptly in favour of Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi before the 2004 General Elections, he deprived the opposition of an enemy.

THE NATIONAL FRONT IS NOT absolutely in power as it thinks it is. It is true it has two thirds or more in parliament and 12 of the 13 state assemblies. but it keeps looking over its shoulders before it does any legislation. First it was the Reformasi crowd, which was formed in the wake of Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim's dismissal as deputy prime minister and UMNO's deputy president and expulsion from UMNO. The National Front, in reality UMNO, the Malay party which controls the non-Malay parties in the front, at first did what it wanted. The other leaders of the National Front would do whatever it asked, whether right or wrong and did not care if the move affected the parties and communities they allegedly led, so long as it remained in the Cabinet. The National Front bypassed Parliament, and the state assemblies in the states they controlled, did not believe in getting them involved unless it, usually UMNO, wanted their support. It did not believe in consultation or approval. They had absolute majority in most cases. They introduced the New Economic Policy, to give the Malays a leg up in business while they held the political power to which the non-Malay party leaders, in the cabinet, agreed. The laws were passed in parliament and the state assembies, with the non- Malays and non-Muslims voting even if the law affected their members.

THE PEOPLE IN POWER are confused. They have not realised the people challenge them at every turn. The post-information age, which is now, is as destructive to the people in power as the Industrial Age was when it began in 1832. That enabled the rulers to ride rough shod over the people, who found their unique ways to confront that. What happens in society now was what happened before the Industrial Age. But the people will not succeed unless by intellectuals. In Malaysia, the National Front is still in power, since it attained power in 1955, but is worried at this development. The King, who had agreed to officiate a gathering, was told by officials in the Prime Minister's Department not to attend. It got intellectuals at the hall angry. The National Front showed weakness which it could not control. This meeting was organised by dissident UMNO members, and attended by all Malays, intellectuals, from PAS and Parti Keadilan Rakyat, and who used to be senior figures in the ancien regime. It was better organised to challenge than the Reformasi movement of former deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Annuar Ibrahim. The Reformasi movement failed because though it was a ground revolt most of the intellectuals stayed away. Even then it caused fright in the National Front. The intellectuals in the National Front realised what could happen if it had succeeded, and fear is the result. The National Front changed its policies, trying to solve some of the issues the Reformasi movement reformed. But the Reformasi movement has fallen into the doldrums after Dato' Seri Annuar Ibrahim was released from prison. Now by and large it second guesses what the Reformasi movement had in mind and looks over its shoulders at what the Reformasi movement is doing. But the Reformasi movement lit a light for others to follow.

That is how many people arrested by the police want to leave their stay in the police cell behind them. They want to get on with their lives. The deputy minister for internal security, Dato' Noh Omar, is dismissive of people coming out with their experiences in police custody five years ago. But he is wrong. A Reformasi woman detained by the police was asked to strip and do the ear squat five years ago. The trauma of getting one's dignity stripped can take years to overcome. She has come public now. But what about the Chinese tourists, now back in China, telling their experiences now, and which news papers in China are printing. They should have made their statements before they left? But they have. They have persuaded others not to come to Malaysia. That it has taken the proportion it has suggests that many Chinese tourists have been badly treated over the years, if not by immigration then by the police. It is a problem that would not go away. And the government and the police make sure it does not. Going about as if they do not care is not how to resolve the problem.

THE 'Reformasi' MOVEMENT, founded to protest a grave injustice, has seen better days. It was the catalyst seven years ago in the most seminal mass movement in Malaysian history equal to, if not more important than, the mass rallies in 1946 which led to UMNO's founding. The issue then and seven years ago rose out of an insult to the Malay psyche: in one the British reducing Malay sultans to colonial ciphers, the other, UMNO defiling Malay cultural mores. Malaysian history will not forget either even if UMNO today reflects British colonial arrogance more than post-colonial Malay confidence. It took UMNO five decades to self-destruct; but barely a decade for the Reformasi movement, if it does not reform. To put it bluntly, the Reformasi movement knows not if it comes or goes. It has forgotten what it wants or what it ought to do. It has fragmented into amorphous groups, with no unifying thread, and often an embarrassment to the opposition.

So thought the Sabahans, too. One SMS sent captures the mood: "Rennaisance in Sabah, Reformasi in Malaysia: Arrival of Mr Tsunami Anwar this weekend. Our buffalos tied to the BN tree will be slaughtered in time." That could well be hyperbole in the short term, but Anwar's visit has given a fillip to those who believe Kuala Lumpur should stay away from Sabah as it does from Sarawak. When he left, the problems in Sabah Umno and BN seemed trivial. Its bigger problem now is to convince Sabahans that it means well.

Meanwhile, the attrition goes on. A prominent Sabah UMNO leader, not in the state cabinet, attended the dinner. It was enough for Dato' Seri Najib to deny him a small electrical contract which had earlier been offered him. Dato' Seri Anwar has set the cat among the pigeons. An SMS making the rounds says it all: "Renaissance in Sabah, Reformasi in Malaysia – Arrival of Mr Tsunami Anwar this weekend. Our buffalos tied to the BN tree will be slaughtered in time."

The issue that started it all was when poor villagers in Grik were driven to eat poisonous wild tapioca. It brought students and undergraduates into a confrontation with the government, led by this student. Thirty years on, the poor villagers in Grik are reducing their children with tea without milk and sugar and condensed milk. Does it bother UMNO? No. It is more worried about that one graduate who stood up to be counted. Today UMNO is paranoid and in mortal terror about him. His name is Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim. How many Anwar Ibrahims would surface from this latest hamfisted attempt to force the undergraduate to think the UMNO way? I don't know. But one could well threaten UMNO, if it exists, three decades from now, or be the country's leader on a Reformasi platform to make mincemeat of all UMNO stood for.

If all goes well, he would be up and about in a few weeks. He would move on to Saudi Arabia to recuperate from the surgery and his imprisonment, and probably stay away for the rest of the year at least. The longer he stays out of the public eye, and in Saudi Arabia, the more the official nightmare of a free Anwar in politics turns into horrifying fact. He is now off the front pages, but not for long. The Federal Court delivers its judgment tomorrow if it would rehear its dismissal of his appeal against his conviction for corruption. The principle it can is established in the M.G.G. Pillai case. There is an attempt now to limit it to civil hearings in the Federal Court. One of two judges who allowed me that right insists it cannot be applied in a criminal case. If he gets the review, there is still one more hurdle: the rehearing of his Federal court appeal. That could take a year. Twentyfour hours is a long time in politics; a year is eternity. The Anwar case is political, not legal. What we see now is a metaphorical replay of the Reformasi confrontation of 1998, only this time the absolute control of an UMNO and the BN government it leads is forced to take on the challenge in near tatters.

The government struggles to regain its composure as the Anwar magic which sustained the Reformasi movement is not, as it had hoped, blighted. It is there, bright and lively, and with the spark of his release, shows its power. In one sense, it is fortuitous for the government that he left for his surgery almost immediately. The longer he remained, the worse it would have been for the National Front (BN) government, and especially for the UMNO whose deputy president he was only six years ago. That he left as soon had nothing to do with saving the government; his excruciating back pain had to be attended to first. The Saudi jet which was to have carried him and his family to Munich was caught in a Saudi bureacratic maze and could not arrive when it was to; so he left by a MAS flight to Frankfurt for which, as the New Straits Times reported, he paid for the tickets. Was that ever an issue in this dispute: It was clear from the start the government would not. But the paper could not get over its confusion when the man was released, and its reports reflect it.

Within minutes of returning to his Bukit Bandaraya residence, Dato' Seri Anwar was inundated with telephone calls; the most persistent were from MCA leaders, who must now get used to treat the prisoner as a honoured political colleague. By midnight, the area surrounding was packed with thousands of wellwishers, and every available space for miles taken by their cars. Unlike in the heady days of "Reformasi", when the police were conspicously around to harrass and threaten, they stayed out of sight and directing traffice. When I went towards the house, I was stuck in a 30-minute traffic jam of cars heading towards his house. The area had the semblance of a carnival, but entry into the house was all but impossible. I could not get in because of the crowds, and left without meeting him. But others better placed – one prominent visitor was Pak Lah's son-in-law Mr Khairy Jamaluddin; no one, of course, asked why the UMNO youth deputy chief had a 15-minute private talk with Dato' Seri Anwar, himself a former UMNO youth chief – were in attendance.

In the six years since, his supporters have been ruthlessly rooted out. Loyal satraps and carpetbaggers filled the vaccuum, each with a vested interest to ensure he does not return to centre stage. Politics owes no loyalties, only self-interest. And self-interest demands that Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim should never return. The fear of a witch-hunt, should he ever return to centre stage, unites the BN coalition, UMNO, the civil servants, and others to ensure he does not leave prison until his 15 years is up, when he would no more be a political threat. For the record, the BN and UMNO insists he is not a force. Why? The 90-odd websites that once supported the Reformasi movement he kicked off is reduced to a dozen or so. He is a forgotten man. He is history. To help this along, the government uses extra-legal methods to force his backers to denounce him. All this is true. But it remains that his support group is intact. The government did not dent that. It insists that Parti Keadilan Nasional, the political party that he spawned, is a deadweight. Its leaders caught between their own political future with campaigning for Dato' Seri Anwar's release. Several frankly do not see the point, and would rather cut and run.

Could it when the political divide has all but destroyed the state, with neither willing to give way, or even attempt a compromise? Neither talks to the other. It does not matter now if Dato' Seri Anwar is guilty of the charges against him. The prosecution handled their case so ineptly, and the judges eschewing judicial principles to convict not just the prisoner but his lawyers for daring to defend him as they must, that whatever the final judgement is, this doubt that he is framed for an out-of-turn bid for power and not for why he is in Sungei Buloh prison. What must worry the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, is that the Malay community is more divided now than at the time of the arrest, and the Reformasi demonstrations. Giving him bail now would only break ranks when it cannot afford to.

Pak Lah has to shake out of his lethargy and act firmly and decisively. He has yet to. He had a chance to put his mark with his Cabinet. He chose not to. There is a different Malaysian out there. He will insist on being consulted, and his views asked, and would not accept what is told him without question. The voter today is different from one a decade ago. He is faced with a multitude of problems and unresolved issues for which there are no solutions, he is harrassed and marginalised every day of the year by the authorities, and he is at the point of revolt. The BN's good luck is that he has not reached breaking point, as the Iraqis have at the American occupation. But it showed a frightening side during the "Reformasi" demonstrations before and after Dato' Seri Anwar was arrested in 1998. That remains in the background, and could yet come to the forefront if the people's anger continues unabated.

But it was the Reformasi movement, after the arrest and humiliation of the former deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim in 1998, that destroyed much respect the people had for the police. It had been declining over the years. The police became a force to be feared. You would be given the runaround if you go to the police to lodge a report. You must have infinite patience, and time on your hands or dollops of cash to speed your report making. On top of that, you are often abused, and made to wait. Try, even now, getting a copy of the police report for filing an insurance claim or whatever. It would be ages before you did. Unless you typed the report and the copies before you came to the police station, pay the required fees and collect your copy duly signed by the station inspector. Bribery is not a word one discusses in police company in Malaysia. "Cari makan" is the right word to use. It is an art form. As the penalties improve, so the bribe. It is an open secret in Brickfields, in Kuala Lumpur, where I stay, that motor cars can be parked at will and even hog the road so much so it is dangerous to drive along the stretch of Jalan Tun Sambanthan where the restaurants are. But park in front of a shop which did not, or refused to, pay, and he would get a traffic ticket soon enough.

He does not now even seem to be master of his own self. He was forced to release the Reformasi 6 by the Anglo-Saxon powers he rails about. There is much truth in this. It is difficult now to see how Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim can be denied bail, as he desires, on 14 July 2003. The pressure is too hot. He understands the political implications of not kowtowing to this pressure. It was the British and United States ambassadors in Indonesia in 1965 who had a still unclear role in unleashing the bloodbath that killed a million Indonesians to overthrow President Sukarno, and bring in its wake an Anglo-Saxon friendly government. As released official British and US documents now reveal, the then British ambassador, Sir Andrew Gilchrist, gloats about the extent of the bloodbath and gave enough clues of his involvement. The US ambassador, Mr Marshall Green, had come to Indonesia from South Korea, where he had presided over the military coup which brought General Park Chung Hee to power, and with it a clear hold on its economy. It is Britain and the United States that caused the conflagration in Iraq. So he had no choice. His attack on the Anglo-Saxon powers must be viewed with this background in mind.

What I thought strange is that the decision is made not by the home minister, the self-same deputy prime minister and prime minister-to-be, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi but by Dr Mahathir. Like the release of the Reformasi 6, he is out of the loop of decision-making in his ministry. Why? Which faction used the Zunar cartoon to beat which leader: Dr Mahathir or Dato' Seri Abdullah? If they were the targets, why did they not respond early enough. If the Zunar cartoon was libellous, why did the UMNO-controlled and -owned newspapers reproduce the cartoon? That they did shows that it became a weapon in political infighting that goes on relentlessly behind the scenes.

THE MALAYSIAN GOVERNMENT HAS ORDERED the 'Reformasi 6' be freed from detention under the Internal Security Act. The two-year detention order expired this month. The Home Ministry, in its wisdom, had extended the order, but in a scene of high drama, in hurried consultations between the minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, on 31 May, when he arrived from a week's holiday in Perth, and his secretary-general, reversed it and ordered them freed with no conditions attached. Normally those released from preventive detention have to to report regularly, usually weekly, to the police for mnonths and years, and often have conditions attached to their release.

THE NATIONAL FRONT (BN) GOVERNMENT IS caught yet again in a bind. First, it extended the detention orders of the Reformasi 6, then it released them. It ordered that only one advanced payment system for highway tolls would be allowed from 01 June 2003, then postponed them. The Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, says, in his usual off-the-cuff manner, that Malaysian exporters should only deal in euros, since "that is 25 per cent stronger than the US dollar". Now, the Home Ministry threatens to raid private homes without a search warrant for pirated and pornographic videos. There is one common thread in all this: No one thought about it, someone suggested it, it would make good newspaper headlines, the minister or deputy minister concerned wanted his name in the media or show who is in charge, and promptly shoots himself in the foot. In the way these matters are handled here, all who has an interest in it rush to share the idiocy and media space.

It is in UMNO's interest to hold on to this racial inequities. But the younger Malaysian, not caught up in the racial politics of his elders, looks at it differently. It does not matter if he is Chinese, Indian, Malay, Dayak or Kadazan, he is a Malaysian, and read to voice his views outside the racial prism of his parents. Only three political parties in Malaysia look at it this way: Parti Rakyat Malaysia, Parti Socialis Malaysia, Parti KeADILan Nasional. That they do not have more support than it has shows how insiduously successful UMNO's racial policies have succeed. But it is no surprise that UMNO fears KeADILan, more than PAS. Which accounts why they have been so harsh on its leaders: the Reformasi 6 went to Kamunting so UMNO could stop KeADILan in its tracks. Not that it worked as well as it hoped.

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