That was a Saturday before the Monday of the trial in 1994, and when I first knew I was being sued. I asked the lawyer for proof that I had engaged him. He had none, either from me or the seven other defendants. I went to Mr Karpal Singh, who could only come at the weekend, so I defended myself. In such circumstances where the plaintiff had not given his side of the dispute, there is provision for the plaintiff's defence to be adduced in open court. I was not allowed to. The judge was hostile from the start. He would not give a postponement so that I could a lawyer of my choice of lawyer "because I would then not be the judge." We lost. in the Court of Appeal, Mr Justice Sri Ram told Mr Karpal, early in the proceedings, to look out of the windows. He looked, and said he could see nothing. "Well, don't you see your appeal floating down the window." We knew then we had lost. But as we were leaving the court building, one of the three judges asked us to look at a certain page of the judgement. We did and gave us the reason to get the permission to appeal to the Federal Court, which we got.

THE GUERILLA WAR IN Iraq is against the the United States by the Iraqi Sunni. Despite what you read in the news and watch on television, it is not going well for the US. The constitution is a sham. The ministers still cannot go out of the Green Zone, the US term for the area that used to be where Saddam Hussein and his men worked and lived. There is much talk of television these days on how the constitution would change life in Iraq. It was passed with a tremendous margin of votes, with only two Sunni provinces voting against. But the principles of constitutional law as seen in the West is not what it is in Iraq. The constitution which was passed in a referendum last Saturday has no effect on Iraq so long as the Iraqi Sunni is opposed to it. An Iraqi Sunni, Saddam Hussein, albeit President of the country which Britain carved out of the Ottoman Empire, goes on trial for what his actions as head of state, during the Islamic fasting month of Radaman. It was a mistake to order the trial during the fasting month of Ramadan but it fell in line with the United States' timetable for the country. He was arrested in 2001 but the defence is not given the full details of the charges against him. There are other charges against him for the United States want to make sure the death sentence is meted out to him one way or the other.

Those it abandoned in the past includes several of its past and present leaders: its secretary-general, its youth leader, several members of its supreme council. PKR is not bothered or concerned about their fate once they are detained under the Internal Security Act or charged in court. That no one from the party was at Raja Kamaruddin's continued trial on Saturday, 09 April 2005, at the Klang magistrate's court, was expected. I was in Klang and dropped in. I was the only non-Malay in the gallery. So much for PKR's perception as a multiracial party.

Who would win: Pak Lah or Najib? But it was more; to capture the soul of UMNO, what is left of it; and, for Pak Lah, to put to pasture the still significant presence of the former president, Dr Mahathir Mohamad. It was an electoral upset: Pak Lah's candidates were routed by a combination of delegates' resistance, Mahathir's benign influence, and Najib's counter-attack to save his political skin. The vice-presidents – Isa Abdul Samad, Mohamed Ali Rustam, Muhyiddin Yassin – are not his men, nor are more than half elected to the supreme council. Those he wanted in are out; those he wanted out are in. He is caught in a bind, as he admitted to one in his camp who lost on Saturday.

And worse when he takes his fateful re-entry in party politics. Would he rejoin UMNO? No chance, says the deputy president-to-be, Dato' Seri Najib, the UMNO constitution does not allow it, though others who joined opposition parties on leaving UMNO are welcomed back with open arms. It is wise of Dato' Seri Anwar to have gone overseas now. He was still in an adrenalin-induced high at being released unexpectedly, when I saw him on Saturday (04 September), and inclined to make he could later regret. By the time he returns he would have returned to earth. The cabinet is split. His silent backers who pushed their support to the deepest recesses of their minds now flex their muscles. When challenge is "derhaka" (treachery), it is wise to keep to one's counsel; when that is backed by like-minded individuals and groups, the gloves are off, and it is war. The gauntlet is thrown for UMNO to pick up. Whether he gets the review of not does not matter: whatever the result it is to UMNO's disadvantage. That he is free despite horrendous attempts to make sure he does not reflects the shifting sands that could be UMNO's quagmire if it cannot pull itself.

WHEN ALL IS SAID and done, the second "Akademi Fantasia", which ended its ten-week run on Saturday, 14 August, made the organisers a lot of money: to vote Malaysians paid 50 sen an SMS, and Bruneians RM2.20.

[A lightly edited version of this article appeared in my Chiaroscuro column in malaysiakini on Saturday, 27 March 2004]

With nomination day on Saturday, no BN party has released its list of candidates. Nor has Pak Lah. The infighting within and amongst parties are so fierce that a false move could throw the election into a quandry. Pak Lah has not sorted out, at this late stage, which party gets which seat. There is too much at stake. One not given a seat is history. He is ignored. The loss of official perks is too serious a calamity for those who have it to hold on for as long as they can. It also opens them to more money than they had thought they could have at one time. One former UMNO MP, who resigned a well-paying job to contest, said he could not have survived but for financial help from a couple of business tycoons. If he had gone any higher, the links between them would have firmed. It is this link between big business and BN MPs which makes it so profitable. The leaders know this of course and make them kowtow the more. When the leaders then have to choose - and he would well have promised half a dozen the same seat - he cannot. So he makes the BN president decide. But when UMNO is as fractious, its president cannot choose either. So everything is unsettled until he can postpone no more.

IN OCTOBER, PARLIAMENT SENT INVITATIONS to MPs, Senators, present and former cabinet ministers and others for a grand farewell dinner for Malaysia's prime minister of 22 years, Tun Mahathir Mohamed, on Saturday, 06 December 2003. The dinner was not held. On Thursday, 04 December, MPs and senators were telephoned by the Parliament Secretary, to cancel it. Why? The Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, had promised to be in Malacca, could not wriggle out of it, and regretfully could not attend the dinner. But Pak Lah's aides and supporters have a different reason: The Parliament Secretary did not remind Pak Lah of the dinner early and is admitted to hospital for an illness unknown. It is as lame excuse as any.

The false banter and camraderie hides these fears, ascerbated by UMNO ignorning the Malay cultural ground. Issues abound which are not addressed. This belief that an order from on high is proof it is carried out is now ingrained in the BN and UMNO psyche. On the grander international scene, President George W Bush and the US administration is afflicted with the same megalomania. Those on the ground are not easily fooled. The reaction to BN and UMNO's active support for gambling is a larger issue than UMNO would admit, and cannot be easily deflected with claims, as Dr Mahathir did on Saturday, in his closing speech, of PAS not following the Islamic path. Whether it does or not is the issue. Does what it says have any basis? Diverting attention from the central theme might work awhile. But not all the time. Now it must address, and UMNO looks for diversions.

That fault must go to the good doctor himself. He had acquired in his 22 years in office a persona of a Zeus on Mount Olympus. His autocratic nature, and the speed with which he removed cabinet ministers and civil servants for opposing or contradicting him led to a "monkey see monkey do' culture, which does not know how to react to crises, or plan long-term policies. Still, he could have been more magnanimous. He still could at this speech at the end of the assembly on Saturday, 21 June. But would that be too late?

THE DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER, DATO' SERI ABDULLAH Ahmad Badawi, had a fortnight ago ordered that the 'Reformasi 6' be detained for a further two years when their two-year detention order ended on 01 June 2003. The prison authorities at the Kamunting detention camp created a needless ruckus with this group to cause grievous hurt and destroy their property to justify their continued detention. But on Saturday (31 May 2003) night, he ordered them released. There was high drama at how this decision was reached. He had returned, a day late, from a week's vacation in Perth. He therefore did not meet Dr Mahathir, who left for Evian the night before.

THE MALAYSIAN CHINESE ASSOCIATION VICE-PRESIDENT, Dato' Seri Ong Ka Ting, dismisses swirling rumours about the MCA-sponsored Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman. Ignore them, he says. The RM190 million collected so far is safe in an account called the Huaren Education Foundation under strict government supervision. The public has no reason to fear. It can support Utar in confidence. They should not listen to rumours spread by those irresponsible charlatans who do not share "our vision" of high quality education at affordable rates. It is within reach of the RM200 million to start building it. Utar perhaps needs three or four times that before it is has a full-fledged campus. How much did it cost Utar for the campus land donated by a philanthropist? It is in Kampar for that. He spoke at the Klang MCA fund-raising dinner to collect funds for Utar on Saturday (17 May 2003).

So the fracas at the Kamunting camp on Monday last week (05 May 2003) was one waiting to happen. Five detainees - the Reformasi 5 - were due in Kuala Lumpur for one of several cases against them for breaching the peace and worse. One, Dr Badrul Amin Haron had blood pressure so high that even the camp doctor agreed he was medically unfit to travel. But the prison wardens insisted he travel. Hot words were exchanged. Another, Lokman Haron, took matters into his own hands, and badly bruised the lips of a prison warden. The five came to Kuala Lumpur as scheduled, only to find the case postponed yet again. On their return, they found their belongings vandalised, and a garden another detainee, Hishamuddin Rais, kept, levelled. He was so upset he broke a flag pole. Worse, as the KeADILan vice president, Dr Xavier Jayakumar, told a press conference on Sunday 10 May, 30 officers in riot gear and plain clothes charged into the dormitory of the detainees on Saturday.

It was a vain hope. UMNO went into near rigor mortis, as usual on such occasions. The UMNO secretary-general took evasive action: Dato' Seri Nazri does not represent UMNO, the government, the National Front (BN), and cut the ground from under UMNO's feet. UMNO then did what it does best: it did what it could to scuttle it. But with PAS upping the ante, it had to be held. And so it was on Saturday in Kuala Lumpur under the auspicious of the Language and Literature Agency (DBP). It was closed door, with DBP, UMNO and PAS allowed to invite an equal number of guests. In the end, the hall which could accommodate 1,000 was packed with a few hundred more standing. Almost all were professionals.

WHEN 3,000 MALAYSIANS GATHERED outside the US Embassy in Jalan Tun Razak on the morning of Saturday, 15 February 2003, the authorities ensured it would be small by threatening those who would have otherwise come that the gathering had no police permit, and therefore illegal. That so many defied it is proof yet of a citizenry which demands to be heard, especially when politicians and the democratic imperative ignore them. But this small group added to the millions who gathered all over the world to tell their governments that abhored this war, now planned at break-neck speed against Iraq on rather dubious and thin political and propaganda grounds. If the US secretary of state, General Colin Powell, and British prime minister, Mr Tony Blair, had a case for war, they spoilt it when they relied on outdated and dubious material. But so successful they were that even Malaysia's foremost anti-demonstration leader, the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, wants to be part of it. So he strides out confidently to assert his support for a movement he had nothing but contempt before.

In Malaysia, there is no interest in discussing these issues seriously. When it moves the government to act, it does so on parochial grounds; when a nationwide support is asked for, it would do this with discussion, but by ordering it. And so no consensus develops. UMNO Youth, for instance, hijacked the Malaysians for Peace campaign, and so the NGOs are quickly divided into pro-government and anti-government forces. When 3,000 people demonstrated in front of the US embassy on Saturday, none of those who profess to be against the looming US-UK-Australian war on Iraq were conspicious by their absence. But the 3,000 made a larger impact on the global anti-war campaign over the weekend than the pledges Malaysians for Peace movement tries to gather from Malaysians in general. It aims to collect one million signatures. How it could, when its runs hither and thither like a headless chicken and in total secrecy, would be one of Malaysia's more enduring modern mysteries.

A CENTENARY IS CELEBRATED come this Saturday, 8 February 2003, but few Malaysians, most shockingly in UMNO, would know what it was. I asked a range of people, in parliament, in the cabinet, in UMNO, in MCA, in the opposition, in the arts, in education, in the civil service, in business, if that date meant anything to them. But for a handful, I drew a blank. Until the DAP chairman, Mr Lim Kit Siang, asked last month why no one is bothered about the centenary of the birth of Independent Malaysia's greatest son, Tengku Abdul Rahman Putra al-haj, few were even aware of it.

It was this theme that Prof. Abdullahi An-Na'm, the Charles Howard Emory Chandler professor of law at the Emory University of Atlanta, Georgia, raised in his discussion of human rights, religion and secularism as the basis for developing multiple foundations for human rights. It is not a popular view, though the discussion was mute, as often in Malaysia. Several Muslims present thought he had breached the thin line between what is allowable in Islam and what is not, but this view was not evident at the forum, held last Saturday (18 January 2003) at the Armada Hotel in Petaling Jaya. He tried, with some success, to interlink human rights, religion and secularism, delving into Islam and its history to buttress his views, which while a breath of fresh air to non-Muslims and many a Muslim, nevertheless upset Muslims for a suggestion there is another view that should be aired.

POLITICS | AIMST or Tamil Schools? Posted on Saturday, August 24 @ 20:53:00 EDT by eS

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