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If Anwar Ibrahim is a traitor to UMNO, what about Dato' Onn, the Tengku, Tun Hussein Onn?

DATO' SERI ANWAR IBRAHIM is the subject of much obloquy at the UMNO general assembly this week, accused of betraying the Malay race, of unspeakable sex crimes, a traitor to UMNO, and ordered banned from ever returning to UMNO. The UMNO president, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, the youth, wanita, putra chiefs gleefully and with alacrity put the knife into him in venom. At the end of the day, they pat each other with a self-satisfied smirk of a job well done, convinced the man is history, and UMNO safe from this traitor. But it is UMNO, not Dato' Seri Anwar, which lost the plot. If he is disbarred from UMNO because he worked against it after he was expelled, should not this rule, in fair play, be applied to others equally guity? The UMNO youth chief, Dato' Seri Hishamuddin Hussein, insists he should not ever return to UMNO. How could an UMNO leader when he leaves, or is forced out, ever talk ill about this glorious party of Malay hegemony? He must pay for it if he does. Dato' Seri Anwar did. So he must.

The sycophantic and orchestrated chorus of thundering support bayed for blood. It missed out on the details. Would Dato' Hishamuddin Hussein, in his closing remarks tomorrow (25 September 2004), demand other traitors to UMNO be punished too? We can start with his grandfather, Dato' Sir Onn Jaffar, the founding president of UMNO, who walked out of the party in 1951 to become an inexplicable foe of UMNO, defeating an UMNO candidate to enter Parliament in 1959 on a Party Negara ticket. What about his successor and Malaysia's first prime minister, Tengku Abdul Rahman Putra, who refused to join UMNO Baru in 1988 and worked to his dying breath to destroy UMNO and its long-time president, and helped ensure that an UMNO renegade, Dato' Shahrir Samad, be returned to parliament as an independent in the 1980s? What about his father, Tun Hussein Onn, who refused to join UMNO after it was disbanded, and supported Dato' Shahrir in that byelection? None were UMNO members at their death.

It should not matter they were UMNO presidents or much beloved national leaders. Treachery is not the preserve of the fallen. UMNO should not honour these traitors by continuing to accept them as their past presidents and honoured leaders. A traitor is a traitor. If Dato' Seri Anwar can be judged one, so should they. In moral righteousness and outrage, their portraits at UMNO headquarters should be taken down, all references of them destroyed, and history rewritten. If they were alive, they should have been metaphorically drawn and quartered as UMNO has Dato' Seri Anwar. Not only that, all existing traitors in UMNO – as Dato' Hishamuddin defines it – should be expelled without by your leave. Who could they be? The former prime minister, Tun Mahathir Mohamed; The prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi; The UMNO secretary-general, Dato' Radzi Sheikh Ahmad; Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah; Dato' Seri Rais Yatim; Dato' Shahrir Samad; Dato' Zainal Abidin Zin; the list is long but we shall stop here: All but one joined opposition parties and all actively campaigned on opposition platforms, Dr Mahathir on a PAS platform. He did not join PAS? Nor, as far as I know, has Dato' Seri Anwar joined a political party after he was expelled from UMNO in 1998.

So party affiliation should not be the reason for sacking or declaring a former UMNO member a traitor. Dato' Hishamuddin minced no words: "The youth will not allow any traitor be given a second chance to destroy the party from within." The wanita leader, Datin Paduka Rafidah Aziz insists "UMNO should not support or be involved with those proven to have destabilised the party" and cryptically insinuates: "It is known who I am referring to." The puteri's former leader, Datin Azalina Mohamed Said, adds: "The movement must reject traitors who left the party and were against the party. Dato' Hishamuddin again: "These people who have opposed UMNO, who have burnt the flag of UMNO, and who have staged processions to ridicule the leaders of UMNO should not dream of returning to UMNO, what more to be present among the leaders of UMNO." Let us accept this as the rallying call from UMNO at this general assembly. But it is not Dato' Seri Anwar only this treachery is aimed at: it is at all the others as well. Dato' Seri Anwar has never asked to return to UMNO.

If you think this anti-Anwar campaign appears to be deliberately and cynically planned, you are right. Pak Lah last week met the youth, wanita, puteri councils to insist Dato' Seri Anwar is a sodomite whatever the Federal Court said, that he must be attacked as vilely at the general assembly, and they fan around the country explaining this to the members at the ground. He treads of dangerous ground here. But the gloves are off. UMNO has decided it would not rest until Dato' Seri Anwar is retired for good from the political scene, that he should not be allowed to resume his political career in the Opposition, that his continued presence in politics is an unmitigated disaster for UMNO, especially that he is the yardstick UMNO looks up to. When UMNO leaders were told last night that CNN is broadcasting a 30-minute television interview tomorrow (25 September) and 11 am and repeated four times during the day, it shocked as many as it pleased them. This ill-thought out attempt to blot him from the political landscape boomerangs. Dato' Seri Anwar has, by keeping quiet and staying out of the fray, frightens UMNO into mortal fear. As the political secretary of a cabinet minister closely aligned to Pak Lah said: "Anwar Ibrahim belum jentik, UMNO sudah hancur." Loosely translated it means, UMNO disintigrates when he snaps his fingers. To prevent it, it must first destroy its own past leaders.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@streamyx.com