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A cat among the pigeons

NOTHING petrifies the National Front (BN) government than Anwar Ibrahim: if he keeps quiet, if he does not, if he stays in Kuala Lumpur, if he moves about the country, if he travels abroad, if he does not. It wants to see the last of him, tries its best to make him disappear, metaphorically if not physically. It tried to but failed each time. It thought it had him when he was convicted in a series of trials kangaroos would applaud, but few else, for corruption and sodomy and corruption. But the judiciary, in the end, decided that its courts should not be the domain of kangaroos, and six years to the day his ordeal began, he was a free man.

Much to everyone's surprise, Anwar rose to the occasion. Let bygones be bygones. He could not forget the past but he would forgive those who placed him there. He could not forget but that is a private belief, not one of national policy. All that matters now is the future. The BN, especially Umno, on the other hand took extraordinary steps to block his return to politics. It did so hamfistedly that it pushed Anwar right into the midst of Umno, a ghost perching on the shoulder of every uncomfortable leader. With every misstep, he rose high in the people's estimation.

He makes his point when he appears, and when he does not. He moves around the country anonymously since the newspapers, which BN controls, ignores him. He creates waves when he does. He travels overseas, and is the face of Malaysia especially, but not exclusively, in the Middle East, in South East Asia, Europe and the Americas. He presents the Malaysian view better than the government could. In short, BN does not know what to make of him.

Anwar however does. He raised more money for the tsunami victims in Indonesia than Malaysia gave: with a few well placed telephone calls, he had a Boeing 747 laden with a water purification plant and medicines within days of the disaster; when the plane had problems landing in Jakarta, a telephone call to vice-president Junus Kalla, resolved that. He is offered an advisory post with a West Asian ruler which would pay him about a US$1 million a year. He is due to be in Oxford and Harvard for the next few months, during which he writes a book about his lost six years.

What upset Umno the more is his 24 hour visit to Kota Kinabalu in Sabah to attend a dinner in his honour. Not unexpectedly, the MAS flight he was on had engine trouble, returned to the airport, and left so he would miss his first appointment there. But he rescheduled that – a meeting with the press, NGOs and others. At night, he attended a dinner a 120-table dinner in his honour at the Magellan Resort and Spa in the Sutera Harbour resort complex. Not to be outdone, a Sabah Umno leader organised a Bajau association dinner at the same time at the other hotel in the complex. the Pan Pacific. It failed. The Yang Dipertua (Governor), the guest of honour, had an attack of gastritis. The ballroom was half-empty, with only 47 tables filled.

Umno's fears were well grounded. The scams involving the Umno chief and state chief minister, Musa Aman – its proposed new building; the siphoning off of choice land (the 50 hectares of prime land in the Prince Philip Park at Tanjong Aru), next to the airport, for instance; the control of the state's cash cows like the Yayasan Sabah, brought into nepotic hands; and others too numerous to mention, brings the BN to the brink of a breakup. There is, further, much anguish over federal control of the state through Umno.

An underground move to teach Umno a lesson it would not forget gains ground. Musa Aman hitches his star to the prime minister, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. This is reason enough for the deputy prime minister, Najib Tun Razak, to reorder the state Umno leadership. His nominee for that is the federal domestic trade and consumer affairs minister, Shapiee Apdal. BN and Umno in the state is in ferment. They are divided by personalities, with a state rights movement gaining strength with support from even Umno. Religion is not the issue. Amongst the strongest supporters of this are state Umno leaders and cabinet ministers.

Anwar's visit set a cat among the pigeons. He talked of moving ahead in the Malay tradition of leadership, in which leader moved ahead holding the hand of the follower so one took care of the other. He talked of a culture of leadership in which leaders did not think of enriching themselves, as now, at the expense of the people. He had practical ideas which could cut the gordian knot of state-federal issues, pulling the people along as the state progressed. Najib could but drool at the enthusiastic response of Sabahans.

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.

More than that, Pak Lah must step in and stop the rot if either is to survive. Federal history in Sabah is a catalogue of encroachment, directly or through proxies. For two decades it governed the state through local warlords, who enriched themselves at the people's expense. Then it took over that role. Hardly a federal cabinet minister did not enjoy the largesse of the state. It is discussed whenever Sabahans meet. A day after Anwar arrived, Sabah's politics is as volatile as ever. The tsunami struck again.

[My Chiaroscuro column in malaysiakini (www.malaysiakini.com) today, 12 January 2005.]

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