Can Anwar redeem Malaysia from its bondages to race and religion?

 

From Terence Netto

Anyone who has lived as long as Anwar Ibrahim, 75, must recognise a terrible monotony in our national problems.

The inequities imposed by sectarian conceptions of race and religion have shackled the Malaysian polity for four decades at least.

Incidentally, it was 40 years ago that Anwar made his entry into the government of Dr Mahathir Mohamad, justifying his advent there by telling the Abim council he headed that he would be prime minister in 11 years.

It transpired that Anwar was excessively optimistic.

Now, after 24 years of estrangement from the central levers of government power, he has reached the “top of the greasy pole” in Benjamin Disraeli’s felicitous description.

The wilderness has been one of the most romantic stretches of politics since famous leaders like Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle went there and returned with the most triumphant results.

Can Anwar’s return from the wilderness be as triumphant as theirs?

That will depend on what resources of mind and will he will bring to the hope he represented to rapturous crowds that turned out for his now, certifiably successful, GE15 campaign.

This hope is that he could redeem Malaysian politics by releasing Malaysian life from its bondages to the orthodoxies of race and religion.

Through much of his 24 years in the wilderness, he spoke to his audiences as if he occupied an Archimedean point outside his race and religion though he frequently avowed his moorings in them.

It must be that he reckons he can transform the public understanding of national challenges.

But a sober wisdom holds that the structure of government and politics in Malaysia discourages transformative policies.

How much is Anwar acquainted with the paradox of power which is that the acquisition of power is necessary to fulfil purpose and yet the world of power dooms many purposes to frustration?

Such sober realisations would depend on Anwar’s ability to release Malaysian vitality from its present shallows and miseries. - FMT

Terence Netto is a senior journalist and an FMT reader.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.