Time Magazine has honoured our very own Anwar Ibrahim by recognising him as one of the worlds most influential people of 2007. The criteria for selection is not merely people with power. Rather, as Time Editor Richard Strengel explains:
Influence is hard to measure, and what we look for is people whose ideas, whose example, whose talent, whose discoveries transform the world we live in. Influence is less about the hard power of force than the soft power of ideas and example. Yes there are Presidents and dictators who can change the world through fiat, but we’re more interested in innovators like
Monty Jones, the Sierra Leone scientist who has developed a strain of rice that can save African agriculture. Or heroes like the great chessmaster Garry Kasparov, who is leading the lonely fight for greater democracy in Russia. Or Academy Award winning actor George Clooney who has leveraged his celebrity to bring attention to the tragedy in Darfur
I believe our leader Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim is the first Malaysian to be given this singular honour. I am proud of him and proud to be associated with him. More great things to come I am sure.
ANWAR IBRAHIM
Dr Mahathir seems unable to let go of the fact that he isn’t PM of Malaysia anymore. He plays the eternal busybody, offering unsolicited advice. He employs sophistry of reasons to convince people of his biased conclusions. So, he says almost sage-like that Malaysia will be in dire straits if Pakatan takes over. But the age of unidirectional reasoning is over. Previously he had help from the media industrial complex — TV and mainstream newspapers. That isn’t going to happen anymore.
No right-thinking person wants to read Utusex Malaysia where only reports on prayer times and the 4-digit lottery are true; readership of the NST has gone down because, as Lee Kuan Yew observed, the paper has lost credibility. People are turned off at watching TV3 because as soon as we switch it on we see the apparitions of Ustazah Ummi Hafilda berating Anwar; we see Hasan “membetulkan aqidah” Ali and all the other lost souls picked up ravenously by talent-starved Umno and now dancing to the tune the paying pied piper plays.
Now, the people can talk and reason back. What Mahathir says is no longer accepted unquestioningly.
What does Mahathir want? What can he do if people don’t believe what the government says and are willing to accept Anwar — warts and all? If the people have been willing to accept the degenerates in Umno as leaders, why can’t they try out Anwar? Of course Mahathir believes Anwar will never make it to Putrajaya.
What he actually desire is for Mahathirism to be translated correctly, which Najib isn’t doing properly. Najib is sloppily relying heavily on others to do the thinking for him. Mahathirism needs a man of sterner stuff. Mahathir does not believe Najib has got what it takes to implement the doctrine of Mahathirism.
Mahathirism in politics means the concentration of power in the chief executive (the PM) and the emasculation of all other contending forces — the judiciary and the civil service. Mahathirsim needs ISA. Mahathirism needs a yielding judiciary. Mahathirism needs a pliant civil service headed by a sycophant. Najib seems to get only that part right in Ali Hamsa.
Mahathirism in economics means the economics of cronyism. Since 1981, the economics by organic growth was replaced by the economics of choosing and picking winners. But Mahathir chose from a restricted talent pool consisting of those he knows or those recommended by close associates such as Tun Daim. The strategy has been proven wrong. Malay share in the economy is just under 20 per cent. But those who got picked and chosen got rich beyond imagination. The general Malay public remained condemned to be dependents of the government. Umno runs a paternalistic and, at times, bullying government.
Mahathir is preparing the ground for the inevitable ouster of Najib. He’s getting help from the chief auctioneer of Malaysia, Muhyiddin Yassin who has sold whatever available land there was in Johor when he was MB there. The other fellow waiting in the wings is Mukhriz Mahathir who will team up with Muhyiddin.
For the time being, Najib has no choice but to ape what Mahathir says. The country has no future under any government but Umno-BN. So Najib continues to crisscross the country airing slogans loudly. When hosting the thousands of Umno members transported to Stadium Bukit Jalil, Najib announced that he felt so uplifted that he was thinking of meeting up with the Yang di-Pertuan Agong to call for elections then. But that was only loud noises coming from a nervous PM. The ground, as Tun Daim told the personal emissary of Najib, Jamaluddin Jarjis, is not ready to support Umno-BN. But Najib is confident, said JJ. We have reports saying that the ground is supportive of Najib and look at his personal rating.
So the chief political seer in this country retorted by asking JJ: can you believe all those reports? If they are prepared by that eager-to-please-his-master Rais Yatim, then you are dead. Rais will inflate BN chances by 50 per cent and downplay Pakatan chances by 30 per cent. You are going to decide on flimsy foundations. Hence Najib has to postpone the elections that he wanted to hold in June 2012.
In Malacca, he played football pundit by boasting that Umno-BN will win 14-0. If that is so, Najib would have declared elections yesterday. Najib knows the unity which Umno pretends it has will disintegrate by 30 per cent the very day Najib announces the BN candidates for GE13. So how to face elections with a house divided? He does what a desperate man will do.
The Umno foot soldiers are fatigued. They have waited eagerly for elections. Elections for them are a huge festival where loads of money will be poured indiscriminately. How to continue paying for the Myvi and the Kris motorcycle which they have ordered now that Najib is flip-flopping in announcing the election date?
Umno people know this is the last chance to fleece the party. After GE13, they will be taken care off better by the Pakatan government. They are hearing good stories coming out from Pakatan-governed states and nightmarish stories of rampant corruption and land grabs from Umno-led states. They will join their other brethren in kicking out corrupt Umno and BN.
They know Umno has degenerated into a party selling pirated porn VCDs and a party that installs hidden cameras in toilets. So the next time people go into public toilets remember to bring umbrellas to cover yourselves. Otherwise Umno will politicise the size of your penises. It’s that desperate.
The biggest lie that Umno hawks claim is that all other Malays not in Umno aren’t Malays. If Malays join any other political party than Umno, she or he ceases to be Malay. When I was in Umno, my Malay credentials were taken for granted and never disputed. Now when I join the DAP, my Malayness is disputed. The same person whose Malayness isn’t questioned when in Umno now has his Malayness disputed as soon as he leaves Umno. No Malay ceases to be one when he abandons Umno. One’s Malayness resides in the person not in Umno. Umno need not be so arrogant. The Malay is the person not a political party.
When both Mahathir and Najib expressed their fears about a dismal future under Pakatan, they are actually showing their nervousness about actually losing power. When Umno-BN loses, the myths and all the fallacies about the policies which Umno-BN has implemented will be exposed and along with those the role played by Mahathir and his team.
Start by asking, for example, why after so many years, the Malay economy hasn’t achieved its target? The Malay economy that got better is the economy for the selected Malay elite — the royalty and its scions, the economy of Mahathir’s son. Also, the economy of the recently retired Chief Secretary’s daughter. These are the Malays who don’t give a rat’s ass about the other Malay economy. That’s the economy that concerns ordinary Malays, farmers, fisherman, FELDA settlers, etc. The lot of these people isn’t top priority for the select Malays. They are more concerned of their own future.
Start by asking why the income disparity within the Malay communities is highest compared to the intra-income disparity within the other races. Because since Mahathir took over the country, policies aimed at driving economic growth of Malays are replaced by policies of picking winners by Mahathir. That’s when we saw the emergence and accelerated rise of Mahathir’s golden boys. They were given licences, concessions, monopolies and the opportunities to privatise state-owned revenue-generating resources. They grew fabulously wealthy while the rest of the Malays, deprived of sources of organic economic growth, grew to become dependents, relying on the government for economic succour
By Paul Wolfowitz
During the 1990s, Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and a group of U.S. Senators organized a forum to exchange views among East Asians and Americans. Asked at one session about the role of Islam in politics, Anwar replied, “I have no use for governments which call themselves Islamic and then deny basic rights to half their population.”
This devout Muslim leader was an impressive and eloquent advocate of tolerance, democracy and human rights. So we were shocked by his arrest and trial in 1998 on charges of corruption and sodomy. I felt his real “crime” had been to challenge Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, whose impressive record will be forever stained by his treatment of Anwar. I joined Senator Sam Nunn and others to speak out in Anwar’s defense. When he was finally released from prison in 2004,U.S. policy on Iraq was unpopular in Malaysia, and Anwar was harshly critical. It would have been easy for him to disown our friendship, but he is not that kind of person. He kept the channels of dialogue open, even while making clear our disagreements.
Anwar, 60, is back in the center of Malaysian politics. The coalition led by his wife Wan Azizah has become the main opposition bloc. His future role can be determined only by Malaysians. One can hope that they will embrace his brand of tolerance, valuing dialogue across political differences, and that this courageous leader will continue to play a leading role on the world stage.
Wolfowitz is a former U.S. Deputy SecretaryAnwar Ibrahim on 13
ANWAR IBRAHIM’S KEYNOTE SPEECH IN PERTH, AUSTRALIA
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posted by din merican–July 13, 2009
ANWAR IBRAHIM’s KEYNOTE ADDRESS ON ISLAM AND THE WEST AT COMMON WORLD INTERFAITH CONFERENCE IN PERTH, AUSTRALIA, JULY 11, 2009
Islam and the West – Democracy, Jihad and Complicity with Tyranny.
Throughout the last century, there have been attempts to create “a truly Islamic state”, its ultimate objective being the attainment of a just polity premised on the Qur’an and the Sunnah. However, being essentially a reaction to Western imperialism, these attempts invariably were linked to the concept of jihad and the multifarious connotations attached to the word.
To begin with, even though primarily jihad is a doctrine of sacrifice for the preservation of faith, it had traditionally been interpreted to sanction war against enemies of the religion and had provided a moral framework for regulating the ensuing conflicts. The orthodox view espoused by the establishment muftis, adopted a particular Hadith to justify the principle that if a ruler orders something that is contrary to the Shari’ah, Muslims were at liberty to rebel. This view was then extended to justify acts against all forms of oppression.
Today, jihad has been invoked by certain quarters to legitimize wanton acts of violence. And as the line between jihad and terrorism becomes blurred, it is imperative that reform minded Islamists address this problem with courage and conviction. Surely, tyranny and oppression cannot be the only way to stem the tide.
Nevertheless, it is true that the post-war experiments of Muslim countries with democratic institutions ended in unmitigated disaster, returning to power instead the regimes of tyranny and repression. Turkey was of course the exception to the rule.
We are familiar with the United States policy of ambivalence in the war on terror, particularly under the Bush administration, which supported autocrats in the Muslim world on the one hand, and championed the cause of freedom and democracy on the other. Pointing the finger at the United States for driving a wedge between reform-minded Islamists and Muslim autocrats may carry some degree of legitimacy but the ultimate culpability must be borne by Muslims themselves.
As Shaykh Muhammad al-Ghazali puts it, it is telling “to see how Muslims are treated in Muslim countries and under Muslim governments and how other countries, such as Israel or Britain or the United States for instance, treat their own citizens. Human life and the dignity of man appear to have a much lower value and command less respect in Muslim countries … it is difficult under current conditions, to see how Muslims can expect to earn God’s support and fulfill their task as leaders of mankind.”
The 1992 bloodbath in Algeria saw the banning of the FIS (Front Islamique de Salut) just as it was becoming certain that the Islamist party was about to be legitimately brought to power. Thousands are known to have been abducted by “eradicators” that is, the mukhabarat, the State apparatus for silencing dissent. And notwithstanding a protracted civil war, the oligarchs continue their stranglehold on power.
Other Muslim countries have likewise used the terrorism/Islamic fundamentalism bogey to resist political reform and the powers that be continue to brook no dissent. Undoubtedly the West has also to blame. It too has a long track record of supporting military dictatorships during the past half century. In the case of Iran, we have seen the case of Mossadegh who was legitimately elected but was removed in a CIA led coup in collaboration with Britain. Even in Lebanon and the Palestinian state not too long ago, the United States were complicit in the aggression against these two nascent Muslim democracies.
And today we still see how a substantial part of the Muslim population living in non-Muslim countries are being stigmatized and marginalized on account of democracy being eroded at their expense for the sins of terrorists. It must be said though that President Obama, having assumed office, has made some palpable initiatives towards ameliorating this situation.
But regardless of that, it cannot be denied that the West offers at least in theory freedom and democracy – fundamental liberties, civil society, and representative government. On the other hand, the same cannot be said of Muslim countries. There is Turkey of course, beingthe first and until recently the only Muslim nation with clear democratic institutions, a market economy and a free society, notwithstanding its ups and downs. Indonesia which has just seen the reelection of President Bambang Yudhoyono, has of course been a respectable second entrant into this arena.
The key issue to be noted here is that in the discourse on Islam and the West, freedom and democracy provides the main catalyst for convergence, not as mere philosophical constructs but as the foundation for giving dignity to the human spirit.
Within Islam, freedom is considered one of the higher objectives of the divine law in as much as the very same elements in a constitutional democracy become moral imperatives in Islam – freedom of conscience, freedom to speak out against tyranny, a call for reform and the right to property.
Democracy and freedom acquire greater significance around the presence of substantial Muslim communities in the West, whose democratic institutions are under attack all in the name of the war on terror. ‘National security’ has now ominously taken on the hue of political persecution even in established democracies, and there are legitimate concerns to be addressed as we see the increasing tendencies to allow the erosion of fundamental liberties, not just because they are occurring in places with the presence of significant Muslim minorities, but because they should not be condoned anywhere.
If the notion of the universalism of Islam is to mean anything, it would require that its values of justice, compassion and tolerance be practiced everywhere. Our condemnation of the violation of human rights must transcend race, colour or creed.
The heart of the Islamic message is first and foremost a message of love and understanding, of compassion and tolerance and of peace. It tells us to strive for justice, fight oppression and oppose tyranny. There are many tribes and communities, cultures and languages and all these will impinge directly on our worldview. Yet we must never lose sight of the fact that humankind is only one.
ROSMAH prime minister WIFE case leaves an indelible stain on Malaysia's political and legal systems
But the case leaves an indelible stain on Malaysia's political and legal systems
P. Balasubramaniam, a private detective hired by Razak Baginda to keep the woman away from him, swore in an intensively detailed statutory declaration that he was told by Razak Baginda that Altantuya had been the lover of Najib as well, that she liked anal sex, and that she had been passed on to the analyst because Najib intended to become prime minister and didn't want a sex scandal hanging over his head.
The Asia Sentinel
Two Malaysian police bodyguards have been sentenced to death for the October 2006 murder of Mongolian translator Altantuya Shaariibuu, in a case that raised as many questions as were ever answered, including who, according to the testimony of one of the two, offered RM50,000 to RM100,000 to kill her.
The trial of Chief Inspector Azilah Hadri and Corporal Sirul Azhar Umar has been intricately connected to the fortunes of Najib Tun Razak, who was installed as Malaysia's prime minister last Friday. Azilah and Sirul served as bodyguards in an elite police unit supervised by Najib, then the country's deputy prime minister. Also on trial with the two, but acquitted without having to put on a defense, was Altantuya's jilted lover and one of Najib's best friends, political analyst Abdul Razak Baginda. Razak Baginda almost immediately left Malaysia for Oxford, where he is seeking a doctorate degree.
According to the Associated Press, the two men listened impassively as High Court Judge Zaki Yasin ruled that he found their defense "unbelievable" as "each of them are blaming the other." He said he was convicting "both of you as charged" with murdering 28-year-old Mongolian Altantuya Shaariibuu sometime between Oct. 19 and Oct. 20, 2006. "They failed to raise any reasonable doubt" of the prosecution's case, Zaki said. Lawyers said the two would appeal the verdict.
From the start of the trial, during which prosecutors and the judge were hurriedly switched without warning, to the end, when the verdict was delayed since last February until after the United Malays National Organisation convention that named Najib party leader and thus prime minister, the case has appeared more about suppressing evidence and protecting Najib than determining the guilt or innocence of the accused.
By several accounts, the 28-year-old woman, who was executed with two bullets to the head in a jungle clearing near the suburban city of Shah Alam and whose body was blown up with military explosives, was at the very center of a massive scandal scandal over the purchase by Malaysia of three French submarines. Altantuya, then Razak Baginda's lover, reportedly was the translator in the purchase, which cost Malaysian taxpayers €1 billion (US$1.32 billion in current dollars), netted a company controlled by Razak Baginda €114 million (US$151 million) in "commissions," according to testimony in Malaysia's parliament.
By Razak Baginda's own cautioned statement to the police, he grew tired of Altantuya and broke up with her after a year-long affair in which he gifted her thousands of dollars. However, she flew to Malaysia to demand as much as US$500,000, according to other reports, for her part in the purchase of the submarines. As she stood in front of Razak Baginda's house, demanding that he come out, the two policemen, accompanied by a policewoman, swooped down on her, tossed her into the back of a car, and she was never seen again.
In a cautioned statement that was never introduced in court, Sirul testified that he and Azilah had attached explosives to the woman's legs up to her abdomen and her head, raising questions why they had sought to destroy her abdomen rather, for instance, than her hands, which could identify the body. In his statement, he said that as she begged for her life, she said she was pregnant. Presumably the explosives would have destroyed any DNA samples of whose baby was inside her, if any.
P. Balasubramaniam, a private detective hired by Razak Baginda to keep the woman away from him, swore in an intensively detailed statutory declaration that he was told by Razak Baginda that Altantuya had been the lover of Najib as well, that she liked anal sex, and that she had been passed on to the analyst because Najib intended to become prime minister and didn't want a sex scandal hanging over his head. In the declaration, Balasubramaniam said he had seen text messages from Najib after Altantuya disappeared, telling him to "be cool" and that he would take care of the matter.
After delivering his statutory declaration, which can be found here, Balasubramaniam was summoned to a Kuala Lumpur police station, where he was forced into a total recantation of the document. He and his entire family disappeared. There apparently was never an attempt made by the court trying the three men to find him and ask him to testify as to the accuracy of the statement.
Myriads of other questions remain over the trial. In Sirul's cautioned statement,which can be found here, the police constable said Azhar told him Najib's chief of staff, Musa Safri, had ordered them to pick up the young woman. Azhar first suggested going to the Hotel Malaya, where she and two friends were staying, to kill them all, but decided not to because of the presence of closed-circuit cameras. Neither of the two was ever asked in court about Musa's involvement in the matter, nor about their relationship to Najib.
Burmaa Oyunchimeg, Altantuya's cousin who accompanied her to Kuala Lumpur and one of the two women whom Sirul and Azhar presumably intended to kill in the hotel, testified in the trial that she had seen a picture of Najib together with Razak Baginda and Altantuya. Both the prosecution and the defense leapt to their feet and asked that her testimony be stricken and she was never asked about it again. She also testified that when she attempted to leave the country, there was no indication that she had ever arrived there, leading to questions of how her records had disappeared from the immigration department. No questions were ever asked about how that could have happened either.
When Razak Baginda was first brought into court in June of 2007, his wife, Mazlina, shouted, asking why he was being brought to trial when he had no ambition to become prime minister, which could have been construed as a reference to the allegation of Najib's relationship to Altantuya that was described b Balasubramaniam. Mazlina has never been asked to explain her statement.
Nor has Najib, along with Musa Safri, ever been asked to appear in court or been questioned about the case. With his elevation to prime minister, it appears unlikely that either ever will be, unless Sirul or Azilah were somehow to give a jailhouse interview about what really happened in a case in which Malaysia's legal and political systems have closed tightly around the establishment to protect it. There is no indication of what will be done with the two urns containing the attractive young woman's bones that were exhibited in court
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