Kagemushas – The Shadow warriors in Hulu Selangor

Toshiro Mufune was the vagabond who acted out as the dead Shogun is Kurosawa’s epic Kagemusha. He was the shadow warrior acting out as the real Shingen. A similar drama is presently being played out in Hulu Selangor. Anwar wants to reaffirm his and his party’ legitimacy and PM Najib wants to establish the relevance of his new leadership.

Yes, I know in an election, as in war and love, all is fair. That translates into anything goes. You dig up whatever dirt you have about your opponent hoping that will cast him in bad light with the voters. So we berate Zaid for his liberal lifestyle. He drinks like a fish. That’s anathema to the Malays.

UMNO ministers do too. The point is, if we are able to tolerate our own people doing that, it means, that point isn’t an all important consideration to form the basis to choose a leader. Would it be comforting for us to know that almost all UMNO leaders of the past drink? But they didn’t cross the line and compromised on political principles. They brought out the best in their opponents not the worse.

I am not going to stop any of those UMNO paratroopers doing that thing. That is what they are most clever at. There are so many UMNO bloggers out there doing just that. Very good. Because they balance the PR propaganda machine.

But I want to ask that we be consistent in our stand. If we reject a person who drinks as a possible MP, we have stronger grounds to reject those drinkers within our own party because we have taken position on the moral high ground. We should unreservedly condemn those associated with our party policies that have business interests in beer making factory and censor those who drink. When the model was given the caning punishment I was one of the earliest to support that decision because I wanted to have the ruling applied consistently and without fear or favor.