The RPK Factor
By Art Harun
It is a measure of the iconic status of Raja Petra Kamarudin, or more popularly known as RPK, that yesterday, news about him in cyber space as well as the mainstream mass media, overwhelmed even news about the Prime Minister and the opposition leader combined.
Love him or hate him, whether you are a Barisan supporter or in the opposition camp, young or old, Malay, Chinese, Indian, liberal democrats centre-left winged or just a plain kite-in-the-wind kinda guy, you just can’t escape the shower of political exuberance that RPK brings.
RPK combines the uncombine-able in the Malaysian great fight for change; for political and personal emancipation and for a semblance of societal sanity that have long since evaded this land. He is sometime brilliant; sometime broodingly introversive; sometime maniacal and almost all the time enigmatic.
I never knew the guy. He was my first ever client whom I had never met until I won a case for him! Winning his case was one of the highest, if not the highest, moment of my career. That moment is captured in RPK’s Release: A Tapestry of Thoughts and Emotions.
Throughout my short association with him I have seen the man at work. I have had some insights into his mind, his steely determination and an almost child-like stubbornness which is cute and adorable as much as it is agonisingly exasperating and frustrating.
I would not be exaggerating if I said that I have seen this guy actually being prepared to die for what he believes in. There he was, in front of me, and to the absolute astonishment of his wife and other members of his legal team, telling us how he would undertake a private and absolute civil disobedient in detention which would ultimately result in his own death. Disturbing, to say the least. But that’s RPK as I know him in the short time I have had to pleasure – and a lot of pressure – to act for him in his ISA habeas corpus application.
However, since yesterday, he is the greatest turncoat Malaysia has ever seen after his heavily edited interview with TV3 was broadcast by the UMNO owned TV station. He is now a vilified person. He has sold out. He did that to ensure his safe – and probably opulent – passage back to Malaysia.
Over yesterday night and yesterday, I received calls, text messages and e mails from friends and acquaintances questioning RPK’s motives. Some of my close friends undoubtedly concluded that RPK has now bought his safe passage back to Malaysia. A sneak into the comments made at various web sites reporting on the TV3 interviews show insulting comments questioning RPK’s loyalty to the oppositions and making conclusions that he has surely sold out.
Above all, the timing of the interview is perceived to be correlated with the Sarawak state election and being so, it is viewed as a definite effort to derail Anwar Ibrahim’s efforts in Sarawak.
Quite when RPK has been loyal to Anwar or the opposition is beyond me. And quite why in the mind of so many people that Anwar is THE opposition and the opposition IS Anwar are also beyond me.
