Umno and its farcical morality
The public can perhaps accept the punishment meted to Anwar. Indeed, the public does not really care about Anwar anymore. But what does the government in, is the collateral punishment unjustifiably meted out to his family: his wife, his children, his grandchildren. Public disapproval of this unjustifiable tyranny visited upon the family is what will do in the government.
Mohd Ariff Sabri Abdul Aziz, The Malaysian Insider
I wrote a short article about Anwar Ibrahim volunteering going to jail. The term volunteer, I used in a wide sense, including Anwar conceding to whatever fate the Barisan Nasional government metes out to him.
That action, if he so chooses, is to serve a purpose. The purpose is to hasten the downfall of the present national government.
But Anwar is a recalcitrant and stubborn is his middle name.
That short article was actually meant for Umno people, to get them familiar with sophisticated thinking. The message is: Send Anwar to jail, we will hasten the downfall of the Umno government.
The weight of evidence this far indicates that Anwar’s next stop will be the jail. He will spend maybe 10 years in it, by which time he will be in his 70s. He won’t see his children grow into adulthood and perhaps will not see a number of his children getting married.
The public can perhaps accept the punishment meted to Anwar. Indeed, the public does not really care about Anwar anymore. But what does the government in, is the collateral punishment unjustifiably meted out to his family: his wife, his children, his grandchildren. Public disapproval of this unjustifiable tyranny visited upon the family is what will do in the government.
Anwar will succeed in portraying the government as a tyrant and heartless ogre.
Umno is not handling Anwar the right way. I have written some time ago, of the option of using outside experts from the FBI or Interpol. At that time, the idea was laughed off.
We could have subjected the forensic investigation under the terms of a royal commission of inquiry. That way, right from the beginning, Umno would have cut off any inferred linkage to the production of the video.
In effect, that action if taken would signal to everyone the three jokers were acting on their own driven by personal agenda. Umno shouldn’t have gotten involved by default at all.
That would also stop the spin undertaken by the audio visual and print media linked to Umno. That would have also stopped the opposition from crashing in with their own spins.
At that time, what I wrote was received with much scepticism. There were accusations that such a proposal would suggest that our police experts at home are not as skilful as foreign experts. That wasn’t the inference at all, but it would demolish any accusations about our local police being bought over by the government. The opposition parties would seize on this point.
Now it’s too late. The media frenzy that accompanied the revelation of the trio turned what initially could have been an advantage into a general rejection of the veracity of the story. Now, even if we can prove that it was indeed Anwar who is the actor in the porn clips, general distrust and cynicism would destroy any balance of truth in the sex scandal.
We actually don’t care whether Anwar is the sex culprit or not. The videos shown were probably old film clips. He is morally culpable. He answers to the people whose faith in him is somewhat shaken. He answers to his loving family.
The public cannot find the stomach to tolerate the injustice forced on Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail and her family. What the government has done as a result of its own sluggishness and mental blockage is to allow itself to be regarded as a tyrannical bully.
