Anwar Ibrahim’s court of public opinion
No court on earth can come close to unravelling the truth. But the court of public opinion doesn’t seem to care.
Ishmael Lim, Free Malaysia Today
While the Federal Court deliberates on the arguments for and against Anwar Ibrahim, and lawyers all over Malaysia sip their street-stall teas or nurse their espresso demitasse as they consider the strengths of the submissions and evidence, there is another court every bit as critical to the unfolding drama in the Palace of Justice that needs convincing of Anwar’s guilt or innocence. That court is the Court of Public Opinion.
One might even say that the the whole spectacle has been laid out especially for that court. This massive exercise has used up tens of thousands of man-hours and involved the justice system, the attorney general’s chambers, the law enforcement agencies and private legal practitioners to bring to trial the most colourful political personality in the history of modern Malaysia.
To say that the public has been swept up by the events unfolding in the courtroom would be an understatement. Perhaps people may not be as shocked now as they were in 1998, when Anwar faced the same charges, as this time Anwar isn’t sporting the panda black eye and the neck brace. He is nevertheless staring at a long prison sentence. What hasn’t escaped the notice of both local and foreign observers is that the government is applying a rarely used law on a single individual for the second time. Apparently the law has been invoked only seven times in its 76 years of existence.
Elaborate effort
The proceedings may seem stuffy and difficult to follow for the guy on the street, but there is no doubt that the thick political air surrounding the trial has lent some credence to suggestions that this has been an elaborate effort to put Anwar where he can do no more harm to the political status quo.
For socially conservative main-street Malaysia, the first time was met with some degree of disbelief. But for those taken by the lurid accounts carried in the print press and local television, Anwar has become a debauched sexual deviant. Even as he was acquitted of the Sodomy 1 charges after serving six years for corrupt use of power, the sexual stigma has persisted. By Sodomy 2, the public thought they had seen and heard it all, but the new scandal had lewd details that have kept the cyber chatter on overdrive and even polite company could not refrain from commenting on the distastefulness of it all.
Anwar seems able to take it all in his stride and any fear he may have of prison has been well hidden by his familiar bravado in front of the cameras and microphones.
If at all the first and second sodomy prosecutions were intended to curtail his political abilities, then the rationale behind that decision must have been the assumption that a conservative Muslim majority society like Malaysia would not be able to stomach the idea that the nation might one day be governed by a sexual deviant. And to that end, both sides of the divide have been feeding the hungry eyes and ears of a constituency that is sexually repressed.
Rather than address the real issues that plague the country, the last 16 years of politics have had this illusory monster lurking in the public domain, diverting the attention of the public from the core political issues on how to better the lives of the common citizen. The establishment would like very much to pin the ills of society on the morally bereft Anwar, and in return Anwar would promise that all poverty and injustice would end when the tyrannical serpent of Umno/BN is slain. And vice versa. So this is the story of how Malaysia has teetered and staggered off its old reputation as an economic tiger of East Asia.
