Rescue acts of Malaysian politics

So Lim Kit Siang had to step in to rescue Anwar Ibrahim!

According to a malaysiakini report titled Samy vs Anwar - Kit Siang joins in, the DAP senior politician had to intervene to rescue Anwar Ibrahim from an ambush by the Indian chief, Chief Raging Bull.

Earlier Samy Vellu had taunted Anwar Ibrahim to stand in Sungei Siput in the next general election if it’s held after April 2008, a challenge which (from what I heard) drove Anwar into deep rage. How dare an insignificant hanger-on like Samy dare to tease the world’s greatest reformer!

[see my posting Indian Chief: "Anwar speaks with forked tongue!"]

The inevitable stoush of words between the two antagonists on the subject of marginalised Indian Malaysians saw a cha-cha-cha-ing Chief Raging Bull even becoming Dr Samy Freud with a psychoanalysis of Anwar's problem.

I assess Anwar Ibrahim suffering the greater damage from the verbal sparring because he is a man with a lot of political baggage and who hasn’t been able to explain those away satisfactorily, and of course facing an opponent who don't care about his own baggage.

So Saint Michael Lim had to ride in on his white charger to slay the dragon of Sungei Siput to rescue his new ally, who was by then (and probably for the first time) speechless from Chief Raging Bull's volley of poisonous arrows.

Didn’t they say politics make strange bedfellows?

... because we have Lim Kit Siang, once incarcerated for years in a political gulag for a cause that arose out of an insensitive policy by a former Malaysian Education Minister, now rescuing said former Education Minister.

Other equally notorious rescue acts were:

(1) Koh Tsu Koon waving a giant keris to Houdini-ise Hishamuddin after the latter’s equally insensitive keris waving behaviour,which Chinese Malaysians felt was directed at them. Koh’s giant keris was so big it’s a wonder he didn’t perform chingay juggling with it.

(2) When Dr Mahathir was recently on the outer with his own party, one he led for two decades, PAS leapt in to declare him virtually a national treasure. Then there was the Malaysia-Today organised ‘platform’ for the Grand Ole Man to air his anti-AAB views.

(3) In the same period as (2) above, Ku Li spoke up for Dr Mahathir – not quite a rescue ops but nonetheless it might have ameliorated the anti-Mahathir feelings within some sectors of UMNO.

(4) Dr Mahathir tried to conduct one of his own when very recently, he provided advice to the Ijok voters.

(5) Again in Ijok, when Najib Razak was under siege by a smear campaign (where Mongolian poo was liberally tossed at him), AAB unexpectedly stepped in, and gave his support and backing to Najib.

(6) And we shouldn’t forget that when AAB himself was under siege from attacks by Mahathir, he was rescued by ‘forces’ beyond the borders of Malaysia.

(7) The there was the RM9.2 million miraculous cascade of manna money from heaven where the immortals felt that selected young man should be assisted to make a head start in life.

If I have to grade them, I would nominate:

(1) the keris waving stunt as the greatest escape of all but also the most sycophantic.

(2) the AAB rescue of Najib as the most effective

(3) Lim KS’s rescue of Anwar as the most disappointing (because we wanted to see whether Anwar still has any fightback against Chief Raging Bull, that is, after he regains his voice)

(4) Dr Mahathir’s Ijok intervention as the worst rescue ops and the most damaging to himself

(5) the manna from heaven as the most envied case

(6) the PAS ‘national treasure’ as the most laughed at

and

(7) Ku Li may lay claim to the most dignified rescue