Gerakan Party reinventing, Anwar Ibrahim reinvented

So, according to Malaysiakini, Anwar Ibrahim has vowed to end race-based discrimination policies in Malaysia, making it one of the major planks of his party's manifesto for the 2008 Election.

He said: "The New Economic Policy has been abused to enrich the family of Umno leaders and their cronies." Hmmm, I wonder which family had benefitted?

Then the world's greatest political reformer said: "If you really want to deal with the issue of poverty, why can't we just say we have an affirmative action policy helping the poor and the marginalised. It should not be racially based."

Wasn't this the same guy who told Hindraf off not to touch Article 153 of the Malaysian Constitution, the very Article which legalises race based (so-called) affirmative actions? I suppose he is in 'continuous self-evolution'.

Please read:
1) Anwar Ibrahim, Article 153 & Hindraf
2) Is Anwar Ibrahim backtracking on his policy on NEP?

And you anwaristas asked me why I don't trust Anwar - ha ha ha!

Fellow blogger xypre of Reduced and Recycled blog, said of my concerns and queries about Anwar telling Hindraf to lay off Article 153:

In this I agree. When I read what DSAI said in Malaysiakini, I had the sudden urge to tell him off. What more balanced and rational means? Through the castrated political process? Through an ambiguous opposition coalition? Through the intervention of MIC?

Just what balanced and reasonable way of doing things? Indians are, if DSAI doesn't get it, damn angry.

As for 'continuous self evolution' please read what Baradan Kuppusamy (who normally writes for Malaysiakini) wrote in his article in the Star Online titled Anwar reinvents himself again.

Note the emphasis by Baradan on the word ‘... again’ ;-)

ANALYSIS BY BARADAN KUPPUSAMY

Anwar Ibrahim changed his image from a Muslim youth leader to a Malay nationalist. Now, he has reinvented himself again by projecting himself as a populist leader who embraces the multi-racial politics. But can Anwar’s new attempt win over the voters?

Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, who started as a firebrand Islamic student activist, reinvented himself as a Malay nationalist after joining Umno in 1982 while continuing to promote and defend Islam.

In 1999 after he was sacked, jailed and desperately fighting to save his political career, he had a difficult and momentous choice to make between forming a Malay-only nationalist party or a multi-racial party as his future political vehicle.

Considering the need to show a united, strong political face – both to Malaysians and his legions of foreign supporters, Anwar chose a multi-racial platform. It was a “politically correct” decision and successfully piled the pressure to free him and return him to the political mainstream.

But in the process Anwar lost the two main planks he had rode to come within a whisker of becoming Prime Minister – as champion of Malay nationalism and promoter and defender of Islam.

Now, as a leader of a multi-racial party, he cannot speak exclusively about Malay nationalism or about Islam but has to present himself as a Malaysian leader and stand on a platform of equality, justice and fairness for all Malaysian races.

He has been walking on this multi-racial platform since his 2004 release but has he succeeded in re-inventing himself, for a third time, as a Malaysian leader? The results of this election will show if he has succeeded or failed.

As I had blogged in Anwar Ibrahim sings Canto-pop songs:

Anwar Ibrahim was, to put it euphemistically, not very nice to the non-Malays when he was in power. Chinese and Indian parents still bitterly remember his Education Ministry's draconian policy to make non-Muslim students perform prayers in Muslim fashion. I also recall Saifulbahri Kamaruddin, a former Malaysian journalist writing in to malaysiakini on the hypocrisy of Anwar Ibrahim.

[…] … most non-Malays didn't view the so-called reformasi street protests as a clarion call for Malaysians to join in to protest against a repressive state. They didn't associate their own repression with Anwar falling on his Umno keris.

To them, Anwar was not the solution but rather part of the problem. Anwar had played for high stakes in a game that determined his personal ascendancy to the top of Umno, and which didn't include non-Malay Malaysians. So when he faltered in his ambitious endeavour, don't blame the non-Malays for not buying his spin that it was about political reforms. That's about as plausible as the Bush administration's fabrication on the Saddam Hussein-Osama Laden link.

… we, who have felt the sting of Anwar's official hands, weren't and aren't so enamoured by his claim for ‘reformasi’.Anwar Ibrahim is a man who sang the Islamic tune when he was in Abim, the nationalist chant when in Umno, Paul Anka's songs when he's talking to the Western press and now lots of Canto-pop.

4-face Brahma

Then in The truth of Brahma's faces I quoted Proarte, who wrote a letter to Malaysiakini stating:

Anwar Ibrahim has squandered all the goodwill he generated in the aftermath of his sacking and persecution. He tried cleverly to reinvent himself as a 'reformist' hoping that the ‘rakyat’ would easily forget that he was a Mahathir and Umno man, responsible for much of the unhealthy division in our society using Islamic demagoguery and Malay chauvinism for political advancement.

I hope those naive believers in him would read Proarte’s description of the de facto leader as being “responsible for much of the unhealthy division in our society using Islamic demagoguery and Malay chauvinism for political advancement”. The term 'de facto leader' is in itself already a blasphemy to his oft-preached democracy - what hypocrisy!

Anwar must realise his 'all things to all men' modus operandi is downright dishonest. He cannot use the language of secular idealism and democracy including the 'Jeffersonian Focus' in the West and when addressing a non-Malay crowd, and then be an Islamic demagogue who feels it is right that Lina Joy a Christian convert should be tried for apostasy in the syariah courts which he feels we should have 'more confidence' in. This duplicitous behaviour will be the unravelling of him and his party.

“... duplicitous behaviour ..” says it all. I had described him as Brahma-faced.

Proarte continued:

Anwar has also betrayed the people of Sabah over the Ma Zu issue in Kudat. Anwar has been silent on this issue. Abim, an institution which Anwar co-founded, has supported Sabah Chief Minister Musa Aman in preventing the Ma Zu statue from being erected.

So much for his 'wo men dou shi yi jia ren'.

The opposition however is divided and PKR has an unprincipled person as its de facto leader. The non-Malays in the party, including the self-conscious 'intellectuals' of PRM have been taken for a ride. Those who remain are pawns or opportunists who are drawn to delusions of grandeur and powerless party positions.

Please wake up!

Sadly, they could not resist their human desire for power and limelight, and were easily seduced by Anwar's rhetoric of justice, the primacy of human rights, freedom of conscience and upholding the secular nature of our constitution.

Urghhh, I need to wash myself!

But what happens if PKR is demolished? Will Anwar reinvent himself again?

Well, Baradan Kuppusamy also wrote: With PAS, Anwar is on a better footing. PAS traditionally saw Anwar as an ally even during Anwar’s Umno days and this was made possible by Anwar’s close relationship with PAS president, the late Ustaz Fadhil Nor, who saw him as his successor in PAS.

I guess we know where he will go then, as he had 'in spirit' when he was Education Minister!