Anwar rediscovers the repartee

FMT:

Anwar rediscovers the repartee

The prime minister’s recent penchant for libel suits suggests a loss of confidence in the potency of wit.




From Terence Netto


What would the democratic world do without the art of the repartee?

Answer: It would do poorly; more likely, it would suffer from a surfeit of libel suits.

Last week, Anwar Ibrahim rediscovered the utility of repartee – the tart, elegant reply with the panache to shut up an opponent or stall him or her in their tracks.


Anwar used the word “delirious” to describe the most recent rant of PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang.

It was a relief Anwar did not reach for his lawyers to file a defamation suit against Hadi as he is wont to do these days against his critics.

Anwar’s lawyers, in the past 100 days of his premiership, have issued a slew of summons to politicians who have fired broadsides at him.

The darts unleashed are par for the course as far as form in the parliamentary arena goes.

Interlocutors across the parliamentary divide are expected to do just that.

Metaphorically, they ought to put their hands into gloves and deal each other verbal blows. The more velvet the gloves the more the appreciation of the public.

Anwar’s preferred response to verbal provocations has been a trifle out of bounds.

Instead of reaching for repartee as answer to his critics’ fusillades, he has resorted to attorneys to demand retractions.

To be sure, Hadi did not castigate Anwar personally to warrant the attention of Anwar’s lawyers.

The PAS chief looked into his crystal ball and predicted imminent disintegration for the unity government Anwar leads.

It appeared Hadi had surveyed the whole edifice of Anwar’s government and perceived it to be not unlike the earthquake-hit structures in parts of Turkey and Syria in the aftermath of the calamity that beset those areas.

The allegedly fissure-ridden structures of Anwar’s government were going to topple anytime soon, predicted the PAS supremo.

Asked about Hadi’s prophecy, Anwar revived the art of the repartee by just fetching a word – “delirious” – to describe Hadi’s fulminations and let the media’s headlines do the rest.

The press duly obliged.

They put that word in the header on their despatches and all of a sudden, the dropping art of the repartee received a jolt of life.

Now, one word is not going to make a summer of blooming repartee. Indeed, “delirious” is an apt word to describe the rants of Hadi, now getting to be a frequent occurrence.

In the circumstances, use of the word is preferable to issuing a summons for libel.

May the art of repartee bloom and the penchant for issuing libel summonses wane.



Terence Netto is a senior journalist and an FMT reader.