On Anwar Ibrahim

I have an interest in Anwar Ibrahim. There are too many unanswered questions when the name Anwar is mentioned. What does he think about his experience in UMNO? Would he suggest anyone to try once more to “clean” UMNO from the inside? Would he now say that his decision to join UMNO in 1982 was wrong? Anwar is now championing the call for a corruption-free Malaysia, but has he ever been involved in corruption? Anwar is now talking about the need to abolish the Internal Security Act, why does he only openly say this after being sacked? Anwar has changed a lot after being sacked, but would he become the “clean” man that he is now if he were not sacked in 1998? Anwar says that he does not need to destroy UMNO for UMNO would destroy itself from within. This “UMNO self-destruction”…. did it start after his sacking, or has it been ongoing prior to that? If the latter, why did he wait until he was sacked before leaving? If the former, does he think his departure is the cause of that self-destruction? Why did it take humiliation, sacking and imprisonment before he changed his mind about UMNO? Anwar now talks about freeing Malaysia from money politics, but has he ever been involved in money politics? Was his ascent to deputy prime minister really clean from money politics? Anwar now talks about the greatness of PAS leaders, did this realization only come about after he was sacked? Why was imprisonment necessary to change him? Was it so difficult to see the wrongs done by UMNO and BN when he was in power? Or was he simply too clouded by power, and only once he no longer has it that he realizes he was on the wrong platform? There are many more questions I wanted to ask him. I have heard so much of him from other people. And many have assured me that he has changed. But I have never heard him giving straight answers. In fact, perhaps the problem is not many have openly and publicly asked him straight, probing questions. My meeting with Anwar last Saturday (29 January 2005), although long enough to allow a friendly chat, was too brief to allow answers to all these questions. Definitely too short to allow me to ask straight questions that can elicit straight answers from him. Let us see if I can get the straight answers from him in future meetings, perhaps in one of these days during his tenure at Oxford University. By the way, The Guardian has a good interview with Jeremy Paxman about straight-talking. Worth a read. But you need to register. Go on.... it's free anyway.