On one occasion in the early 90s, I travelled with Anwar to New York. A group of us had meetings in his hotel room (I think it was the Waldorf Astoria.) On his desk was War & Peace (Tolstoy) which he had just started to read. Anwar remarked that his heavy schedule meant that it seemed to take forever to finish that book. I understand that since then, he has read more classics than anyone else. You cannot help but be changed by the great philosophers of the past.

That is why we must give him a chance. That is why complacents like Badawi and Najis can no longer compete with him.

I watched him as a student radical in the 70s and 80s. I was a skeptic when he accepted Mahathir’s invitation to join UMNO because I was part of the system that “invented” deals and overpriced deals for UMNO cronies, and I knew that the power of money of such vested interests would soon overwhelm any idealist. I knew then that Anwar would either become one of them, or be kicked out for speaking his mind. He tried a balancing act from within. We talked about the looting by Mahathir’s children and by Mahathir’s cronies, in particular Daim. Anwar said he needed more time to change what was an entrenched system.

I watched with dismay as Anwar persisted with the wrong advice from a wrong group of people. Only Azmin stayed the course with him. When the Asian Financial Crisis hit in 1998, Anwar thought that this was the chance to follow IMF advice, devalue the currency drastically and take the bitter pill. He also thought that the requirement for transparency under the IMF umbrella would spell the end of Mahathir’s nepotism and cronyism. Of course Mahathir disagreed. Ahmad Don, the BNM governor, was summarily sacked, and a person whom the ACA caught with RM 200,000 in his drawer was promoted by Mahathir to be the new BNM governor. Anwar was sacked as finance minister, and the person who lost RM 12 billion of our money gambling on FX was installed as special economic advisor.

Those were really dark days for truth, transparency and integrity. I think Anwar has learnt a heck of a lot since then.

Badawi had the opportunity in 2003 to make history by rehabilitating Anwar within UMNO, but it would mean that Badawi had to sacrifice half of the Supreme Council of tainted Mahathirites – Najis, Nazri, Rafidah, Mike Tyson, Tengku Adnan, Aziz Shamsuddin, etc. Badawi instead chose to keep the status quo.

I think when the 4th Floor boys unlocked the country’s Treasury, they simply refused to give up the key.

The whole world is watching, and Anwar knows it.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/08/27/malaysia.anwar.ap/index.html