What was Anwar’s biggest contribution to what we are today? I sat and ponder over this question the whole day today. I wanted to write about it and yet I cannot because there were so many thoughts that came and went inside me. All I could do today was about two half page – notes on times go by – Cakap cakap about AP and then I revisited the “Bentong car park” issue because one of our friends sent me something new about that car park. It is now 11.42pm and I have been thinking since 7.15am this morning….fifteen minutes ago it hit me! I believe that what Anwar did to me and to many of us can be conceptualised in two words:
“POLITICAL AWAKENING”
Before Anwar was dismissed by Mahatir I was a Bumiputra intent on pursuing my “rights” as a Bumiputra. The right to have a share in the perceived richness brought into the consciousness of the Malays as a result of the New Economic Policies. All that was in my mind was where the next ringgit was going to be found. Tenders, project proposals, pink slips, AP’s, IPO, licenses, Privatisation opportunities…life was a whirl of meetings and discussions in five star hotels and lunches in restaurants whose name you find hard to pronounce – Troika was one of those that I can still remember – in Jalan Raja Chulan. The evenings were again another whirl of coffee houses and meetings until the early mornings.
Then 2 September 1998 he was dismissed as DPM. The next day he was expelled from UMNO. September 20 he was arrested and September 29 he was brought to court to be charged. Five cases for sodomy and five for corruption. My first conscious understanding that this was really happening was seeing him with a black eye. Common sense tells me that no policeman would dare lay a hand on someone who was the DPM just a few months ago….surely Anwar must have injured himself….but looking at him I could see that he was accepting of the fact that he was no longer DPM and I felt that he was coming to terms within himself as to where he would have to go from there. There was a grim acceptance in his face that the battle for his life and his future had begun.
As the days unfold and I relive Anwar’s arrest in his house with Balaclava clad personals, his black eye, how he was being treated during the trial and how UMNO and Mahathir was trying to demonised him…my dislike for Mahathir became a dislike for UMNO. Slowly this crystallized into my questioning what was happening within UMNO. It was not enough that Mahathir have dismissed him as DPM – that he relentlessly pursued Anwar in such a manner made me, and I am sure most of us, start to question the sanity of that man who was then our Prime Minister.
So my friends if you ask me what was Anwar’s biggest contribution to our consciousness until now – it will be our political awakening of what is right and what is wrong with our government, with our Prime Minister and with UMNO.….and after much thought we know that Mahathir and UMNO is wrong for our nation! So do not question Anwar’s on his commitment to our cause – we are with him in HIS cause to bring decency and dignity back to how things are done in Malaysia. He showed us the way, he stands in front – but we are together now and we will persevere.