Sex, Malays and politics

APRIL 7 — In 2002, with memories of Reformasi still reverberating in my mind, I wrote an essay for a web magazine I was editing at the time, Suara Anum, entitled “Seks Melayu.”

No, it was not about that surreal, nauseating wave of seemingly local porn that was flooding our cybersphere at the time. Rather, I wrote about the relationship between sex and politics. Let’s face it, sex sells and this phenomenon isn’t limited to Malaysia. Being a basic and primal instinct, it is wired into human nature. 

But we Malaysians seem to have taken this fascination with sex and politics to a different level altogether. Malaysians, and particularly the Malay community, seem to be possessed by an insatiable curiosity about what happens in other people’s bedrooms, especially politicians’.

The sense I had then was that such a trend was dangerous as it meant that personal lives mattered more than issues like democracy, corruption or justice.

Politicians — because of their high-profiles — are therefore more likely to fall prey to such scandals and hence spend their time dealing with such distractions rather than actually governing. 

I’m bringing this up because the private life of one of our politicians, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, has come once again to the fore. From 1998 until today, it seems that Umno-Barisan Nasional believes the best way to destroy Anwar would be through smearing him with accusations of sexual misconduct – the more sensational and incredible, the better.

It seems like Anwar has had sex with just about anyone: women and men, spouses and prostitutes. Fortunately, no accusations of bestiality have surfaced. Yet.

I know for a fact that Anwar is innocent of all the charges. When Reformasi came about in 1998, I was 16 and initially confused like many Malaysians. Did he do it or not? But as the case developed, there were just too many loopholes and revelations that eventually convinced me that the whole trial was nothing but a sham.

Eight years later, I was hired as Anwar’s private secretary. He was no longer a distant public figure, but a man whom I saw and worked with almost every day. Working with Anwar showed me his private self, which rarely comes out in public.

Anwar is a man who takes his religious responsibilities seriously and is a jovial family man. I’m pretty sure I would have noticed it — and left him— if he truly was a womaniser, sodomite, Western agent and Muslim terrorist.

Make no mistake, the hounding of Anwar Ibrahim is bad for Malaysia. My MCKK classmate Hafiz Noor Shams recently wrote an excellent article on how he felt Malaysian politics was actually doing well until the recent video broke out: the publication of Pakatan Rakyat’s Buku Jingga had uplifted the political discourse, centring discussions on policy while the government was being held to account for corruption, waste and mismanagement.

But with the increasing focus on Anwar’s trial and then the video, he argues that politics is digressing towards morality and personality all over again, and we should not be wasting time fighting for justice for Anwar. 

Here I beg to differ. Yes, this does distract us from Buku Jingga and I for one prefer to keep the focus on Buku Jingga. But maybe that’s the point – Barisan Nasional wants us not to talk about alternative policies by hurling all the mud and grime at Anwar, hoping some, if not all of it will stick. 

Another friend of mine told me over dinner recently that while he does not believe the accusations against Anwar, he feels Anwar has too much baggage and someone else deserves to be prime minister. I believe that any credible Malaysian leader who leads a united coalition and threatens BN will inevitably be subjected to the same mudslinging, all in the name of maintaining Umno’s power. 

This is not to say that morality doesn’t matter in politics. As mentioned in my 2002 essay, people — East and West — expect their leaders to lead exemplary private lives. The public themselves might have their own skeletons, but they privately hope that those who lead them are somehow better.

Yes, Bill Clinton remained popular after the Monica Lewinsky scandal but it can’t be denied that his “rehabilitation” was helped by the fact that his successor was such a disaster. Many politicians in the US and Britain resign when their indiscretions become public knowledge (though it seems the Europeans are a bit more tolerant – Silvio Berlusconi and Francois Mitterrand come to mind!). 

Still, the way our Establishment has handled these cases is comical. Not only has our mainstream media thrown out any notions of “innocent until proven guilty” when it comes to Anwar, but in their effort to politically assassinate him have no qualms of turning our television news shows and newspapers into soft-porn.

I was a precocious child who devoured newspapers when I was as young five – I shudder at the thought of what today’s children would think of politics and public life with all the gory details of semen, sodomy and sex splashed on the screens and newspapers. 

The point remains that BN is doing this because they are afraid and they are desperate. They have seen what is happening in the Middle East to previously invincible regimes backed by the most powerful superpowers. They know that a united Pakatan Rakyat poses the biggest threat to BN’s survival. They recognise that Pakatan Rakyat is led by Anwar and that to destroy Pakatan Rakyat, they must destroy Anwar at all costs.

We must not fall into their trap.

BN underestimates the wisdom of the people. On the ground today, there is a recognisable anger and disgust at BN’s gutter politics that will turn into a backlash that becomes the turning point for political change in Malaysia. 

We must fight for justice for all Malaysians. Anwar included.

* The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist.