The New Kofi Annan?

The British Sunday Times on 2nd Oct 05 recently ran a half page article on Anwar Ibrahim titled ' Voice of moderate Islam wins support'. The article, by Michael Sheridan, lists out Anwars background and informs readers that the ex DPM is now teaching at Georgetown University in US...where he and all his six children are currently living. The article ends with hints that Anwar might be considered as a candidate to replace Koffi Annan as Secretary General of the UN.....hmm wonder what the Malaysian media would make of that? Would Malaysians rejoice in the news that their 'tarnished' son is being considered for such an 'esteemed' post ?

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Voice of moderate Islam wins support

Michael Sheridan, Kuala Lumpur

THERE has rarely been a political comeback like this one. For a man barred from office until 2008, Anwar Ibrahim, politician and former prisoner, is receiving a rapturous welcome on what looks distinctly like an election campaign in villages and towns across Malaysia.

“I’m talking about corruption,” he said. “Nepotism is still part of the game. Nothing has changed. I’d say we are 10 years behind the times here.”

The Malaysian government has every reason to be worried, because Anwar, 58, has become much more than a local figure.

He is emerging as an international spokesman for moderate Islam, with a teaching position at Georgetown University in the United States, invitations to Oxford and a demanding schedule of speeches and seminars around the globe.

He opposes the war in Iraq but attacks “the delusions” of those who worship Saddam Hussein rather than face home truths about the crisis in Muslim societies. He argues with Malaysia’s fundamentalists because, he says, “you have to draw a line” against compulsion in religion.

This week he is a speaker at a conference in London organised by the Institute of Social and Ethical Accountability.

It is quite a renaissance for a man who was sacked from high office, convicted on charges of abuse of power, accused by the prime minister of being homosexual, beaten up by the country’s top policeman and imprisoned from 1998 to 2004.

Few politicians have experienced such a dizzying sequence of reversals: fewer still have survived them to return, as Anwar has, more dangerous to his rivals than before.

His nemesis, the retired prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, has become a cranky 80-year-old who recently accused Britain and the United States of terrorism.

Many Malaysians see Anwar’s conviction for abuse of power as a political conspiracy orchestrated by Mahathir. The Malaysian federal court threw out charges of homosexuality, which Mahathir used to destroy Anwar’s reputation among conservative voters.

Anwar won more than £500,000 in libel damages from the author of a book entitled 50 Reasons Why Anwar Cannot Become Prime Minister, which had repeated the sexual allegations.

He will not be collecting the award, however: the writer, Khalid Jafri, died last August.

Anwar is now suing Mahathir, who continues to repeat the slurs. “When I came out of prison I said I would forgive and forget,” said Anwar, “but this man is evil.”

The man speaking in quiet, confident tones is sitting in an almost empty home in the hills above Kuala Lumpur. He is greyer round the temples than on the night in 1998 when he gave a fiery press conference in this house to launch his reform movement after being sacked as deputy prime minister.

He still has the air of a member of the global elite, who numbers Chris Patten and Gordon Brown among his friends. He has been on good terms with Paul Wolfowitz, the American neo-conservative who heads the World Bank, for 20 years.

His wife, Wan Azizah Ismail, has been bustling around on political work and cheerfully excuses herself as she goes off to a meeting in parliament.
Their six children no longer live in Malaysia. Anwar took them to America when he was offered the post at Georgetown. He flies home every month or so for an intensive bout of politics.

“My wife was very strong,” said Anwar. “It was very unpleasant for her but she has come through it.”

Prison was difficult, he said. “You are in excruciating pain. You are in solitary confinement. There were threats to my wife and daughters.”

Once in custody, Anwar was beaten up by Rahim Noor, the inspector general of police, leaving him to make a court appearance with a black eye.

“The forensic evidence is that it was a professional, potentially lethal attack,” Anwar said. “Without pressure from the international media and foreign governments, they would have left me to rot.”

The police chief was later forced to resign. He was fined, served 20 days in jail and settled a compensation case with Anwar out of court.

The beating and solitary confinement seem to have strengthened Anwar’s will to contest ideologies that try to confine the human spirit.

He is aware that the world changed while he was behind bars but he shocked an Arab audience in Dubai recently by attacking Saddam and criticising anti-Americanism in the Middle East.

“I told them we must transcend the rhetoric of the crusades,” he said. “It is a ploy by authoritarian leaders and dictators to deflect attention from central issues like corruption by posing as champions of the Muslims so that their crimes against humanity are forgiven.

“I am opposed to the war in Iraq and I’ve told my American friends so. The best thing now would be a quick withdrawal and the arrival of a multinational force. That way you can still defuse this idea that America is against the Arabs, against the Muslims.”

Anwar’s stint at Georgetown has taught him that the United States has an unbeatable ability to innovate. “America is so dynamic because the society is basically democratic. That is the key,” he said.

Anwar will get a chance to test his strength at a democratic poll in 2008, when Malaysia is due to hold a general election.

Abdullah Badawi, Mahathir’s successor, has softened the government’s tone and taken steps against corruption. The ruling party’s grip remains strong.

However, Anwar could tempt its members to join a reformist alliance that he is building with Malaysia’s entrepreneurial Chinese minority, Muslim scholars and young professionals of all races.

Anwar’s aides think that he could become prime minister — unless an alternative future awaits. A quiet search is on for a candidate from Asia to succeed Kofi Annan as secretary-general of the United Nations.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1807093,00.html