From Crescent International, London. (http://www.muslimedia.com)
November 16-30, 2000

By a correspondent in Kuala Lumpur

Malaysia's Reformasi movement, sparked by the jailing and assault of Anwar Ibrahim, the popular former deputy prime minister, sprang up again like a rubber ball on November 5. More than 60,000 people braved the hot afternoon sun to gather on a highway linking Kuala Lumpur, the capital, and Shah Alam, an industrial city about 20 kilometres away.

The gathering was to be the culmination of a series of "Nyah Mahathir" (Destroy Mahathir) campaign rallies organised by opposition political parties and groups, intended to press for the resignation of prime minister Mahathir Mohamad. But for several weeks beforehand, Mahathir's government and its tightly-controlled police had been issuing repeated warnings that 'tough action' would be taken against those who attended the rally.

To the surprise of many, what was once regarded as a slowly-dying reform movement, without a leader, suddenly reemerged from hiding, when tens of thousands of people thronged the highway and staged a four-hour stand-off with the police. The numerous roadblocks erected at all entry points to Shah Alam failed completely to prevent people from coming. Police blocked the way to the site of the rally, fired teargas and acid on people, brutalised scores of protesters and dragged more than a hundred people into waiting trucks. Scores were injured when police began beating up unarmed protesters, some were reported 'missing', and at least two suffered serious injuries. One man is feared to have lost his eyesight as a result of tear gas, while another - Anwar's former bodyguard - is hospitalised with a fractured skull caused by police beating.

The gathering was unprecedented in that all four top opposition party leaders attended. In earlier rallies, the leaders normally stopped short of 'flouting the law' in order to avoid being prosecuted and be banned from parliamentary politics. This time Ustad Fadzil Noor of the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), Anwar Ibrahim's wife Wan Azizah Wan Ismail who leads the National Justice Party, Lim Kit Siang of the Chinese-dominated Democratic Action Party and Sayyid Husin Ali of the People's Party openly defied the draconian police laws which prohibit any rally without a police permit that is only issued at the behest of government. They even roused the crowd with fiery speeches, and joined in chants of "Resign Mahathir".

The vast majority of those who attended the rally, however, were Malay-Muslims, indicating their continued support for Anwar and demonstrating the isolation of Mahathir, whose party, the United Malay National Organisation (UMNO), lost ground badly in Muslim majority areas during the general elections last year.

Analysts say that the unprecedented large attendance at the rally is a cause for concern for the Mahathir administration. Even with the help of all the UMNO-controlled mass media, the government would still find it impossible to gather such an impressive crowd. That the opposition, armed with only internet websites and Harakah, the fortnightly paper published by PAS, and faced with oppressive laws and threats of detention without trial under the notorious Internal Security Act (ISA), managed to gather more than 60,000 people is a major achievement that Mahathir, for all his powers of self-delusion, can no longer afford to take lightly.

Although the rally's main purpose was to demand justice for Anwar, and his immediate release from jail, what prompted people to come was believed to be a government moves that have further isolating it from the Malay-Muslim heartlands.

In August, the Mahathir administration interfered in an agreement between the national oil company Petronas and the PAS-led government of the state of Terengganu, announcing that the agreement was null and void. The agreement, signed in 1975 by the then UMNO-led government, stipulates that the state government would receive oil royalty payments amounting to RM1 billion (RM3.8 = US$1). Mahathir then announced that the payment was not a royalty, but a "goodwill payment". This means that the funds will go to the federal government instead of Terengganu. To add insult to injury, the government then challenged the PAS state government to bring the matter to court if it was unsatisfied. PAS has so far refused, mindful of the Malaysian judiciary's subservience to Mahathir, as exposed by the conviction of Anwar.

Instead, PAS has said that it will mobilise people and hold roadshows, indicating a growing frustration among PAS members, which made impressive gains in the last elections and increased several-folds its share in the parliament, with the usual parliamentary politics. PAS is realising that nothing can be achieved by participating in a political set-up dominated by Mahathir.

On the other hand, the incident at Shah Alam on November 5 shows Mahathir's continued determination to arrogate to himself the right to control public debate. He denies the opposition absolutely any room for manoeuvre, and is unaccustomed to any challenge, often resorting to police high-handedness and prosecution under various draconian laws inherited from the British, especially the Sedition Act. So, whenever it is confronted, as by Terengganu over the petroleum royalties and by this month's 60,000-strong demonstration, it loses its head. So predictable and repetitious has Mahathir's pattern of defiance become that one could guess what his next statement would be. When Anwar's former political secretary, Ezam Nor, openly said he had tarnished Mahathir's name during a US tour last month, Malaysia's tightly-controlled media went berserk. The opposition was then accused of lobbying for intervention by the American Congress.

Mahathir's views can be summarised thus: anyone who is against him is 'unpatriotic' (a favourite term of his), and those who attend rallies to hear an opposite view are 'traitors'. But where do people go to hear the official view? Nowhere. One observer has remarked: "The government acts like the proverbial dog-in-the-manger: it would not act, nor would it allow others to."

Ever since the Anwar affair pricked the Malaysian Muslim consciousness, Mahathir has been hiding his regime's shortcomings behind accusations of 'treacherous' behaviour. When a response is forced on him, it is often ludicrous. Meanwhile, there is already widespread belief that Mahathir may be leaving the scene sooner than expected. As Anwar Ibrahim said: "We are operating in a repressive system. As history has shown, surprises do happen."

END