Yes, government leaders at times insult the people's intelligence in justifying their actions. PR politicians too, as it is becoming clearer now, are not immune from doing the same thing in their efforts to defend Anwar's reputation. They may just end up damaging the opposition more than any sex video could. After all, governing a country is much too important to be left to unquestioning and uncritical devotees of a personality cult.
by Zharrif Azrai via e-mail
It is both amazing and amusing how so many people are incredibly and unbelievably quick to condemn and vilify the video without so much as a glimpse of it. The most sorry of this lot are the PKR and other PR politicians. Surely good sense and prudence dictate that they withhold any comment about the video's authenticity until and unless they themselves had seen it.
But, no, sirrreee. They rushed in with denials which can only be explained by a belief on their part that their leader is a person blessed with infallibility and thus sheltered from the usual human frailties to commit any form of sin. On the planet that they dwell, Anwar Ibrahim is a chaste saint, truly a gift from God to the people from Malaysia. All their critical faculties go out through the window and there is no space within their sensibilities to ponder that maybe, just maybe, their leader may not be what he seems or claims to be. Because of this ingrained attitude, just as the sun can be predicted to rise from the east, they too can be predicted to meet any accusation of wrongdoing against Anwar with their own unsupported, unsubstantiated and increasingly wild conspiracy theories of how their saintly leader is being unfairly targeted. It's beginning to sound like the droning of a broken record – and getting tiresome.
The crucial point here is not the video itself, the veracity of which is unknown until it is seen by a wider audience. The point here is the manner in which the PR politicians are responding to this latest challenge. In being so blindly and stupidly devoted to the line that 'Anwar Ibrahim can do no wrong' and so blinkered by their hatred by Umno that they cannot think objectively any more, they risk disenchanting the voters, even the ones who are not necessarily pro-BN.
Yes, government leaders at times insult the people's intelligence in justifying their actions. PR politicians too, as it is becoming clearer now, are not immune from doing the same thing in their efforts to defend Anwar's reputation. They may just end up damaging the opposition more than any sex video could. After all, governing a country is much too important to be left to unquestioning and uncritical devotees of a personality cult.
ZHARRIF AZRAI
