Dealing with Anwar

How?

Allow the due process of law to take place. Ignore the protestations, banner carrying demonstrations. Ignore the trial by old and new media on Anwar. Disregard the filth spewed from UMNO's cyber hit squad. They serve to give the equally venomous cyber writers on the other side a competition.

Ignore Anwar's facetious invite for the media to try him. The law marches on quietly and Anwar knows he is snared. His salvation is to accuse all this is a conspiracy. He needs the media to justify his conspiracy. He stays relevant so long as the media vilifies him.

Why haven't you commented by way of a blow-by-blow account of the trial? Spilling venom and all that?

Why should we kick a dead horse? Anwar is doomed. His Malay power base is slowly undermined. Look at his supporters out there at the courthouse. Hardly representing the Malay heartland. His flag bearer is Tian Chua.

Anwar remains a political asset if he remains free. To the west, Anwar is the emblem of democracy. The ignorant west insults us by treating Anwar as the representative of democracy. Can we treat Louis Farakhan or Father Jeremiah Wright as the definitive emblem of American democracy?

It insists that Malaysia must keep Anwar Ibrahim free if she is to qualify to be in the good books of the west. This unsolicited advice is similar to the insistence that we must bomb Iraq into democracy or that we must napalm Afghanistan to force it into democracy.

The west is silent as to the possibility that he has committed a wrong. It's a case of comparative justice. In the west, sodomy is not a legal wrong, but here in Malaysia it has always been. We are not going to judge the west if its citizens choose to bugger a lamp post. Sodomy is not justiciable in the West, but it is here in Malaysia. We will look at them as queers and give them at best, a quizzical look. We will treat them as amusements. But here in Malaysia, the law on sodomy has always been there before Anwar was even related to it.

Here in Malaysia, Anwar is needed and must be saved at all costs for only one reason- that the non Malay opposition parties have a means to keep Malays divided. UMNO doesn't have to do anything- Anwar is hurting himself already. He has enough ropes to hang himself. No need to give him additional ropes.

The best thing to do is to ignore Anwar. Let him deal with the law. Let him focus on his judicial system and a judiciary amenable to him.

Look also at his legal team? Where are the Malay/Muslim lawyers? Either Anwar doesn't trust them or the Malay/Muslim lawyers are keeping Anwar at bay with a 10 foot pole. Sulaiman Abdullah is treating Anwar like a leper.

But this is a legal case. It is very technical thing. They have real lawyers doing the works inside the courts. The cyber lawyers, the demolition crew from UMNO are not relevant. The filth-spewing macaws are doing a disservice to UMNO. Perhaps they may even be a liability if their activities result in a trial by the media. Indeed, we are playing right into Anwar's game by him making it out that this is all a trial by the media. Makes the task of the judge even more difficult as he will be caught by the web of being influenced by what the public reads.

Very sorry for not giving a blow by blow analysis. I don't support Anwar but I am only prepared to debate this issue on broad principles. Such as the principle of justice. Or the state of the judiciary. Which is much maligned because of the handiwork of tainted members of the judiciary. But to say the judicial system is wholesale useless, corrupt and ever ready to subvert the principles of justice, for the sake of kowtowing the master, that is a different matter.

Whether Anwar Ibrahim is guilty or innocent must be debated inside the court. That is the first principle. If Anwar brings this case, outside the confines of the formal courts, then he deserves to be condemned. Because you are trying to foist your own judicial system suited to your requirements whereas, we the rest face that same 'disreputable' judicial system.

But the tasteless vilification of Anwar, which betrays an utter lack of sensitiveness such as superimposing Anwar as one among a gay crowd, or the picture of an Anwar groping a lady's behind and many other tasteless and salacious characterizations will not endear the government with the public.

Our quarrel is with Anwar. You do that- you carpet-bomb indiscriminately, the collateral damage is on Anwar's family- his wife most of all, his children. Since the first time, we have never seen the son with the father. He is probably scarred for the rest of his life.

The jury is out already. They are not waiting for the court's decision. Now the public is divided over the issue. This trial is easily attributed to some evil machinations of the ruling government. As a result, the government's downward spiraling reputation is further entrenched. It has become irreversible. This trial for one section of the public, serves only as the final nail on the coffin.

The other part of the public has already made up its mind on Anwar. Whatever he does, this portion of the public has already disowned him. This part of the public does not need the court to affirm what they have already decided. That Anwar's chickens have come home to roost. They are resigned to the belief that Anwar is a serial homosexual.

So it's between the nail in the coffin and the chickens coming home to roost.

Don't think the government is insulated from this trial. It is seen as incapacitate. Further, instead of giving hazy broadsides, Rais Yatim must come out to say, the point by point trial in the 'public' courts, in cyberspace are subverting the due process of law. Aren't the brazen blow-by-blow accounts sub- judice? Give space to the Solicitor G from Rawang to do his job.

If we continue with the below the belt blows, the whole high jinks surrounding the trial betray the lack of probity on the part of the government. Yes, the GOVERNMENT. Why hasn't it taken any actions against the hecklers outside the court house? Why hasn't it taken action on those who carry out of blow-by-blow forensics on the case? Trial by the media (new and old) may well result in Anwar being acquitted.

The irony is the balding stupidity of the UMNO people may actually result in that. We give Anwar the acquittal by default.