This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly on April 29, 2024 - May 5, 2024

Anwar Ibrahim: Tenacious in Dissent, Hopeful in Power

By Khoo Boo Teik

Published by Strategic Information and Research Development Centre

408 pages

There is much to commend in Khoo’s penetrating analysis of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s political life journey. First off, it is a relief to find that the author avoids the temptation of allowing a hagiographic flavour to creep into the discussion of Anwar’s evolution from a charismatic student leader to an Islamic reformist, then a rising political star in government, his fall from favour, transformation into an icon of the opposition and ultimately, his ascension to the coveted premiership.

That much could certainly be expected from the author of Paradoxes of Mahathirism: An Intellectual Biography of Mahathir Mohamad (1995), which reviews describe as scholarly, objective and in parts, openly critical.

Khoo’s new work is an immensely valuable contribution to the documentation of the political milieu that extends from Anwar’s emergence on the national stage as a student activist in the 1970s through to his attainment of the highest office in government as the 10th premier in 2022, an eventful span of almost five decades.

The intellectual rigour that marks each passage qualifies this volume to be a key reference for future generations that would wish to gain a deep understanding of the events and personalities that have defined the current era of the nation’s history.

Khoo’s masterful narrative style makes the reading of this richly referenced and beautifully nuanced discussion of national affairs a distinct pleasure.

This volume earns its place in the top rank of dissertations on Malaysia’s political landscape over the era that coincides with Anwar’s engagement in the nation’s affairs.

In the stage-setting first chapter, “Fighting Hegemony: A template of dissent”, Khoo dwells on the circumstances around Anwar’s imprisonment on three occasions, which reveal his unflinching nature and shed light on his political choices.

A passage that prefaces the discussion of these three events — in 1974, Anwar was arrested during student protests over rural poverty and hunger and detained for about two years without trial; in 1999, he was jailed for 15 years for corruption and sodomy after falling out with Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, the then premier; and in 2015, sent to jail again on another conviction for sodomy as the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition struggled to retain its popular support — distils the essence of Anwar’s political longevity:

“Anwar was not a repeat criminal offender. But he was a repeat offender, a recidivist, a troublemaker. What were his true offences and the motives for each of the three occasions of his imprisonment? They were rather different from the ones for which he was formally charged and convicted. He was in each case caught in a crisis of the state or regime, regarded and conducting himself as a challenger to the status quo for one reason or another. He had come to embody a dissident alternative.”

In Khoo’s examination of the above question, the reader is treated to a gripping exploration of the tussle between Mahathir and Anwar, which captures not only the personality traits of the two protagonists, but also the surrounding political dynamic, developmental milieu and popular sentiment of the times.

In the next chapter, “Charisma, Chameleon and Identity”, Khoo takes us on an investigation into Anwar’s shifting ideological foundations, which often attracted suspicion from observers. Khoo explains how changing circumstances forced Anwar to transform his political identity from time to time:

“No sooner had he developed his views in one direction than a flux intervened to compel him to modify his views. At that point he had to reinvent his political persona.”

Anwar’s ideological journey began in the 1960s with Malay nationalism, which then was “deflected by the ethnic violence of 1969, the New Economic Policy and Umno’s corruption”. That led him to Islam and dakwah, via the platform of Angkatan Belia Islam Malaysia (ABIM, or the Islamic Youth Movement of Malaysia), which he founded. This phase of political Islam was interrupted when he was jailed for the first time under the Internal Security Act. Upon his release, Khoo writes, he moved ABIM into a broader civil society engagement. His new project was aborted when Mahathir co-opted him into Umno. “Both Islam and civil society were subsumed under Mahathir’s early reformism and official Islamisation,” says Khoo. Later, he notes, “Anwar inclined towards inter-civilisational dialogues, multiculturalism and political and economic liberalism”, expressing this vision in The Asian Renaissance. When the East Asian financial crisis aborted this momentum in 1997, and Anwar fell from Mahathir’s favour, Anwar turned towards “humane economics, Muslim democracy and a popular recasting of the ‘people’”.

This varied ideological mix is aptly reflected in the cover design in Andy Warhol style, for which Lim Siang Jin (a founder director of The Edge) took great pains to get suitable prints from photographer-cum-artist Steven Menon.

Each of these aspects of Anwar’s political unfoldment is dwelt on in some length. In “Islam: Faith in search of problems”, Khoo traces five stages in the development of Anwar’s brand of Islam over a span of about 60 pages.

He sums up this journey as follows:

“Anwar’s long political trajectory may be divided into five phases, each with its definitive historical condition and its corresponding task, namely: decolonisation and the duty of social criticism; (economic) progress and the direction of transformation; (civilisational) fluxes and the quest for convergence; personal defeat and the recovery of renaissance (renewal); and, political triumph and the handling of diversity (reform). When it is viewed against a dynamic interplay of historical circumstances, political tasks, ideological convictions, and his personal growth, Anwar’s Islam might paradoxically appear to be a solution that went in search of problems.”

Khoo then turns to an examination of Anwar’s economic vision in “A humane economy between state and market”. The canvas spreads from a triumphant last decade of the 20th century, which “began with overflowing optimism in the future of a nationalist-capitalist project” to the eruption of political ferment a few years later with the Asian financial crisis and reaches into the first decade of the 21st century, when he was “part-motivated and part-compelled by ambivalences in his worldview to argue for a humane economy”.

In “A populist reimagination of society”, Khoo focuses on Anwar’s role in leading the opposition by drawing together a diverse group of political leaders and activists to form a nascent alternative to the entrenched political elite and its influential backers.

“When it counted most,” Khoo writes, “Anwar stood out as the de facto leader who could stamp the opposition as an earnest challenger for power. No other opposition figure combined in his person comparable stature, range of exposure, and depth of experience, all elements of value.”

Thereafter, Khoo delves into the political turbulence that marks the era following the end of the Barisan Nasional coalition’s six-decade-long grip on power.

In “An Ascension in Confusion”, Khoo discusses the parlous condition of Malay politics and its endurance as a powerful ideological force as the backdrop to Anwar’s success in cobbling together the current unity government.

At the current time, as Anwar’s government wades from one challenge to another, Khoo raises a rhetorical question about Anwar’s avowed reformist agenda: “Is he genuine or delusional in this regard?”

“It remains to be seen. He thought he had waited too long to become the prime minister. This is his time to give real hope that Malaysia can ‘encourage all citizens to have a clear direction’.”

That’s it in a nutshell. If nothing else, reading the book will equip one with a barrelful of well-grounded insights into the background to the many political issues that Malaysia currently faces.

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