A couple of months ago I wrote an article for Malaysiakini entitled Pak Lah or Pak Blah? posing the question that I and many Malaysians had been asking ourselves and each other for a very long time: is Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi really committed to putting his long-promised reforms into action, or is he nothing but talk?

And around the same time, as you'll recall, his competence and capabilities were being called into question by a far more ferocious interrogator than me or any other mere peon of the press: Dr Mahathir Mohamad, no less.

I didn't watch Pak Lah's much-heralded appearance on television appearance in response to Dr M's hectoring, as tame pseudo "interviews" aren't my scene. But to judge from the similarly partisan English-language press, whose reports next morning were all as positive as possible, it was a far-from-convincing performance.

A few things Pak Lah has said since, however, have encouraged some of us to hope that his words might be starting to translate into deeds. The first instance of this new assertiveness I noticed, was when, as the Star reported beneath the banner headline "Lay Off Sipadan," the PM "lashed out at Sabah Chief Minister Datuk Musa Aman for going ahead with the RM4.5mil clubhouse project despite his objection."

The project at issue was the one in preparation for which, as the Star had earlier revealed, a coral reef had been damaged when construction materials were shipped to the island by a barge instead of contractually-specified smaller boats. At the time the Star nervously omitted to name the offending contractor, however, and later appeared to accept the Sabah chief minister's assertion that he'd received an apology and all was forgiven.

But the prime minister wasn't so easily mollified. "I was very angry with Musa," he was quoted as saying. "I told him not to build it. I said so many corals are dying and he promised that he would look into the project."

So far so forceful, I thought, and then almost jumped for joy as he went on to demand more protection for Malaysia's environment in general, decrying the disappearance of the turtles in Terengganu, the drying-up of waterfalls, and the putrid state of polluted rivers like the Gombak-Klang.

"God gave us such a beautiful gift," he reportedly said, then asked "Why

are we destroying it?"

Since belaboring Musa Aman regarding Pulau Sipadan, and I trust putting paid to that scheme (or scam) as well as to similarly dodgy and destructive "developments" projected for Pulau Perhentian Kecil and elsewhere, Pak Lah has also given a good deal of public stick to foot-draggers in the fight against corruption. Complaining to civil servants, especially those in the Public Works Department, that some of them deliberately delay or belek projects in the hope of soliciting bribes.

Fair decisions

He also noted that some people who had considered him lembik before were now complaining he wasn't nice any more.

Adding that "Nice or not nice, lembik or keras , what is of the utmost importance is that the decisions made are fair to all."

And now Pak Lah is taking a decidedly keras line against corruption, not just in Malaysia, but throughout the Muslim world. Speaking at the OIC Anti-Corruption and Enhancing Integrity Forum 2006 in late August, he drew attention to the disgraceful fact that of the 158 nations rated on the latest Transparency International Corruption Perception Index more than half of the ten considered most corrupt were Muslim, and that the average rating of Muslim countries overall placed them in lowly 89th place.

Making the point that the challenges faced by the Muslim ummah have their r oots in poverty, poor governance and limited education opportunities, he said that political will was required to enforce anti-corruption laws, close-out opportunities for corruption and instill ethics and integrity in society.

Let's hope that, now that Pak's talk has acquired lots more torque, his underlings aren't dismissing his utterances as just more of Lah's blah, blah, blah, and that he's really starting to assume his proper role as Pak Bela. A statesman with new steeliness of purpose to protect and restore the rights of the rakyat and to avenge it against wrongdoers; a PM who, in the words of US President Roosevelt, "walks softly but carries a big stick."

There are certainly lots of situations requiring some stick. For example, in reply to a question in the Dewan Negara a month or so ago, Deputy Internal Security Minister Mohd Johari Baharum had the gall to claim that, because only 56 police were investigated for corruption in 2005, compared with 73 in 2004 and 85 in 2003, the "I Hate Corruption" campaign was working. On the contrary, I'd say that the investigation, let alone trial and conviction, of less than 100 police a year in a force as blatantly and notoriously corrupt as Malaysia's is a disgrace to whoever's supposed to be fixing the problem.

With so much to achieve, from reforming criminals posing as crime- fighters through persuading civil servants to cease lining their pockets instead of serving the public, to putting an end to the wanton destruction of Malaysia's God-given environment by "developers", the PM sure has his work cut out for him. But if he can progress from Pak Lah through Pak Blah to Pak Bela as he seems to be in the process of doing, let's hope he has the support of all the honest, hard-working, well-intentioned people he needs to help him get the job done.