Singaporeans were so privileged to have had the opportunity to be 'entertained' by our former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

True to form, he put the West in its place and gave Asian values its rightful place. Asia's leaders must stop 'kowtowing' to Westerners. They must have a mind of their own.

Assert true leadership or face the humiliation of foreign hegemony. Continued subservience would lead to domestic uprisings and terrorist attacks. (Terrorism makes good a speech these days.)

(Surely a BN-Umno hegemony of 22 years, with the use of Western tools honed to perfection to silence dissent, is far better. It is safer to be 'colonised' by your very own.)

Why, he even had time to comment on what he had considered quite a long while ago as a 'non-issue' or 'irrelevant' Anwar Ibrahim. Very obviously it has become a major preoccupation of his - though he claims that he is not losing any sleep over Anwar's release.

Anwar, he said, is finished 'because he was homosexual'. There is no way his one-time protg can make a comeback in politics. Was it a prediction or a pressing prayer? Mahathir linked his attack on Anwar to Asian values or more specifically Malaysian values:

'We are a very conservative society in Malaysia. We don't condone such acts some qualities are not very well appreciated in Malaysia. And being a homosexual sort of disqualifies him in the eyes of the majority of the people'.

Alas, Mahathir was implicitly revealing to the whole world the very reason why Anwar (who had refused to kowtow to him) had to be 'made' a homosexual - to politically destroy him permanently.

Like acrobats on a trapeze in a (judicial) circus, two Federal Court judges, displaying a balancing act, had thrown Mahathir a line in the event of a drowning credibility. The curtains have fallen. The 'tragedy' has ended.

The actors have left the stage. For some, their lives having ended on a tragic note of their own. But for Mahathir the show must go on And so he would reiterate his saving line that Anwar was released from jail only because of an administrative blunder. (He once admitted he was not very well-versed in law.)

He dramatically added that rapists and murderers could also now dodge Malaysia's legal system on technicalities, and '... so if you feel like murdering, come to Malaysia'.

Only Mahathir can say that. Lee Kuan Yew could not say that of Johor. And if the rest of us were to utter the same, Umno would freak out in a fit of 'traitor' and 'treachery' labelling.

Alas, Mahathir now he goes next door and portrays himself as a paragon of virtue, the promoter of Asian values, the preacher of morals. It is sadly pathetic. May we be spared such further play-acting.