In less than a month from now, the High Court will deliver its verdict on Anwar Ibrahim's sodomy trial.

Unlike others, I am least interested in predicting which way the verdict would go, for the simple reason that the whole saga from the very beginning was meant to finish off the career of one of the most formidable characters in Malaysia's political history.

Instead of gazing into the crystal ball, I would rather see mass awakening among ordinary Malaysians to the cruel reality that our judiciary has been trampled, on time and again, since Dr Mahathir Mohamad came to power 30 years ago, and it is high time we jam the spoke of the wicked wheel.

The current Umno leadership is so bankrupt of ideas that it had to resort to the much discredited script ignominiously bequeathed by Mahathir in order to stop Anwar from making further inroads and to arrest the dwindling political fortunes of their own.

Umno and its cohorts in Barisan Nasional are so incapable of rehabilitation that they can only perceive Anwar's - and by extension the opposition's - misery as their own fortuity.

Although the ruling elites are politically vacuous, they are nevertheless not so stupid to not realise the potential power of the people, which is why they now live in the fear of public protests.

Back in July, when tens of thousands of Malaysians of all races and from all walks of life took to the streets and endured the pains caused by teargas and chemical-laced water cannons, they started to forget whether one was Malay, Indian, Chinese or lain-lain.

When the naked power of the state strikes, it does not matter if one is the son of the soil or a pauper from the street, because the consequence is equally severe.

A ludicrous and hilarious Bill

Five months on, the sheer will of the people continues to haunt Umno and its freeloaders in BN, so much so that the government could only come up with the ludicrous and hilarious "How Not To Assemble Peacefully Bill".

I don't blame the downtrodden Burmese workers in Malaysia for laughing at us. Having suffered from our smugness for years, they finally have found a reason to be proud: the newly-passed Burmese law on peaceful assembly is far more liberal than what Malaysia has to offer.

Not to mention the way the authorities in Moscow handled the massive protest against alleged electoral frauds last Sunday puts Najib Abdul Razak - the apprentice prime minister who may not turn out to be the truly anointed one - and Hishammuddin Hussein to shame. For once, Russia has proven itself a better democracy than Malaysia.

With the benefit of hindsight, the rejection by Najib to have the Berish 2.0 rally held in Stadium Merdeka was a blessing in disguise. Had it been the case, there would not be the violent crackdown that forced Malaysians into the unforgettable experience of suffering in unison for a just cause.

For decades, Malaysians had been told to guard against one another: the lazy Malay, the cunning Chinese, the untrustworthy Indian, and the hard-to-categorise lain-lain. Suddenly, they were united as one and standing up to the real big bully that is the hegemonic Umno.

And the Umno bigwigs know full well who first made this possible. Without the unceremonious sacking of Anwar and his subsequent humiliation, there would not have been the first popular revolt by the Malays since the 1960s, and the political and judicial crisis triggered by Mahathir's recklessness only exposed in full how excessive power concentrated in one man can easily derail the entire nation-building process.

The reformasi generation has come of age. Today, we see more and more young Malaysians being emboldened to speak out and reclaim their right to live and think as a free Malaysian.

Mahathir, Najib and Muhyiddin Yassin may all like to interpret street protests as something 'fashionable', given the so-called Arab Spring and the Occupy Whatnot movement, yet they are acutely aware the 'fidgetiness' among Malaysians has its roots in the widening social divisions, inter but increasingly intra-ethnic income disparity, and a lacklustre economy.

All these realities are now rendering the old rhetoric of zero-sum race game irrelevant - at least for the young generation yearning for change.

No fan of Anwar

I am no fan of Anwar. On the contrary, I still hold him accountable for some of the racist, over-zealous religious and neo-liberal economic policies that are still faithfully followed by Umno today. But it does not mean I ought not to have sympathies for him and his family as a fellow Malaysian.

The man has in some way paid his due. Arguably, no one single Malaysian politician - be they the leftists in the 1950s through 1970s, the Islamists in the 1980s or the vernacular educationists since 1957 - has been subject to humiliation of this magnitude as Anwar is, not to forget also the shame and public scrutiny that his family members have had to endure.

While Nurul Izzah took it all in her stride and even managed to carve out a political path of her own, her younger siblings practically grew up in the nightmarish shadow of all the framed-up charges against their father, all because the power-hungry and paranoid Mahathir was convinced his interests would be at stake should Anwar make it to the top.

Malaysian politics has been embroiled in the utterly unnecessary sex saga for far too long, but perhaps it is our obsession with sex scandals that has created a foothold for the powers-that-be to distract the public from the real issues.

The more we talk about someone's sex life, the more we become entrapped in the political snarl carefully set up by you-know-who. Of course, the holier-than-thou attitude of the religious zealots in both Umno and PAS does not help either.

But Mahathir's Machiavellian politics has had far-reaching consequences, and his deadliest legacy has been the pervasive belief among his staunch supporters - who are many - that public integrity and national institutions too can be made expendable just to safeguard the elusive ‘Malay hegemony'.

A life devoid of dignity

Under Mahathir's Umno, Malaysians have been leading a life devoid of dignity for far too long. The Malay is perpetually told that he/she is either weak or not 'towering' enough, the Chinese is constantly portrayed as a salivating wolf on the prowl, while the Indian is urged to be grateful for the crumbs under the table.

Tragically full of self-pity for reasons best known to himself, Mahathir has to make others feel perpetually small to compensate for his own incompleteness.

Anwar's predicament is thus our own fate writ large: powerless and at the mercy of an overbearing Umno. As the nation's wealth is depleting fast and the cut-throat competition for state resources becomes drastic among Umno's various factions, there can only be more collateral damage in the months to come.

The onus is hence on us to decide if we want to free ourselves from the decades-old bondage.

Anwar may indeed be sentenced to jail, as pessimistically predicted by many, but our vote is the only vote that counts, not that of the judges who are beholden to their paymasters.

Even if the judges return a verdict that is favourable to Anwar, we still must punish the government at the ballot box, for we did not appreciate the court case in the first place, and the culprit numero uno - Mahathir that is - must be brought to account.

Only then can we send a loud and unequivocal message that our mandate is not to be taken for granted.

Anything but Umno. Yes, we can.

 

JOSH HONG studied politics at London Metropolitan University and the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. A keen watcher of domestic and international politics, he longs for a day when Malaysians will learn and master the art of self-mockery, and enjoy life to the full in spite of politicians.