COMMENT | It is hoped that tomorrow's symposium on Anwar Ibrahim's worldview – the German word for it, weltanschauung, is apter in the circumstances – at the Penang Institute will go beyond bromides to deal with the substance of his political philosophy.

Anwar is arguably the most intellectual of politicians to have put himself up for leadership of this nation.

The word “intellectual” here is employed in the following sense: familarity with the best that has been thought and said in the history of the world.

Anwar has sought, in the last two decades at least, to give the Asian contribution to humankind's intellectual legacy new life and urgency...