ALI: You’ve read and studied Shakespeare extensively. You’ve referred to yourself as King Lear – a man unjustly ousted from power. However, your critics in Malaysia and abroad instead paint you as a power-hungry Macbeth, a contradictory Hamlet or even a duplicitous Iago, who preaches moderation, tolerance and democracy but harbors anti-American sentiments and radical religious philosophies. How do you respond to these criticisms?
ANWAR: Well, they have to re-read Macbeth (Laughs). You can’t hold me to any complicity to murder. There’s no blood to wash from my hands. There’s no reference to my involvement [in murder] in anyway. I choose to ignore all this unless you can substantiate it with clear evidence. Because, here in Malaysia, it is always one-sided propaganda. The media is completely controlled by the government.
There are 10 days or less before the elections, and I don’t even have one minute of airtime on mainstream media. So, I believe [my critics] must engage me in a reasoned discourse or debate, and so far they have refused to engage me on any debate or any subject including our Pakatan Rakyat election manifesto. But the fact remains that I was the one in prison nearly beaten to death. And I was maligned in every media as a Jewish agent, Arab agent, Al Qaeda agent, Turkish agent, or Indonesian agent. This just shows they have nothing to stand on except labeling critics, like myself, which is classic statecraft of any authoritarian regime.
ALI: You’ve read and studied Shakespeare extensively. You’ve referred to yourself as King Lear – a man unjustly ousted from power. However, your critics in Malaysia and abroad instead paint you as a power-hungry Macbeth, a contradictory Hamlet or even a duplicitous Iago, who preaches moderation, tolerance and democracy but harbors anti-American sentiments and radical religious philosophies. How do you respond to these criticisms?
ReplyDeleteANWAR: Well, they have to re-read Macbeth (Laughs). You can’t hold me to any complicity to murder. There’s no blood to wash from my hands. There’s no reference to my involvement [in murder] in anyway. I choose to ignore all this unless you can substantiate it with clear evidence. Because, here in Malaysia, it is always one-sided propaganda. The media is completely controlled by the government.
There are 10 days or less before the elections, and I don’t even have one minute of airtime on mainstream media. So, I believe [my critics] must engage me in a reasoned discourse or debate, and so far they have refused to engage me on any debate or any subject including our Pakatan Rakyat election manifesto. But the fact remains that I was the one in prison nearly beaten to death. And I was maligned in every media as a Jewish agent, Arab agent, Al Qaeda agent, Turkish agent, or Indonesian agent. This just shows they have nothing to stand on except labeling critics, like myself, which is classic statecraft of any authoritarian regime.
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