AN-WAR OR ANU-AR!!!! PART 2

The year 1998; Commonwealth game year. Leading to it a lot of heart thumping events happened in Malaysia. Asia financial crisis hit the region. AI was the finance minister (someone in World Bank declared him the best finance minister in the world), several fiscal and financial measures taken by him hurting businesses, ordinary people and economy in general.

I was directly affected, my business collapsed. Quietly I started to question AI move; he seems to follow strictly to measures dictated by IMF and World Bank. As a common man I found his solution to the crisis doesn't make sense. As the best finance finance minister in the world he just let our economy collapsed just to score point with IMF. That was when I started to question my own loyalty to him.
One evening on the way home while driving I heard a breaking news over radio, AI was fired from all his government positions by Dr. M. My heart skipped a beat; this is bad I said to my wife seated beside me. "Good, I never like that man any way, something about him which I cannot explain even to myself make me feel that he is not REAL" she said to me. " I never said this before because I knew you idolized this guy"she continued.
Subsequent event, AI came with blazing gun attacking Dr.M and his administration. That was the start of "REFORMASI", AI was back at his 70's best - organizing street demonstrations, the beginning of another split within the Malay race ( now we have 3 main groups of Malay divided by their political ideologies- UMNO,PAS and Keadilan).

When I was in school, I was taught that Hang Tuah was the real Malay warrior, Hang Jebat committed treason by going against the King to redeem the honor of Hang Tuah which was victimized by the palace. But Hang Tuah came back to defend the honor of the Kingdom, he killed Hang Jebat for going against Malay ethic- never "DERHAKA" to the Kingdom.
When I was in college I was taught by a new thinking led by so called new Malay warrior AI that the real Malay warrior was Hang Jebat, because he dared to go against the King to defend injustice. Hang Tuah was said to be weak for his undivided loyalty to the King. At that time I believed with that argument, I was sucked into New Malay movement to fight for the honor of Malay race led by AI.
In 1998 I think I wised up a little bit, I don't simply bought any thing that people try to sell to me at face value. The way I look at things different now, I tend to look at bigger picture with my own perspective. Hence when I revisited the story of Hang Tuah my original believe was restored. I understood now that he did what he did, not because of his blind loyalty or he loved the King so much, but because he loved the unity of his race much more. To him the unity of Malay was supreme, he was willing to sacrifice even at the cost of his personal liberty for the sake of the unity. For him the symbol of Malay unity and honor is the Kingdom, that the reason why he never goes against the Kingdom even at the cost of his own blood. " Tak kan Melayu Hilang di dunia" if his virtues are followed.The King on leader may come and go but the Kingdom must stand united forever because that's the lifeblood and honor of Malays.

AI and his gang don't get it, they missed that point and Malays are in danger of bigger split and losing their honor.

When Dr.M did what he did to AI, I stood on Dr.M side not because nI loved Dr.M so much but I love the unity of my race more. AI sodomy issue was and still is his personal matter, not a national issues like what he likes to make it to be. On hind sight, Dr.M did the correct thing to kick AI out and took over the finance ministry. AI was not so smart like what was said about him by IMF and World Bank, his ego was being stroke by these foreigners and it gets bigger for his head, he played along into the hand of manupulaters out to harm our country. Dr.M made several smart initiatives to arrest the decline of our economy; the silver bullet was pegging our RM3.80 to a USD. The measures were condemned by world economist but Malaysia persevered with and history proven us correct.