Activist: I'll be happy if Anwar goes to jail

Prominent activist Hishamuddin Rais yesterday said that he would be "happy" if opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim goes to jail over the latter's sodomy conviction.

Speaking at a forum on the anniversary of the May 5 general election last year, Hishamuddin said that this is because he believed Anwar's imprisonment will bring forth a new uprising from the people.
"I am happy if Anwar goes to jail, it is a good thing, then we can instigate people to go back to the streets," Hishamuddin ( left ) said.
Anwar's first imprisonment in 1998 sparked the Reformasi movement when many Malays took to the streets  and even caused a setback in the 1999 general election for BN, which lost the administration of Terengganu state as well as Kelantan.
Hishamuddin also said that he would be glad to see PAS split over the hudud controversy.
"This purification is a normal process in a political party. This will split up the group in PAS who are obsessed with the idea of a unity government with Umno. This is because when they scrub their green attire, they can't look past their Malay blood," said the outspoken veteran activist, who is already facing sedition charges over remarks made at a post-GE forum last year.
However, prominent author Lutfi Othman and veteran journalist Wan Hamidi Hamid ( right ) both cast doubts as to whether there will be a new political tsunami in time for the 14th general election, judging by the pattern of things.
"I am ashamed that the Malays are still allowing themselves to be influenced by media such as Utusan Malaysia and TV3 ," Lutfi said.
"The Malays treat politics as though it is religion. They find it so difficult to switch from Umno to PAS. They do not realise the role of civil society, you see this has grown in other communities, but Malays still have not realised the role of civil society," he added.
Wan Hamidi, a DAP member, said that he was "pessimistic" over change in GE14, citing Pakatan's inability to make inroads in areas where they had lost votes in the last general election.
"We did not win votes in the rural areas, which is the Malay and bumiputra heartland," he said.
"But sadly it has been one year since the elections and Pakatan still have not made inroads there. Instead, they are busy fighting over each other- be it about water or hudud," he added.
Islamic symbolism
DAP's Kluang MP Liew Chin Tong, meanwhile, said that if there is a tsunami in the next election, it would happen due to economic factors, while also pointing out that issues such as hudud never cropped up in the national discourse before the 1980s.
"Hudud never cropped up before Dr Mahathir Mohamad became the prime minister. When Mahathir took over, he absorbed Islamic symbolism into his administration, and this caused PAS, who were fighting with Umno over Malay welfare up until then, to become even more Islamic in order to counter Umno. So this is a politics of symbolism," he said.
"The question is - is this kind of politics still relevant today? We can come out of symbolic politics and start discussing context instead," he added.