Poor bugger ....

I am not pro PKR nor pro BN when it comes to Malaysian politics which I normally do not subscribe to. But seeing Anwar Ibrahim hesitating to answer on TV to questions posed by journalists this night, I felt sorry for him for having been perceived as a sodomite for the past many, many years since 1999, and lately being perceived as someone who was unable to control his extra-marital sexual urges when a hidden video clip caught him, or someone like him, in flagerant delecto with a prostitute in a hotel room.

He had already been humiliated by accusation of having sodomised his young male assistant not too long ago, and that, in the ongoing high-court trial, the plaintiff had claimed that, beyond any shadow of doubt, the DNA of the semen found in the very private part of his accuser, the young male assistant, matched the latest DNA found in the toothbrush and towel that Anwar used when he was apprehended by the police. If DNA matching provided incontrovertible proof, then Anwar could not escape the inevitable. As if to smear Anwar's reputation further, one of the men accusing Anwar of being the person in the video clip since he said that he was with Anwar in the same hotel room, was prepared to swear on the Holy Qur'an and in a mosque after Friday prayers today, that the Anwar incident did happen and that he was a witness to it.

Since Anwar was initially accused of sodomy, way back in 1998/1999 in what was dubbed as Sodomy I by the media, I despised Anwar, firstly, for being involved in acts of sodomy, and sodomy with men at that! (though I could have condone his kinky habit if it's with women) and secondly, for why was he so averse to swearing on the Holy Qur'an since, as he had always maintained, how could he had ever committed such God-forbidden acts. And because of this, I have always maintained that he must have committed sodomy after all and that he dreaded the consequences in the Afterlife [generally, Muslims fear the wrath of God in the Afterlife than anything else], if he had not been forthcoming when swearing on the Holy Qur'an.

But when I saw his facial expressions and heard his insecure parry to the questions raised by journalists, seen on TV today, I at once felt pity for him and for what he had been through all these years. I understood immediately why he kept on denying to everyone. If I had been him, I would never, never admit to what crime or sins I had committed even if they were true, because why should I be judged by mere mortals when there's a higher Being who is the ultimate Judge. I would take the stand that the onus is on the accuser, i.e. the plaintiff, to prove, beyond any shadow of doubt, that I have committed felonious offence or moral sins.

My sympathy also goes to his wife, his politician daughter and her siblings, and to his parents and relatives, for they have suffered even more. Imagine the humiliation that his children went through in school, constantly jeered and ridiculed by their friends all these years.

Feeling the pinch ...

I consider myself to be part of the Malaysian middle-class citizen even by western standard. I cannot consider myself to be able to afford living in luxurious apartment in London say for prolonged periods though I may be able to afford it for one or two days stay or travel first or business class to London or Los Angeles though I have done so, just for the heck of it, if only to taste how its like to travel in style. As a professional, initially as an executive and later as a consultant, I have earned a respectable income but not as much as to spend my income lavishly, and with impunity, knowing whatever is spent today can be more than easily replaced by the next day's income, except during those very rare occasions when I have the urge to splurge. Even so, I am careful with my money. The lifestyle that I have been practising in the last several years suits my character, my personality, my attitude to life in modern Malaysia and above all my regular income.

That was then, way back in 2009 and before. But now I sense a difference. Though my regular income has now become a shade less that it was before, it's nevertheless quite substantial even by western standard. Yet I am feeling the pinch of having to cope with prices of goods, prices of foods and drinks, prices of car maintenance, prices of fuel, and a host of other things like even with the prices at the mamak shops. There are times these days that I complain to myself about some goods in the department store as being too expensive or some restaurants that seem to display menus that are more expensive than from when I had the same items there before.

We are told that, for last year, Malaysian inflation rate is 2.9% and that, this year, 2011, it won't be more than 3 .5 %. But is it true ? I have the feeling that its more like 10 to 15 percent. True enough, just as I was writing this blog entry, the morning paper headlined issues of food being critical to the Asian poor, saying that foods might have gone up some 30% or more this few months, citing as reasons for shortage in foods due to price of oil, natural disasters, reduction in land acreage for food growing, shifting plantation to biofuel production and so on.