KUALA LUMPUR – Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s recent ascension to Malaysia’s top post is not only good news for the Southeast Asian nation but also for the Muslim world at large, a prominent international academician said.
Azeem Ibrahim, the director of special initiatives at the Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy in Washington D.C., said this is because the PKR leader has had solid experience in leading Malaysia, pointing to his stints as finance minister and deputy prime minister in the 1990s.
In a commentary titled Anwar Ibrahim is good news for the Muslim world, Azeem said Anwar’s long tenure and “steady hands” during that period meant that he is internationally respected.
“His time as the head of Malaysia’s economy coincided with a period of remarkable growth and optimism. It was the era of the Asian Tigers,” Azeem noted in the piece, which was published in Arab News on Friday.
“Not only a competent finance minister, (Anwar) Ibrahim also proved from the beginning of his political career to be a socially aware Muslim.”
Anwar’s historic appointment as prime minister made global news headlines, with several media outlets highlighting his long years in the political wilderness before reaching the top.
Late last month, Anwar formed a unity government as decreed by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, following five days of uncertainty after no coalition won the required majority of seats to form a new administration.
Azeem stressed that as a co-founder of the Muslim youth movement Angkatan Belia Islam Malaysia, Anwar’s affiliation and ideals “combined social concerns and care for the poor and dispossessed with an explicit vision of Islam”.
He also said Anwar’s politics are shaped around a vision of a kind of multiethnic, globally aware Islam, and that he is indeed a “proud Malay and a proud Muslim”.
“In contrast to transnational Islamism, Ibrahim favours social progress within nation states. His vision for Malaysia sees it taking its place both within the Islamic community and the wider world,” said Azeem, who authored the 2017 book titled The Rohingyas: Inside Myanmar’s Genocide.
Azeem noted, however, that Anwar’s rise to the top post would be fraught with challenges.
Anwar’s appointment in itself, he remarked, is seen as “unlikely, or even impossible, for more than two decades”.
The prime minister, Azeem warned, will be steering Malaysia through a global economic crisis, with China in perpetual slowdown and the US and Europe teetering on the brink of recession, which will depress growth for many countries.
“All of this will be central to his future plans because Malaysia has many problems. It is a corrupt society where the rule of law is an inconsistent principle.”
Azeem observed that for a long time, Malaysia was governed “by a succession of prime ministers whose Byzantine sense of politics was accompanied by an almost imperial taste for wealth and luxury”.
Should Anwar succeed in his quest to rebuild the country’s battered economy and fragmented society, Azeem expressed his optimism that the nation “could well become a beacon for the region and the wider Muslim world: a country that recovered from poor governance, greed, and moral corruption, and sought through its own efforts to instead build a brighter future for its people”. – The Vibes, December 12, 2022
