So What If Anwar Wants To Be The Father Of The Nation

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When you clean the house, the house will get messier before it becomes cleaner. Maybe things just looked messier in the first two years of Anwar’s reign because Anwar was genuinely trying to clean the house.
Nehru Sathiamoorthy
In response to the criticism saying that Anwar should not have accepted Najib’s apology, Anwar recently fired back by saying something to the tune of “why not, I am the father of the nation.”
A lot of people are trolling Anwar for saying that he is a father of the nation, and to be frank with you, I can understand why. When I first heard Anwar refer to himself as the “Father of the Nation”, my first reaction was that of cringe too.
I think part of the reason why his self-reference sounded so weird to me is because of my age. When you are in your 40s, people referring to themselves as your father does have an odd note to it.
If I myself felt so odd hearing Anwar refer to himself in this way, I can imagine how those in their 70s and 80s must have felt when they heard Anwar refer to himself in this way.
I notice that many of the people who really took affront to what Anwar said were the old timers. I suppose when you have grandkids, to hear Anwar saying something to the tune of “if you are bad, I am your dad” must sound like nails on the chalkboard to these boomers.
Seeing the relationship between age and cringe level to what Anwar said, I think that the millennials and the Gen-Z were probably the only group that took what Anwar said in their stride. At their age, I suppose they must still be quite used to every other old timer they meet acting as if they are their fathers.
A couple of months ago, I probably would have had a field day making fun of Anwar for mimicking the likes of Muhyiddin or Ismail Sabri with their Abah and Pak Long affectations. I probably would have mocked Anwar for thinking that he is a part of the reformation movement, when he is still captured by such third world ideas like being a father of the nation.
But that was before the unveiling of the 2025 Budget, when Anwar made good on his promise to raise wages and increase social protection for all the workers in Malaysia, both foreign and domestic.
Honestly, before he came out strongly for the workers in the budget 2025, I honestly thought that Anwar was just riding on the Reformasi agenda to hoist him up to power. I don’t blame myself for thinking like that because for a year plus after his reign, all I saw Anwar doing was increase his stranglehold on power and look like he was intent on wreaking vengeance on his enemies.
As it turns out, maybe there is more subtlety and nuance to what Anwar was up to than what meets the eye.
I might have only seen madness in his method before, but after Budget 2025, I am starting to see Anwar with new eyes, and from this point of view, it really looks like maybe there is a method behind the madness of Anwar afterall.
For all you know, rather than indulge in absolute power and enjoy disposing of his enemies slowly by a death of a 1000 cuts, maybe Anwar was just doing what he was doing because he was setting the pieces and biding the time to bring the Reformasi agenda to fruition.
When you clean the house, the house will get messier before it becomes cleaner. Maybe things just looked messier in the first two years of Anwar’s reign because Anwar was genuinely trying to clean the house.
In any case, after he came out strongly and unexpectedly for the working and middle class in Budget 2025, I am now of the opinion that Anwar might likely be the once in a lifetime champion that the working class and middle class have been waiting for decades to arrive.
Nobody in this world is perfect. Tunku drank and gambled. Mahathir struggles with bigotry and racism. I don’t know what Tun Razak and Tun Hussein’s weaknesses were, but I am sure they had their shortcomings.
Considering that, so what if our man Anwar Ibrahim might have nurtured a desire to be amongst the Fathers of the nation.
We have to remember that Anwar is 77 years of age. People of that generation might appreciate these sorts of things in a way that those from the younger generation might not be able  to fathom.
If being the father of something is what Anwar wants, and if he is indeed going to reform the economy and radically transform the lives of 80 percent of Malaysians by creating for us an economy where the working class and the middle class will finally have a chance to realise our full potentials, the least we can do for him is fulfil his desires, when it is most likely not even going to cost a single thing.
Of course, it is a little premature to call Anwar the father of the nation now, but if Anwar manages to raise the minimum wage to a living wage of RM 3000 per month like he has hinted he would, who is to say that it cannot happen in a few more years.
Personally, I am partial to the term Bapa Reformasi. I think the epithet has a ring to it and it will suit him.
I got a feeling that in the next few remaining years of his term, Anwar is going to be doing a whole lot of things to turn our economy from an elite-centric exploitation-based economy to a high value economy that is powered by a confident, motivated and free working and middle class. And when he has completed his mission, we shall not only herald him as Bapa Reformasi Malaysia, but put his face on our own Mount Rushmore, and close the curtain on having anymore fathers of the nation in the future.
 
 
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysia-Today
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