Still in disbelief that it has been 25 years since the loud cries of “REFORMASI” vigorously resonated across the nation following the tragic sacking of the then Deputy Prime Minister YAB Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahim by the ruling party UMNO. Ask anyone you want, all they had to tell about the year of 1998 is the appalling scenes of Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim surrounded and later arrested by some unidentified masked policemen who barged into his house when he is addressing his supporters together with his family and friends shortly after addressing a mega crowd of about 100,000 people in Kuala Lumpur and the rest is history. The very incident has been a supervening event that catalysed a major change in the political landscape of our nation. It has also strengthened the very idea of unity between the opposition parties which eventually led to its victory in the states of Penang and Selangor which is still a stronghold of DAP and PKR respectively till today. The euphoria hasn’t shown any signs of fading as the then opposition coalition managed to reinforce their entire might which famously ended the two third majority of the then ruling coalition Barisan Nasional under the leadership of Dato’ Seri Najib Razak in the year of 2008 and later managed to topple the grand old party UMNO in the year of 2018 with the help multiple forces including the nonagenarian statesman Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad who unexpectedly climbed his way through to become the 7th Prime Minister of Malaysia with the backing of his old foes. Fast forward to the year of 2023, after 25 long years of the reform struggle echoed by YAB Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahim, the nation has been surprised to apprehend that he has finally ended his two decades wait for the premiership. The first 9 months has been somewhat that can described as a minor turbulence but the government is still marching strong with his solid people centric policies especially in terms of economy, development, welfare, unity, foreign policy and many more.

Yesterday on the 22 September 2023 at about 10.00 pm MYT, YAB Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahim who is fondly known as PMX had just delivered his Special Address in the 78th Session of the United Nations General Assembly at New York, United States. The entire nation is taken aback with his vocality on some pertinent issues that captivated the attention of the global community. The 16 minutes long speech mostly covered on the issues of conflict between Russia – Ukraine, discrimination towards women and girls in Afghanistan, Palestine occupation crisis, Junta regime in Myanmar, Islamophobia, Climate change, the dynamics of ASEAN and Asia Pacific, and what not.

He went on to stress about the role of United Nations General Assembly which has a concerted history as the main deliberative, policy-making and representative organ of the United Nations since its establishment almost 80 years ago. The noble intention of the establishment is well fortified under the basis of promoting multilateralism among the respective nations to propagate peace and harmony globally. The notion of this General Assembly which offers a platform to its member states to participate and involve in multilateral discussion on the full spectrum of international issues without any fear and favour further bolsters the fact that democracy is highly valued. Those matters raised in the General Assembly do possess authoritative power to a certain extent which binds its member states due to its high standing as a policy-making body of the United Nations and therefore it is also fairly sensible for respective nations to voice our their grievances as it is a big time that the concerning matters may be well considered and resolved with the diplomacy entertained by relevant member states.

We may go on and on deciphering the intellections put forward by the Prime Minister but it would be just sound to not dwell much into the particulars as it has been carefully decoded (subjective) by relevant interested parties such as academicians, foreign policy experts and fellow netizens of social media. The essence of the entire speech can be streamlined to a conception that Malaysia will be very expressive and vehement towards the global issues. This new directive in terms of foreign policies is further orchestrated especially with the appointment of an experienced and abled Foreign Minister YB Senator Dato’ Seri Diraja Zambry Abdul Kadir into the cabinet by the Prime Minister. With both of them in the business, we may expect a nation with seriously dictated foreign policies. One must remember that when the question of diplomacy arises, it is prudent to adopt the positive neutralism approach to not upset a friendly nation that shares bilateral relationship with us, however it is also fairly essential to not cherry picking on selective matters simply to appease our own palate which goes at the expense of our deeply embedded principles . Therefore, we have to be shrewd enough to remain resolute on every global issues.

While praises and reverence were pouring with a sense of pride among Malaysians with the classy act shown by PMX, there is also a section of community who begs to differ with the impression that the speech is drafted in a way that is quite offensive towards particular nations that posses very strong diplomatic relations with us seems baseless especially with the fact that considerations would have been conscientiously weighed to articulate the speech which amplifies to every corner of the world. Over and above that, it is rather complicated to content everyone as the matter is very subjective and susceptible to further speculations for reasons known better to them which could be due to their political inclination or whatsoever.

The speech given by PMX magnifies the aspirations of fellow Malaysians to gather the respective countries to put their differences aside and approach a common agenda by the virtue of multilateralism as envisioned by United Nations and its respected member states. It is our divine hope that efforts will be undertaken to pursue the noble intention of escalating unity among the respective nations as contended by the Honorable Prime Minister which will benefit the global community at all cost.