So, CNBC provides the forum in which the UMNO Youth leader, Dato' Hishamuddin Hussein, is pleased to debate his enemies in PAS and the opposition parties.  Suddenly, all talk of foreign devils in reporters' garbs is forgotten.  And a foreign television station is preferable to a local for a debate Dato' Hishamuddin has studiously refused to be drawn into in university campuses in the country.  RTM, TV3, NTV7 are all low class;  only a foreign TV station would do.  CNBC is giving air time.  But was it not CNBC that was excoriated not so long ago, and RTM, TV3,
NTV7 praised, for its coverage of He Who Must Be Destroyed At All Cost? But then, when CNBC comes in to save the nation as it would when Dato' Hishamuddin need not have to face intrusive questioning from the floor, it has the nation's interest at heart!  But CNBC is seen by a minority of Malaysians, most urbanised Malays, whose criticism at this spectable would be unbounded.  Dato' Hishamuddin has lost ground here.  And continues to.

But I can understand his ecstatic elation at the CNBC acceptance. The "debate" almost certainly would be restricted, at most, to an hour, more likely less, in which the two men would be thrown questions from a possible panel of three "distinguished" Malaysians.  You have seen the format in the US Presidential so-called debates.  The format would almost certainly be in English.  Whereas a debate, even on these lines, would have a wider audience amongst the Malay community Hishamuddin needs to convince.  As it is even UMNO is doubtful of his staying power; it already plans the cabinet minister, Dato' Annuar Musa, as the next UMNO Youth leader.  Have I, as a Malaysian interested in these things, seen or heard of any serious discussion between opposition and government?  This has not happened in the past for more than two decades.  UMNO has always shied away from such confrontations.  Except, as now, when the world and Malaysians subscribing to Astro have this chance of a lifetime.  Why am I not ecstatic about it?

Why CNBC?  "If PAS can invite BBC crew to record their ceramahs, I don't see why Mahfuz cannot debate over CNBC," he said.  A non sequitor if there was one.  The BBC crew went there to record a ceremah as part of a larger story.  It would gladly have an UMNO ceremah, if there was one.  How so?  The UMNO chaps were unavailable when the crew came around to film.  Just as Dato' Hishamuddin was unavailable when the time came for him to debate the opposition in university campuses.  He wants a debate in which only soft questions are lobbed at him.  He has also warned the PAS youth chief, Haji Mahfuz Omar, "not to give excuses for avoiding the debate but to meet him face-to-face";  indeed that face-to-face debate is allowed only in CNBC;  Dato' Hishamuddin has refused every attempt at a face-to-face debate in the past few months.  It is a cop out to say the crowd is against him.

A good debator would have turned the crowd around, however hostile, to his view if he has a point to make.  The original debate was in Malay;  this one invariably would be in English.  He talks at cross purposes.  "Now I give him (Mahfuz) and other opposition parties a golden opportunity to present their political struggle to the Malaysian public and the world," he says grandiloquently, as "I will show the viewers how the Barisan Nasional has been running the country for the past 42 years."  (Memo to Dato' Hishamuddin:  Barisan Nasional took office, through an earlier incarnation, the Alliance, in 1955, not 1957, which is the year Malaya got its independence.)  If he is so sure of his position, why does not he not beard the lion in its own lair?  Dato' Hishamuddin would have been believable if instead of CNBC it was RTM, TV3, NTV7 If the CNBC debates takes off, it would be one more reason why UMNO speakers would rather not debate issues in the hustle and bustle of a free-for-all debate.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@mgg.pc.my