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By Mihar Dias September 2026
There is nothing quite like a crisis to conduct an audit of your friendships.
No accounting firm is required. No forensic investigator. No Royal Commission.
Just lose your position, your money, your influence — or, in politics, your government — and watch who still answers your telephone calls.
Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor has apparently discovered this ancient truth.
Speaking about the support for her husband, former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, she said she now knows who the family’s “true friends” are — those who have stood by them through difficult and good times.https://www.malaymail.com/amp/news/malaysia/2026/09/21/rosmah-now-i-know-who-our-true-friends-are/235923
Fair enough.
Human beings have been making this discovery since the first caveman lost his cave.
When you are successful, everybody is your friend.
When you are powerful, everybody suddenly remembers your birthday.
When you are rich, people don't ask whether you are going to the restaurant. They ask what time they should arrive.
When you are a prime minister, even people who cannot remember your name somehow remember your telephone number.
This is not necessarily Malaysian. It is human nature.
There is an old saying: when you are on top of the mountain, everybody wants to take a selfie with you.
When you fall off the mountain, suddenly everybody claims they were never climbing with you.
Politics merely professionalises the process.
And now we have an interesting experiment in friendship.
Najib's conditional pardon has produced an extraordinary wave of solidarity. UMNO established a fund to help him meet a RM50 million fine attached to the conditions of his pardon. The fund reportedly collected more than RM1 million within its first day, with some ordinary supporters contributing RM10 or RM50.
There is something undeniably touching about people helping someone they genuinely believe in.
But there is also something wonderfully strange about the economics of political friendship.
Imagine telling your wife:
“Darling, I've discovered who my true friends are.”
“How?”
“They're the ones who helped pay my RM50 million fine.”
That would certainly be a new definition of friendship.
Most of us have much cheaper friends.
They lend us RM50 when we forget our wallet.
They buy us nasi lemak.
They help push the car when the battery dies.
They turn up at the hospital.
Nobody starts a national fundraising campaign because you owe RM50 to the mamak.
But politics operates on a different scale.
The currency is not merely money.
It is loyalty.
And loyalty, in politics, can be a very interesting commodity.
People often say they supported the leader because they believed in him.
Sometimes they genuinely do.
Sometimes they supported the party.
Sometimes they supported the ideology.
Sometimes they supported the gravy.
And sometimes, presumably, they simply supported the person because he was the person with the keys to the house.
This is why political friendships deserve a slightly different dictionary.
A “true friend” is somebody who stays when there is nothing left to gain.
A “fair-weather friend” is somebody who disappears when the weather changes.
And a “political friend” is somebody who may appear with an umbrella precisely because he knows the rain is temporary.
There is another uncomfortable truth.
We should not be too smug about human relationships.
We all exploit relationships to some extent.
The young need the old.
The old need the young.
Employees need employers.
Employers need employees.
Politicians need voters.
Voters need politicians.
Businessmen need politicians.
Politicians need businessmen.
Journalists need politicians for quotes.
Politicians need journalists for publicity.
And everybody needs somebody.
Civilisation is basically an enormous network of people politely pretending that every relationship is based on affection when, quite often, there is a little calculation hiding underneath.
That doesn't make human beings evil.
It makes them human.
Which brings us back to Rosmah's observation.
Perhaps the real test of friendship is not whether somebody contributes RM10 to your fund when you are in trouble.
Perhaps it is whether they would still call you when you have absolutely nothing to offer them.
No position.
No influence.
No access.
No government.
No VIP table.
No convoy.
No photograph.
No reason to be seen standing next to you.
Just you.
That is when the guest list gets interesting.
When you are up there, the room is full.
When you are down there, the room suddenly develops excellent acoustics.
You can hear the silence.
And that may be life's most reliable friendship test.
Not who joins you at the banquet.
Who sits beside you when there is no banquet.
Not who praises you when you are powerful.
Who still speaks to you when you are powerless.
Not who contributes when everyone is watching.
Who helps when nobody is.
Because when the sunshine disappears, we finally discover something politicians have known forever:
Some people love you. Some people love what you can do for them. And some people simply love standing in your shadow.
The trouble begins when you mistake the shadow for friendship.
Mihar Dias (mihardias@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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