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By Mihar Dias November 2025
When Kalimullah Hassan—editor, columnist, political insider, businessman, and one-time chronicler of Malaysia’s conscience—finally sighs and says he is done with Anwar Ibrahim, something larger than personal disappointment is at play. https://www.facebook.com/share/17RB5owG1Z/
This is a man who watched Anwar rise from the fiery, poetic, anti-establishment student leader of the 1970s into the global Muslim democrat who once stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Yasser Arafat in Batu Pahat. https://www.facebook.com/share/17RB5owG1Z/
When someone like him walks away, it is not merely a critique—it is an obituary for a political dream.
Because Kalimullah wasn’t just an admirer. He was part of a generation for whom Anwar represented hope—a bridge between Mahathir’s muscular modernization and a gentler, more pluralistic Malaysia.
He remembers the era when Malaysia’s clocks were literally reset by Mahathir, when leadership felt big, bold, unafraid. When Anwar’s Urdu-laced oratory could set hearts alight: dil-āvez speeches that promised reformasi long before the word became a slogan, long before the slogan became stale.https://www.facebook.com/share/17RB5owG1Z/
But like many Malaysians, Kalimullah watched the rot spread: judicial crises, constitutional crises, royal tussles, 1MDB, human trafficking exposés, collapsing institutions, a political class aging without maturing.
Through it all, Anwar remained the perennial “Prime Minister in waiting,” a Shakespearean character whose tragedy was always deferred—until at last he became Prime Minister, and the tragedy finally arrived.https://www.facebook.com/share/17RB5owG1Z/
Because now, as Kalimullah notes, the words have dried up.
Anwar, once the spellbinder of the Muslim world’s intellectual salons, now talks in circles that lead nowhere. His speeches are no longer poetry but noise—grand phrases wrapped around timid actions, lofty ideals dulled by political compromise, moral clarity blurred into a fog of contradictions. https://www.facebook.com/share/17RB5owG1Z/
His Cabinet props him up like an exhausted monarch on parade. His government moves with the velocity of a snail being careful not to offend the grass.
The Urdu word returns: fughāān—lamentation, sorrow, grief.
It is not merely Kalimullah’s lament. It is the nation’s.
Because the implications go far beyond the disappointment of one man.
When even the faithful withdraw, the political centre cannot hold.
When the storytellers of a system stop telling hopeful stories, the system cracks.
When those who once defended you now shrug, the public stops listening entirely.
The real tragedy, as Kalimullah pointed out, is not just that Anwar has lost his sheen—it is that no one stands ready to wear the crown next. https://www.facebook.com/share/17RB5owG1Z/
Instead we have a gallery of the tired, the tainted, the unimaginative: a carousel of septuagenarians and octogenarians limping into relevance, each hoping to be recycled one last time.
A political landscape long on titles, short on talent.
Malaysia’s leadership crisis is no longer about Anwar’s failings.
It is about a vacuum with no successor, no vision, no urgency.
This is not Reformasi 2.0.
It is Fughāān 2025.
Kalimullah’s disappointment matters because it echoes across a generation who dared to dream of greatness—then lived long enough to watch their dreams fold into mediocrity. Their pens have dried up, as he quoted from The Alchemist; their hopes have become hollow.https://www.facebook.com/share/17RB5owG1Z/
Anwar once inspired with the force of Sun Tzu; now he resembles the very warning from The Autobiography of Sun Tzu:
“The king is only fond of words, and cannot translate them into deeds.”
So, Malaysia’s lament grows louder.
Not because we expected perfection.
But because we waited half a century for a leader who, when finally given the throne, could not remember why he wanted it.
The saddest part of the fughāān?
We are out of heroes—and time is running out.
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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