By Hashimah Suffian

Badawi

"Dato Badawi, I'm working here... I was just wondering - it is very hard to get work permits here. Can you do anything to make it easier for us to work in this country? I mean, just to have the experience and everything. You see, I feel sorry for some of my friends who didn't get to work here. They are really, really good, they got firsts at university but the firms here won't hire them because they say you need a work permit. And without a work permit they won't even consider you for the job."

Some eyebrows raised in puzzlement. If Badawi has untapped influence with the UK home ministry as well as our own, this was news to the hall audience. The hundred-something crowd, 70 percent students and working professionals and 30 percent entourage and Malaysia Hall staff, listened agog.

"Are you planning to come home?" asked Badawi.

The girl giggled.

"Eh, tengok dia ketawa-ketawa ni maknanya dia tak nak balik la ni," Badawi joked. She giggled some more, and then began to laugh, slightly nervously perhaps, in reaction to the now openly guffawing crowd.

"No no, seriously la, I do intend to go home," she said eventually. "I mean, training here and all is good, but it's so tiring. After work, you have to come home and cook some more... And back home," she continued, "we have maids".

Maybe it was the blithe way in which she presumed we all have maids. There were howls of laughter from the crowd. "What a stupid girl," one of the Malaysia Hall staff near me muttered.

Oh dear. Harsh, but Azlina's plea showed how possibly futile Badawi's admirable though slightly eye-glazing speech before had been.

In short, he had said Malaysia's young have opportunities far beyond those available to his generation. It must return, shoulder its rightful responsibility for the country, and it must bring it to even higher levels of achievement. "Kita mesti terbilang antara kalangan tercemerlang," he said. He used this phrase three times throughout the speech, rolling the words with relish each time he said it.

"If you tell me that you don't have that capacity then I will be more disappointed than anything else," he added gravely. Critical young minds are welcome, but until they return home, they cannot know the true situation in the country.

Better was yet to come from Azlina though. Who knows whether she realised her plea seemed a little implausible, but she launched into another sweetening effusion before sitting down:

"Er I also just wanted to tell you that my mother is your biggest fan," she said.

"Woo hoo!" called out the crowd in delight.

"Actually I was speaking to her before I came just now, that is why I was late. But she wants you to know that wherever you go and no matter what happens, she will always be with you."

Those not laughing were still loudly catcalling Badawi, who was laughing hard as well and asked who her mother was. Azlina named her mother but he did not seem to recognise her.

The evening was not one of only gushing love though, other questions were marked contrasts. A young Chinese woman took the mike when the floor was first thrown open to dialogue. She stammered a good evening and suddenly rattled off the following:

"Dato Badawi, being out here in the 'evil West', we hear a lot of rumours from back home," she joked.

"Wah, rumours travel very far, eh, even to here?" Badawi joked back. "You must have very sharp ears."

"Yes well - some of these rumours are: 1) that you don't have a lot of support in Umno because Dr Mahathir hand-picked you as his successor and ensured your post would not be contested; 2) that Umno has lost a lot of support among the Malays because of its treatment of Anwar Ibrahim; and 3) that once Dr Mahathir has left politics you will bring Anwar Ibrahim back into Umno," she finished breathlessly.

Abdullah Badawi never stopped smiling.

"Yes?" he countered, eyebrows raised.

"Well I was just wondering what you had to say about these rumours."

"They are just... rumours," he smiled.

"Yes, that's what Dr Mahathir always says," she prodded. "I was hoping you could tell us more."

"Yes, well of course I was picked by Dr Mahathir," said Badawi. "That is how it is done... Encik Ghafar was picked by Mahathir, Musa Hitam was picked by Mahathir, Anwar was also picked by Mahathir..."

"So Dr Mahathir's word is the rule of law?" interrupted the girl.

"Rule of law?" Badawi looked slightly surprised. "Who says Dr Mahathir's word is the rule of law?" Yes, he said, he had been picked by Dr Mahathir, but Dr Mahathir was picked by Tun Hussein, Tun Hussein by Tun Razak, and Tun Razak by Tunku. "That is how it is done."

"But wouldn't it have been better to let you contest your position?" she interrupted again.

"Wah berani ah dia?" whispered someone behind me.

"I am telling you now," Badawi said, sounding slightly annoyed now. "You asked me how it was and I am telling you." He explained that the no-contest of the top two posts had been a majority Supreme Council decision, following many internal debates on it and strong objection from Ibrahim Ali.

"Isn't that quite a top-down way of dealing with things though?"

Sometimes that is necessary, he said. "We could not afford to have another split like in '87." Anyway, he added, even the rumours of any challenge to Dr Mahathir's post from Tengku Razaleigh eventually came to nothing. "First he said he had 60 division nominations, then 30, then 20, and then..."

"But if you deal with matters by repressing them instead of addressing them in the open how are we ever going to know that what you are doing is right?" asked the girl.

"Well you will have to wait and see," said Badawi, the smile back in place.

"Isn't that, um, a bit tautological?" she asked. "If it turns out wrong..."

"Yes, well every government is going to tell you that you have to wait... You have to be in UMNO to know these things," he continued, still smiling.

"Well, when UMNO opens its membership to young Chinese girls, I'll gladly join," came the rejoinder.

The questions and comments that followed came quickly and were so numerous they resulted in Badawi dismissing the crowd late for Maghrib prayers, for which he apologised. Unfortunately, the answers were more generic:

Did Badawi equate Suqiu's 17-point manifesto with extremism? It was not what they said but the manner in which they said it, he replied. The government has thought hard about the race issue, he insisted emphatically. If someone secretly taped any cabinet meeting and then broadcast it on television, he would not be ashamed at all.

A young Malay man, admitting he felt "gelabah juga la kat microphone 'ni," agreed with the first speaker's statements of Malay disaffection for Umno. "This young lady... what she said is right." He said he himself had been waiting to join Umno for two years but had yet to get a positive response from them.

It was not clear whether he meant a positive enough response to want to become a member, or a positive acceptance of his membership into the party, but Badawi took it to mean the latter, saying "it is a shame on Umno for not accepting you", and promising, "after this you will be a member".

With all its brilliant legal minds, why does Malaysia still have to have the ISA? Aren't we capable of framing any charge with the existing laws?
Not, apparently, in difficult cases like counterfeiting and drug dealing, which need more proof than the police can sometimes unearth.

Did he hope to ever achieve a true equality in the country, regardless of race?
Of course he did, although he does not necessarily expect to achieve it in his lifetime, nor would the younger generation before him necessarily achieve it in theirs either.

Why is Malaysia now being held hostage to the terrorists who kidnapped its citizens?
Malaysian police have now been instructed to shoot terrorists on sight.

So how different might Abdullah Badawi be from Dr Mahathir if he ever became Prime Minister, based on this speech in London?

The atmosphere in the hall was certainly closer to that of a dialogue, or a "bersembang-sembang" session, which was what Badawi said he hoped to have. With Dr Mahathir, both raw fear and outright challenge is in greater evidence. Dr Mahathir tends to makes the jokes and smile while and everyone else laughs. Here, people from the floor joked as well and everyone laughed.

Dr Mahathir refers to himself as straightforward "I", Dato Badawi, the kindlier, more familial "Pak Lah" though no speaker that night addressed him as such. Abdullah Badawi made no mention of the evil West and hardly went into hyperbole, which was nice.

They have some similar manners though: both tend to ask students for their names and where they come from, with Badawi frequently trying to guess whether he knows their family. Of course it is convivial and personable, but it can also intimidate questioners.

Both also duck questions and answer like politicians, of course. Most disturbingly, despite Badawi's exhortation for "a critical mass of idealistic, intelligent, open-minded youths with sharp critical minds", he also has a "wait and see if we're right" policy.

Wait until when I wonder? 2020?