Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold.

If there is anything that I have learnt over the past two days, its the fact that you have to choose your friends carefully.

Look at Anwar Ibrahim. Look at his "former" friends going public about all the wrongs that he is responsible for or is perpetuating. Of course these former friends of his are just doing it "out of a sense of duty as a citizen and a voter" and that if they did not come out against Anwar, they would have "failed in (my) responsibility to my fellow citizens and my nation".

Wahlau.
Damn hero-lah.
(Where are all these people when you need them to say speak out against the politicians who lie to us in our faces everyday?)

What I find quite interesting is the fact that Anwar's fomer friends(FF)are saying that Anwar is now singing a different tune from when he was in government. When he was in government, he was not a multi-racial-I-want-to-abolish-NEP type of man. He was more of a I-will-make-sure-the-temple-bells-would-not-ring-in-the-country-anymore (in relation to the Kampung Jawa clashes) type of man.

Personally, I think being incarcerated for 6 years, with alleged police brutality and unfounded(as recently admitted by Mahathir) allegations against him, does and CAN change a man. It can make a man who was a gung ho UMNO supporter or anti non-Muslim advocate, to be one who thinks, you know what? If it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone. If this is how the Government can bring you down in a day after it took you almost a lifetime to build yourself up, I think I am in the wrong camp.

I have attended Anwar's talks before. He IS a great orator. And I have mentioned before that he may be all talk and no substance, but I have not dismissed him entirely. Many have asked him why he is singing a different tune now compared to when he was in Government, and he explained that yes, he was foolish then. He had all the comforts, but things have changed now. He has seen the "dark side" and he thinks he can help now.

I mean, even I have changed in the past 6 years. What I thought was important then may not be important now. In fact, I am more politically aware now than I was before. So my outlook has changed. And I would think Anwar had a comfortable life prior to being plucked out and dumped in prison. He MIGHT just have changed. His FF obviously do not think so. Well, they are entitled to their opinions. But if only they had be gentlemanly enough to keep these mud slinging out of the press. (Then again, anything PRO-BN always make it to the front pages. Especially when its DIE OPPOSITION!DIE!)

Many politicians have had their fair share of FF. And even Mahathir was once out of UMNO. Even Badawi. Everyone has had their fallout but have been fully embraced back into their party as years passed. Things change. People change. And we can only wish that these changes are for our own good. We may all be sceptics. But we may all also choose to be a believer.

So, while I sit down and write this, I wonder whether I myself have been taken in by the calls for change. I wonder whether I believe Anwar and his calls for the abolishment of the NEP and reduction of fuel prices. I wonder if I am convinced the DAP can bring the crime rate down. I wonder if indeed BN has been effective all these while and can continue to be so.

I wonder. Is it time to look at hard facts and statistics? Or listen to the IF only, If only stories?

I suppose, I still have 2 more days to think about it before I have to cast my "X".

I think at the end of the day, it boils down to whether after all these years I have been given the opportunities I am entitled to. Whether all these talk about unity and freedom (ala BN's radio announcements) is what truly matters to me or whether its the abolishment of so called positive discrimination that I really want to hear.

My ears are listening. My eyes are open.

But I dont see anything.