Of Think Tanks and Empty Vessels

One group of people you meet often, indeed you cannot side-step them, if you are in Washington, even for a few days, especially if you are a journalist, are those who head or work for think tanks. Retired diplomats, those with a line to push, cannot get a job after retirement, inclined to thinking deeply about issues, anyone who can get tax breaks can set up a non-profit foundation or think tank. They come in all sizes and shapes, several are run by friends who retired from the State Department, including several former diplomats from the US Embassay in Kuala Lumpur. Usually, these bodies allow them a toe-hold in official Washington: you cannot there be "in the loop" after a lifetime there, if on retirement you do not have a "handle": everyone ignores you.

The National Center for Public Policy Research is one such, a husband-and-wife Mom-and-Pop store in public policy, one of thousands in Washington, which many heard for the first time, if at all, only with the article its president, Anne Widenour, wrote in the "Washington Times" to attack the jailed former deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim. I dare say it is more well-known in Malaysia than it is in Washington. In Malaysia, it now has mud on its face. When the Malaysian Government and its mainstream media parrot the analysis of any body, one immediately suspects it.

The Malaysian Embassy in Washington is known for its irrelevance, with individual officers turning the tide only to earn the hostility of the ambassador or Wisma Putra or both. The present Malaysian ambassador, a brother-in-law of the former finance minister, Tun Daim Zainuddin, was sent there after losing out in a power struggle in Wisma Putra. The embassy does not cultivate the movers-and-shakers in official Washington, as Malaysian representation rarely does in other countries. They would not so long as Wisma Putra regards the world as an extension of Malaysia, and penghulus from Merlimau are sent as ambassadors to Madrid.

There is no continuity in the embassy there. Malaysian interests are usually ignored, and it is individual ambassadors and diplomats who rescue it from the anonymity it is consigned to in official Washington. The Malaysian prime minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed's need to meet President George Bush would not be as desperate if the Malaysian representation in Washington was as good as it should be. These visits are arranged not by proconsular visits by our Yemeni (as Dr Mahathir described him recently) foreign minister, Dato' Syed Hamid Albar, but by personal contacts the mission has in Washington.

Making it public, as Dato' Syed Hamid did, shows how bad our diplomacy is. If Malaysia wanted a good piece in a Washington newspaper, it could easily be arranged: a good considered piece of a country would always make its way to even the Washington Post or the New York Times if it can meet the standards of the paper. And the embassy must be on its toes. Otherwise, we would be stuck with the Ridenours of this world throwing mud at our faces.

Mrs Anne Ridenour's piece is suspect in how it surfaced in the Malaysian media. Malaysian mainstream media ignores critical foreign reports, it was quick to print a long report of what the article said; a few days later, the Sun published the article in full. When I checked with my sources in Washington, none had heard of Mrs Ridenour or her think tank. When a think tank concentrating on local policy issues suddenly turn tack to write on Malaysia contentiously to support Dr Mahathir, and then insist Malaysia should be highlighted because she does not have a good press, one's credulity is strained.

When she contests an allegation by an opposition leader, in this instance, the DAP chairman, Mr Lim Kit Siang, it makes nonsense of her claims that she wrote it out of intellectual curiousity and not prompted. Especially when Mr Lim's charge did not make it to the mainstream media. It only proves the Malaysian government's incompetence in handling her media campaign. Reporters from prominent newspapers and magazines are brought in to write "puff pieces" on Malaysia and Dr Mahathir, but on condition they do not contact anyone their media handlers did not want them to contact.

Politics in Malaysia is so strained that the article is attacked or praised, depending on your political point of view. Malaysia does not have a media policy. The retired editor-in-chief of Utusan Malaysia, Dato' Zainuddin Maidin, was roped in to devalue his high journalistic standing, as parliamentary secretary to the information ministry. He is there to make government pronouncements acceptable at least by the media. But he took cudgels on behalf of the government's failed media policies, and pays the price with a devalued reputation.

When Mrs Widenour blinked, it is the Malaysian Government which took the flak. For no one believes she was not paid. Probably not by the government, but there are enough internationally known Malaysian business men of unequestioned reputed prepared to spend a few tens of thousands of US dollars and more to snare in that multi-billion contract to lead them eventually into bankruptcy. The article in the Washington Times is, as the Americans would call it, a lemon.

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