By Terence Netto
PAS has criticised Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim for what the party held was he going “overboard” in welcoming Donald Trump to the Asean Summit.
PAS must have been irked by the spontaneity of the US president’s reaction to the beat, rhythm and colours of the airport reception accorded Trump when he arrived in Kuala Lumpur.
Trump danced to the beat of the kompang and the rhythm of the dance troupe that was on hand to greet him.
Anwar, no prude when it comes to responding to musical receptions, reacted in like fashion.
Soon you had an unusual tableau on the tarmac.
A polarising world leader and a Hamas sympathiser were jiving to the ebullient beat of the reception.
When you learn that the diplomatic world is filled with martinets with handshakes cold as fish fins, you would find it difficult to envisage two leaders comporting like they were in a loosened-tie operation.
Trump and Anwar were in such a situation at Sunday’s reception at KLIA.
The two leaders threw ambassadorial starch to the winds, reacting to the elan of the reception with something that said that there are times when you have to ditch the straitjackets and don the spontaneity the moment calls for.
Of course, this won’t go down well with the “Mrs Grundy crowd”.
In the literary world, “Mrs Grundy” references a character who requires behaviour to conform to prudish standards.
PAS secretary-general Takiyuddin Hassan taxed Anwar with going “overboard” in giving Trump a reception that he felt “rubs salt” in the wounds of suffering Gazans.
Prior to this criticism, PAS had found fault with the serving of alcoholic drinks at a dinner reception funded by private donors aimed at preparing tourism agencies for Visit Malaysia Year 2026.
More recently, a dinner reception for alumni of a mission school in Ipoh, held on the school’s grounds and at which alcohol was served, also came in for PAS fire.
Given PAS’s strictures against the serving of alcohol on international flights undertaken by Malaysian Airlines and the sleek uniforms of air stewardesses, the party has become the disapproving “Mrs Grundy” of Dickensian lore.
“I think therefore I am,” was the assertion of the French philosopher Rene Descartes in the 17th century, a formulation that is widely regarded as having inaugurated the Enlightenment era where thinking was unshackled from superstition and fallacy.
In other words, it inaugurated the modern world.
Many of the moderns in Malaysia would like to offer this rejoinder to Descartes: “I drink therefore I am.”
But this may well not pass the Mrs Grundy test of Malaysian propriety.
Terence Netto is a senior journalist and an FMT reader.
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.