They were sparked when authoritarian rulers mistreated political dissidents. Now Malaysia has its own mistreated dissident. The dissident is Anwar Ibrahim, the former deputy to Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and once a bright light in East Asia. He dared to speak out against Dr. Mahathir's decisions during the region's 1997-98 financial crisis. For that, he was tried for abuse of power and, later, sodomy.
Few people believe the charges.
On Aug. 8, Mr. Anwar was harshly sentenced in court, leaving him to face 14 years in prison. Such despotic actions have polarized the Malays, swelled the ranks of a radical Muslim party, and reduced foreign investment. Even Singapore's senior leader Lee Kuan Yew says Mahathir, a former dentist who has ruled for 19 years, has paid a heavy price for his handling of the Anwar case. Since its independence from Britain in 1957, Malaysians have learned how to handle tensions between the dominant Malays and the ethnic-Chinese business class. Lately, they've been coping with an increasingly militant Islamic orthodoxy.