Rumblings in the land of beauty and danger

DATUK Seri Shafie Apdal had not been getting enough sleep and his eyes looked a little puffy in the dim lighting of his late mother’s house in Semporna. He sat cross-legged on the carpeted floor, surrounded by dozens of men talking in hushed tones among themselves.

The former minister had buried his mother two days earlier and several hundred people had joined the family for tahlil prayers in the evening. Most of the crowd had gone off into the night and all was still outside under the star-studded sky. The men who stayed behind were among his closest supporters.