This morning, I saw Anwar Ibrahim for the first time since July 1998, when it all started. Over six years of waiting for justice to prevail - but in the end it did. He looks older, but then, don't we all?

His skin has lost some of its glow, the result, no doubt, of those many years of incarceration - or perhaps it's the grey winter at Oxford. But the mind - ah, yes, the mind - is still there, and so is the charisma that appealed to so many people, not just in Malaysia, but around the world.

I think Anwar himself is surprised by the world's reaction since his release. After all, sitting in jail everyday, it was hard to know what was going on in the outside world. The Malaysian press did its best to trumpet the line that he was a 'spent force' and that the Malaysian people had forgotten him. Even when he came to Federal Court on Sept 1, the day of his freedom, there were only 100 supporters waiting in front of the court building.

But as soon as Anwar was released, the world came to attention. Now everyone wants him to visit their country. He is overwhelmed by requests for speeches. Journalists from al-Jazeera to The New York Times want to interview him. World leaders whom he knew during his days in Government have reached out to meet him, from Nelson Mandela to Kofi Annan.

Most of the world has little understanding of Malaysian domestic politics.What the outside world sees in Anwar is someone who tries to build bridges and close the gaps that divide us - between East and West, between the Muslim and non-Muslim worlds, and between the developed and developing countries.