KUALA LUMPUR: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim today drew on a childhood lesson about stealing to remind the younger generation to reject corruption and leaders who abuse their positions for personal gain.
Anwar said young people should retain their idealism and refuse to tolerate corruption.
He said the lesson had been instilled in him when he was 8 or 9 years old, after he took four nutmegs from an orchard in Cherok Tok Kun near Bukit Mertajam, Penang, without the owner's permission.
Anwar said his grandmother questioned him after he returned home with the fruits and told him that taking something without permission amounted to stealing.
"My grandmother said, 'Anwar, if you take something without permission from anyone, even four nutmegs, that is stealing. And stealing is a sin,'" he said in his speech at the 2026 National Youth Economic Forum.
