So now it appears that national service is about to be introduced in Malaysia. Despite the conflicting statements we have heard so far, it seems that the government is bent on going ahead with this proposal at all costs.

(This, despite the fact that some senior Cabinet ministers initially stated their own reservations against the proposal.)

We have been told that the plan was "not intended to draft soldiers for war but aimed at fostering patriotism, unity, national integration and character-building among Malaysians." (NST, Nov 12, 2002).

Those who thought that joining the army meant getting a chance to rediscover their long-lost masculinity, wear heavy boots, sleep in mud, kick ass and shoot guns are in for a surprise. Apparently this 'new model army' is all about "character-building, nurturing self-confidence, leadership, morality and civic-consciousness." (ibid) Sort of a business-skills training module in khakis.

Before things go any further, it would be apt to introduce a moment of critical reflection at this stage. If I may, I would like to play the role of devil's advocate (I have been accused of worse) and raise some questions that thus far have not been raised by others. We ought to begin with some sound historical counter-factual examples.

Once there was this thing called the Russian Revolution. For those whose political memory goes back more than three minutes, they will recall that the revolution was led and made up of young conscripts who had been press-ganged into the Russian army to fight for the glory of the motherland and to serve the Czar.

Then, as now, the rationale of the Czarist elite was plain and simple: national service was a good way to instil discipline and patriotism among the young and to ensure that the nation's vitality would not be sapped by 'dangerous dissident ideas'. The Czarist elite also believed that forced conscription would instil 'patriotism, unity, national integration and character-building' among the young.

The army did instil a sense of discipline and order among the young recruits. It also gave them the organisational means to mobilise themselves for political ends. The end result, however, was quite different from what the Czar and his ministers expected: the recruits shot their officers, hung their priests and mutinied. Within a matter of months, they brought the country to a standstill and brought down the government. The hapless Czar met his end at the hands of his own troops, whose shooting skills had been considerably improved thanks to the high standards of discipline and training in the army.

It is a commonsensical thing to say that forcing young people to join the army is not the same thing as having a volunteer army made up of willing recruits. Forced conscription remains precisely that: forced conscription where the recruits have no choice in the matter.

What is more, after being forced to join the armed forces the young men and women are then given arms training and weaponry. It does not take much intelligence to put two and two together and guess what the final outcome will be. It is not a coincidence that some of the most spectacular coups and revolutions have been brought about by conscripts who had little choice but to do otherwise.

On top of that, the list of ex-conscripts and soldiers gone bad is a long and impressive one. Some famous celebrities come to mind: Lee Harvey Oswald (photo, right), the man who was alleged to have shot President John F Kennedy, was an ex-Marine who was also a double agent and covert ops specialist. Timothy McVeigh (photo, left) the homicidal maniac who was responsible for the bombing in Oklahoma in 1995 was also an ex-serviceman and a veteran of the Gulf War.

The host of crackpot militant units and paramilitary militias that dot the landscape of middle America is made up of ex-servicemen who also happen to be veterans of America's numerous bloody adventures abroad.

Closer to home, we can think of many other examples of servicemen and conscripts who turned against their political paymasters. Khalid Islambuli, the assassin who fired the fatal burst that riddled the body of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was also an ex-soldier who was drafted into the army. After having shot the president, he cried out loud: "I have killed the Pharaoh and I do not fear death!"

India's Indira Gandhi was shot by her own soldiers, while Pakistan's Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was executed by General Zia 'ul Haq, the officer whom he had promoted himself. In Pakistan, Indonesia, Thailand, Burma, Philippines and many other countries, we have seen just what can happen when a country has an armed forces ready and willing to intervene in politics. This is made all the more easier when national service is in operation, and there is a ready pool of angry, frustrated and desperate conscripts who are willing to disobey their commanders.

Siege mentality of the ruling elite

It is ironic to note that those most in favour of national service tend to be the ones who are most likely exempted from it. Armchair generals, part-time 'strategic analysts', whingeing liberals and the like will no doubt applaud such moves as it helps to keep the subaltern rabble and unwashed masses in check. The logic is as perverse as it is simple: What should be done with the legion of listless and frustrated youth in the country in order to make sure they do not get involved in drugs, sex (God forbid) and violence? Force them into the army of course (where they will be trained how to shoot and bayonet people instead.)

In most cases, forced conscription is a convenient way out of political problems that go to the heart of the structural crisis of the nation-state itself. Every government that wants to force its young to join up has more or less the same reasoning: 'to instil patriotism, unity, national integration and character-building.'

But a closer inspection on a country-by-country basis will reveal a host of other fundamental structural problems that are far more complex.

National service is, for a start, a convenient way to soak up surplus labour that would otherwise end up on the unemployment statistics chart. In many developing countries, forced conscription is the best way to ensure that unemployed youth are not let out on the streets to protest or demonstrate against the government.

As a short-term measure this may work, but what happens when their term is up and the next batch of unemployed youth hit the streets? We have seen cases like this all over Latin America, the Arab World, Africa and Asia.

National service is also a good way to depoliticise the young by making sure that they do not get involved in 'unhealthy' and potentially 'subversive' activities like attending political rallies, joining unions or parties, reading books or thinking. Here the conscript army becomes a mass social incubator instead, designed to instil 'good' values and moral virtues that are designed to make young people into model citizens.

Those most in favour of such measures also happen to be the ones who stand to gain the most: i.e. the elite who enjoy the benefits of the status quo. The ruling political elite, landed classes, white-collared professionals, and the urbanised middle classes are most often the biggest supporters of national service for the simple reason that they see it as the best way to stem the tide of potential unrest among other marginalised class groupings in the country. Never mind the fact that this unrest may be for politically sound reasons, like having to live in a country with an appalling human rights record or with an economic system that systematically creates and perpetuates divisions of class and power.

Forced conscription into a national service is often a panacea for deeper structural ills and defaults that should be corrected instead. Talk of 'ill discipline' or 'lack of patriotism' among the young should be exposed for the smokescreen that it really is: symptoms of a wider and deeper sense of disaffection among a population with vast sections that feel alienated and betrayed. The worry of many a government is how to socialise and control the young, whom they see as a double-edged sword: both as potential voters and as potential rebels.

But the fault despite what the 'liberals' among us may think lies not with the young but the system that controls them. An oppressive and unjust political and economic system can do little else but breed resentment and opposition among the masses and the young in particular who have even less to lose. If the young no longer feel patriotic, one should ask the question why: Who has let them down in the first place? And what is wrong with the political-economic-social order that they have turned away from?

The problem with forced conscription is that it leads to a vicious circle instead: Forced conscription effectively means the creation of a vast pool of young people trained in the use of arms and taught to mobilise themselves. This training can be put to a number of uses, both good and bad. The ex-conscripts may decide to put their organisational skills to use when they leave the force by forming a co-operative network of burger stall owners. They may decide to open a stamp club. They may decide to form a punk rock band. Or they may decide to create an underground militant terrorist group with some outlandish and unbelievable name like 'Jama'ah Islamiyyah' and declare holy war against the state.

The point is that none of these possible outcomes are predictable or preventable: this is the true monstrous potential of forced conscription, the crudest form of social engineering imaginable.

The question of rights

The other factor that has been totally obscured from the discussion thus far has been the factor of rights. While the talk in town is all about 'character-building, nurturing self-confidence, leadership, morality and civic-consciousness', nobody has cared to ask the obvious question: What do the potential recruits themselves think? The reason why this question has not been really asked at length is simple: the potential recruits themselves do not matter and have no say in it. Period.

This, then, is the other side of the problem with national service. More often than not those who are forced to join some form of national service or another are not given the chance to say whether they want to or not. It simply becomes their duty, as defined by politicians. But this does not alter the fact that the fundamental question here is one of basic rights and entitlements.

There have been many countries where forced conscription has been the norm. In all of them, the problem of young men and women who refuse to join up crops up again and again.

In Greece, for instance, there have been hundreds of young men who have been imprisoned for not joining up, despite the fact that as Jehovah's Witnesses their personal beliefs do not allow them to do so. In the case of Israel, more and more young recruits have been court-martialled for refusing to serve in the occupied territories, despite the fact that their refusal to do so stems from their own moral stand that they will not participate in the butchering of innocent Palestinians.

Who is right in these cases? The state may have the law on its side, but our common sense humanism and justice tells us that the refusniks have the moral leverage on their side.

As the debate in Malaysia heats up (and it is bound to, as this is destined to become a major political issue), it is distressing to see how many so-called 'liberals' have shed their skins and shown their true conservative colours. Worst of all was to read the comments of some Suhakam commissioners who claimed that national service was good for the nation and the young as a whole. When the fundamental issue is one of basic human rights and freedoms, how can those working within the Human Rights Commission fail to see this? Such perverse logic beggars understanding and leaves even one dumbfounded.

If the advocates of national service really want to instil 'character-building, nurturing self-confidence, leadership, morality and civic-consciousness' among the young in the country, there are many other ways that this can be done. Try the boy scouts or girl guides for a start. (One can at least learn some useful tricks with ropes).

But the calls for national service at this stage in Malaysian history, and at such a late age for the potential conscripts themselves, indicates a deeper structural failure and a crisis in nation-building.

If young Malaysians can only be made to live, eat and work together with a sergeant-major screaming at them, then this shows that something has gone seriously wrong with the whole process of nation-building in the country and the technocrats will have to go back to the drawing board.

Nations, it must be remembered, are collective abstract entities that are not simply put together with some clever ideas and gimmicks. The national imaginary emerges out of a process of negotiation with difference and alterity, engagement with the contrary and the recognition of the Other. This is a complex and often difficult and painful process, but that is how nations are born.

Nations are not made-to-order objects that can be drafted on paper or drawn on a blueprint. And a united nation will not appear from the barracks either.

Farish's 'The Other Malaysia' columns have been compiled and will be published soon by Silverfish Books under the title The Other Malaysia: Writings on Malaysia's Subaltern History.