Mohammed Arkoun (Locating Civil Society in Islamic Contexts in Amyn B. Sajoo (ed), Civil Society in the Muslim World, 2002) thinks that Muslim reformists from the 19th century to World War II are naive in presupposing that 'right rule' can only be recovered through the intervention of learned, pious authorities. Arkoun is Emeritus Professor of Islamic Thought at the Sorbonne.

This "mythologisation" was later replaced by nationalist secularised ideology of liberation from 1945 to the late 70s.

"Amid the crisis faced by all regimes of (claiming to) truth and inherited systems of legitimizing, new waves of believers' embrace the 'revival of religion' as a platform of resistance to 'materialist', secularised corrupt regimes."

"But they fail to rethink the status and functions of this religion that is manipulated by activist, politically oriented 'leaders'".

It is most likely that Anwar Ibrahim has thought about these things since his fall from grace in 1998. He has served Umno from 1982 under Dr Mahathir Mohamad. Nothing has changed, he penned on March 17, from his Sungai Buloh prison cell where he is serving a 15-year sentence.

When Mahathir assumed power as prime minister in 1981, he had to contend with the NEP crisis which strained relations between the Malay political elite and the Malay masses, and resurgent Islamism. Speaking to reporters on March 18 this year, he admits that the role of Islam in government remains a key challenge.

Co-opting Islamist opposition

"Mahathir understood the challenge of Islamism, but also saw that ideology as a potential tool for empowerment of the state. As a result, he sought to co-opt rather than crush the Islamist opposition; to harness its energies and appropriate its popular political and ideological tool." (Nasr, 2001).

The Malaysian state stood to benefit from a decade of Islamic activism just as it would subdue it as an oppositional force.

"Mahathir was not interested in Islamic revival, a fact which distinguishes him from General Zia al-Huq in Pakistan. In fact, in many regards Mahathir has more in common with secular modernisers such as the shah in Iran than with Islamically oriented political leaders in the Middle East and South Asia."

The shah like Mahathir dreamt of empowering and enriching the country through development. Both believed in the necessity of a top-down social and cultural revolution. According to Nasr, these are the hallmarks of the shah's Great Civilisation and Mahathir's Vision 2020.

However, Nasr concedes that Mahathir was more sensitive to the importance of Islam to society and politics and was more willing to compromise on secularism to achieve a viable balance between religion and modernisation. Islamisation was a means to pursue capital development.

One of Mahathir's capitalist projects was to revamp the NEP to include Malays in the private sector. Thus Malays would no longer be overseer bureaucrats but entrepreneurs. He had Daim Zainuddin as the chief architect for this purpose. This opened the door to close business-party relations which attributed much to the latter day corruption, mismanagement and income inequality.

Since Umno's support for Malay capitalists is seen as a nationalist project, then it has to be tied to Malay nationalism to which Islam becomes relevant. This allowed Umno to gain control of Islamic politics and to define Islamic values for Malays "so as to prevent an alliance between the middle and lower classes around an Islamic demand for social justice" (Nasr).

Islamic developmental state

Mahathir turned to Islam to articulate the values and ethics that were required for Malay capitalism and his Islamic developmental state. Islamic values were assimilated into state policy making (penyerapan nilai-nilai Islam). The Fourth Development Plan (1981-86) specified commitment to Islam.

Umno's turn to Islam began with islamising the state to the extent that Umno and the state were not separable. (Mohamad Abu Bakar, Islamic Revivalism and the Political Process in Malaysia, Asian Survey. October 1981)

"Anwar's most important contribution to Umno and the state was to legitimise the conceptual foundations of Mahathir's intended Islamisation initiative. Mahathir wanted to define Islam as a moderate ideology that would accommodate pluralism, capitalism, globalisation and Malaysia's foreign policy."

For Mahathir, "there was no point in having Islamic revival for revival's sake, unless it led to material advancement and progress of Muslims. Serving Malays was serving Islam, and not vice versa." (Nasr).

Islamic views on economic issues were reduced to concerns for human dignity, a broad concept that allowed capitalist development. However, the concern for human dignity became a justification for favouring Malays, and favouring Malays was equated with Islamisation.

The Seventh Development Plan (1996-2000) Islamic rhetoric was openly used to justify government support for Malay businesses. (Rodney Wilson, Islam and Malaysia's Economic Development, Journal of Islamic Studies. July 1998).

The Islamisation programme between 1983 to 1997 saw the rise of Islamic banking and economic institutions, Islamic higher education and think-tanks and development of an Islamic bureaucracy.

The state had control of society, the economy and penetrated social arenas and exerted control over cultural and religious discourses. The domination appeared absolute.

The panacea

Nasr is of the view that the secular post-colonial states of Pakistan and Malaysia, had reached the limits of its power and was experiencing a reversal in its power and capacity. Islam was looked upon as the panacea for state leaders in both countries.

Has Malaysia's Islamisation delivered the promise? Nasr says that Islamisation in Malaysia had attained its objectives, the proof being that the state power had expanded and there was economic growth.

"Religious politics had been successfully used by the state to lessen resistence to its projects of power and growth. Islamisation was the handmaiden of the rise of a strong late- developer state in Malaysia in lieu of the weak state that was the legacy of the colonial era.

Islamisation had provided the Mahathir administration with means to compensate for the weaknesses of the state and to revise its institutional structure in such a fashion as to shore up its authority." (Nasr).

However, we should do a little reflection here as there are fallouts.

In the case of Malaysia, the Umno-business alliance stifled rather than promoted pluralism in politics. For Umno, it shifted its traditional support base to Malay capitalists. Corruption in fact reached its apogee at this time .

More importantly, civil society had weakened, the judiciary compromised, the sultans lost power, authoritarian tendencies were on the rise. Islamisation did not produce political stability, nor a firm basis of state-society relations.

Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's Islam Hadhari , if it is a reflection of Mahathir's Islamisation agenda, then it does not appear to support the strengthening of civil liberties, free press, an independent judiciary and competitive politics.

Despite its political rhetoric and sympathy to women's groups (as opposed to human rights groups), there has been little change to the gender agenda.

The other nagging concern is whether Islam should remain the basis of these deliberations.

Nasr's Islamic Leviathan is not meant to address this concern. He makes a note in a final chapter on Malaysia that "Malaysian politics from this point forward will have to contend with the fruits of the Islamisation era."

Whether or not it is fair that Malaysian politics would be tied to Islam is apparently not the right question. Neither it is fair for one to make a choice between the two 'Islams' posed by Umno and PAS. Vote for democracy (Aliran) has a lovely ring to it.

Much of our concerns on secularism, religion, democracy, ethics and the rule of law cannot be decided on polling day. If there is any seriousness for political reform, the work goes beyond the eight shortest days of campaigning in Malaysian history.