Notwithstanding the controversy surrounding the results of the recent 11th general election and the on-going disputes over electoral irregularities, it is safe to say that the election of 2004 have proven to be yet another turning point in Malaysia's convoluted and problematic history.

The party that was thought by many (this writer included) to be on the verge of a major sweeping victory in the northern Malay-Muslim belt of Peninsula Malaysia was effectively trounced and kicked back to the boondocks.

After winning only four state assembly seats in Terengganu and having lost a significant number of state and parliamentary seats nationwide, PAS has suffered a set-back that few of us could have imagined possible.

The immediate repercussions of the results have been discussed at length by many commentators thus far: For a start, the results spell the untimely demise of PAS' Islamic state project, the bugbear that had haunted and menaced the fragile instrumental coalition that was the Barisan Alternatif (BA) from the beginning.

Secondly, the equally spectacular resurgence of DAP does not necessarily mean that the discourse of the opposition will now shift to the register of secular democratic politics (as much as some of us would hope for) but also the danger that religious sectarianism may now give way to ethnic and racial sectarianism instead.

Thirdly, Malaysia is now left with the daunting prospect of rolling back the tide of state-sponsored Islamisation that has gone radically off the tangent over the past two decades.

These questions shall be addressed presently, but for now this writer would like to offer a comparative reading of what happened and what went right or wrong by taking a look back at contemporary Malaysian history.

For our contention is that the recent election results can be read more as a return to the status quo of 1986, the year when PAS experienced its most crushing defeat to date.

1986 Revisited

Press the 'rewind' button and take yourselves back to the early 1980s. In 1981 Malaysia experienced its fourth transition of power when Dr Mahathir Mohamad then the darling of the urban Malay middle-classes and Malay-Muslim students movements came to power after the smooth exit offered by Hussein Onn.

Mahathir came to power with the near-universal backing of the Malay community and with the popular support of Malay activists, NGOs and students. His most ardent admirer then being none other than Anwar Ibrahim, the founder-leader of the Malaysian Islamic Youth Organisation (Abim) who had gone as far as printing and distributing copies of Mahathir's controversial book The Malay Dilemma while he was a student leader. (An act that was subsequently deemed an offence and was used against him during Anwar's detention under the ISA in 1974).

Mahathir subsequently consolidated his hold on power by clipping the wings of the resurgent Islamist opposition, his greatest coup being his co-option of Anwar into Umno in February 1982. As a result of this, Anwar was accused of 'treason against Islam' by none other than Yusof Rawa, then the fifth president of PAS.

Islamisation race

The years that followed witnessed the rapid escalation of the Islamisation race between Umno and PAS. Mahathir and the Umno leadership sought to invent a new school of 'modernist Islam' that was invariably linked to concepts and values such as development, modernisation and Malaysia's entry into the global market. The discourse of Islam was reinvented as a modernist work ethic akin to the Japanese workers ethos, and Muslims were encouraged to think of development and capitalism as good for them, the Muslim community and Islam per se.

PAS, not to be outdone, upped the stakes in the Islamisation race and fired its first salvo with the infamous edict of Abdul Hadi Awang. He was then seen as PAS' answer to Anwar, and both of them, it ought to be remembered, were themselves once members of Abim. (Along with other Islamist leaders like Fadzil Noor and Muhammad Sabu). The Amanat of Abdul Hadi quickly raised the political temperature of the country when the alim (pious) claimed that those who supported Umno were in fact munafikin (hypocrites) who were at best nominal Muslims and who had betrayed Islam.

As a result of the intense and often hostile relationship between Umno and PAS, the detested practice of takfir (Muslims accusing each other of un-belief) crept into the public discursive space of Malaysian politics for the first time.

Further energised by the revolutionary ideals of the Iranian revolution, PAS' leaders went on an all-out offensive against Umno, and during this discursive onslaught it was the ulama (religious scholars) who led the fray.

Into the battle were thrown heavyweights like Yusof Rawa, Abdul Hadi, Fadzil Noor and Nik Aziz. Umno in turn responded by shielding itself behind the barricade of normative religiosity, and in time both the sartorial outlook and discursive content of Umno and PAS' politics looked more and more alike.

Caught in the middle were the hapless non-Malays and non-Muslims, deemed kafirs (inifdels) in a Muslim land and often portrayed as the 'enemy in the blanket'(1). The resulting marginalisation of the non-Malay and non-Muslim sections of Malaysian society remains, in the eyes of this writer, one of the greatest injustices in post-colonial Malaysian history.

The net result was predictable. In 1984 the first casualties were recorded with the Lubuk Merbau incident when a PAS party worker was killed in a brawl. PAS subsequently claimed that he had been murdered by Umno thugs, and Yusof Rawa promptly declared the slain PAS member a shahid (martyr) for Islam.

In 1985, things took a turn for the worse when state security forces attempted to arrest the PAS leader Ibrahim 'Libya' Mahmood. (so-called because he had studied religion at the University of Tripoli in Libya).

Ibrahim was, by anyone's standards, a fiery orator and unrepentant reactionary. Known for his provocative speeches against the government, socialist opposition leaders, Christian groups and the Umno leadership, he vented his wrath on Mahathir and Anwar in particular. Ibrahim had openly called for an all-out violent jihad against the Malaysian government, and asked his followers why they were not prepared to die for PAS' cause when so many Muslims had laid down their lives elsewhere from Palestine to Kashmir.

It cannot be denied that Ibrahim Libya had gone against the constitution and laws of the land, yet he was tolerated by PAS' leaders due to his popularity in his base at Memali, Kedah. However the operation to arrest him went badly wrong. The prime minister was out of the country then, and the task was given to his then deputy Musa Hitam. In the brief but bloody police action that followed, Ibrahim Libya and 14 of his followers were killed. Also slain were four Malaysian security personnel.

The killing of Ibrahim Libya and his followers ignited fears of a violent radical Islamist revolution in Malaysia. Immediately after the event a state of emergency was declared in Kedah, Terengganu, Kelantan and parts of Perak and Penang. Yusof Rawa and the ulama of PAS retrieved the bloodstained bodies of their followers and declared them to be martyrs as well. PAS then accused Umno of being a party of kafirs and munafikin, and hoped that in the coming election they would reap vast rewards for their sacrifices. They could not have been more wrong in their assessment.

Landmark event

The election of 1986 was a landmark event in many ways. PAS had placed all their hopes on the new ulama leadership, their new confrontational tactics and revolutionary discourse. PAS leaders like Muhammad Sabu were openly making comparisons with Iran, and theological distinctions aside Ayatollah Khomeini was PAS' hero and icon of the day.

But at the election PAS was thrashed to pieces, losing key assembly and parliamentary seats all over the country, and only managing to secure for itself a single parliamentary seat. Then, as now, it was the DAP that profited the most from PAS' histrionics and hyperbole: The non-Muslim and non-Malay voters, scared by what they saw as an Islamist party bent on pushing its agenda at all costs, turned to the DAP and the BN for refuge.

What saved PAS was its theological discourse which viewed political victory and/or defeat as rewards or trials in an impermanent universe. Sustained by their belief in the Islamic destiny of Malaysia, PAS soldiered on regardless. It was only in 1990 that the party made its resounding comeback, winning control of Kelantan as a result of the 1987-88 break up of Umno and the emergence of the splinter party Semangat 46.

As was the case in 1999, PAS' success in 1990 had less to do with their own strengths and achievements than the failures and internal weaknesses within Umno. Umno's split meant the loss of key leaders like Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah and Musa Hitam, and Umno's vote base in the north was effectively split. PAS profited from Umno's losses by exploiting the frustration and anger of the Malay masses (and not the Malaysian masses mind you) and did not alter its discursive tactics till much later.

Same scenario

The same scenario was repeated in 1999 when Umno experienced another split as a result of the economic and financial crises of 1997 and the Anwar affair of 1998. Coming at a time when Umno had split again and when public confidence in the institutions of the state notably the police and judiciary were at an all-time low, PAS jumped into the gulf of trust and exploited the breach in the social contract. From then on, PAS briefly attempted a radical make-over of its image, prompting the journalist MGG Pillai to refer to the party as the 'new look PAS in a lounge suit'.

Many political observers including this writer were then sceptical about PAS' ability to deliver, considering the multidimensional multi-registered nature of its discourse. In its attempts to reach out to the new cosmopolitan constituencies, PAS hid its ulamas in the party closet and pushed to the fore moderate voices like Dr Hatta Ramli, Husam Musa, Dr Hassan Ali and company. It cannot be denied that the entry of these professionals into PAS was the biggest boon the party had ever experienced since the 1980s and they were the ones who could have reinvented PAS into a modernist Islamist party committed to democratic principles akin to the reformist Islamic movement of Rached Ghannouchi of Tunisia. (This writer, for one, regrets that men like Hatta Ramli and Hassan Ali have lost their seats, for they would not only have been assets to PAS, but to Malaysia as a whole too.)

But unfortunately the ulama refused to give ground and following the death of Fadzil Noor (and the rise of Abdul Hadi) PAS reverted back to its antics. In the wake of Sept 11, when Islamist movements worldwide were targeted as potential terrorist suspects, PAS' religious leaders made the biggest mistake of all by openly coming out in support of the Taliban and Osama bin Laden. PAS' brand of conservative Islam looked more and more reactionary, bordering on the medieval yet the technocrats and moderates within the party were not allowed to speak out or given the chance to redirect the party's evolution and trajectory.

Sensing the anger and frustration of the Malaysian public, PAS paid lip service to the principles and values of democracy but denied them in practice. The representation of women and the status of women as a gender group was read as the barometer to where PAS really stood on issues that mattered: Its fine to say that you believe in democracy, but who would believe in a party whose spiritual leader claims that 'women who dress in t-shirts are asking to get raped'?

The ulama of PAS, stuck as they were in their own morass of parochialism and isolated from the rest of Malaysia's plural society, failed to understand that the rest of Malaysia was not like Kampung Rusila or Kota Bharu. The ulama may think of themselves of the masters of the universe when they are in their madrasah (religious school), surrounded by admiring loyal followers who have been taught not to think, but the rest of the country was moving in a different direction altogether.

Serious mistakes

In time the pronouncements of PAS' leaders sounded more and more unworldly; and the discourse of salvation that kept the party afloat in the wake of the 1986 debacle was now turning into a major liability. Among the more serious mistakes made by the ulama of PAS (and which remained unchecked by the technocrats of the party) were:

Their failure to understand that the vote swing for PAS in 1999 was a reflection of popular anger against Umno and the government, and not an endorsement of the Islamic state project;

Their failure to locate themselves in the realities of the post Sept 11 world where political Islam was being attacked and any party, group or individual who came out in support of radical Islam was sure to pay the price;

Their failure to understand the need for a more technocratic discourse that would have helped convince voters that PAS' promises of heavenly reward were not divorced from real concerns of daily life;

Their failure to take note of the fears and insecurities of the non-Malay and non-Muslim constituencies who were frightened of the Taliban scenario being repeated here in Malaysia.

While it is true that PAS suffered from adverse negative media reports that linked them to all kinds of radical groups both real and imagined they also played their part in destroying their own image but not silencing the more radical voices in their midst.

Nik Aziz Nik Mat and Abdul Hadi's statements on women, the Taliban, Muslim-non-Muslim relations, etc were, after all, right out of their own mouths and not scripted for them by RTM.

PAS also showed that if and when it suited them to do so they would revert back to their scare tactics and hate-discourse, as was the case in 2002 when PAS supported the campaign by the ethno-supremacist group Teras and PUM to demonise and silence independent Malaysian scholars, writers and activists such as Dr Patricia Martinez, Zainah Anwar, Sisters in Islam and myself, who were trying to open up new ground in the arena of popular religio-political discourse in the country.

PAS then showed that it was not prepared to honour the principle of free speech and thought, and that its hate-machine would be cranked into action to wipe out all dissent at whatever cost.

The final nail in the coffin came just days before the election, when Nik Aziz summarily denounced the leader of its ally Parti Keadilan Rakyat (Keadilan), Dr Syed Hussin Ali, as a 'socialist' and 'poor Muslim'. One is reminded of Yusof Rawa's bitter rebuke against Anwar, when the former said to the latter: 'What you have done is like stabbing us in the back'. At the last minute, this was what PAS did to its erstwhile ally.

Having found themselves hemmed into a corner by their own design, PAS abandoned its allies and sought to save itself. The rest, as they say, is history. And history is bound to repeat itself as long as its lessons are not learned.

If there is anything that PAS should learn from this painful episode, it is that the Malaysian public Muslims and non-Muslims alike value pluralism and democracy above talk of a theocratic state governed by self-appointed moral guardians.

PAS has shown that it was able to change and adapt to save itself in the past, and during the era of Dr Burhanuddin al-Helmy it was truly a modern, progressive Islamist party whose gains were due to its own merits rather than Umno's blunders. PAS needs such a leader now, and not soothsaying Mullahs who can only promise dreams of heavenly reward or merciless punishment.

Next week: 1986 revisited Umno's failed modernist Islamic project


Endnotes

(1) It should not be forgotten that during the 1980s Malaysia was rife with talk of subtle 'Christian-Western' penetration into the country. PAS leaders like Muhammad Sabu were particularly inclined to present the Christian community as outsiders who were motivated by devious goals and ambitions, including converting Muslims in secret. This tendency remained evident in the discourse of PAS and to some extent mirrored by Umno as well right up to 1987.