While welcoming the forthcoming trip of Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad to the Vatican, the presidents of PAS and PRM remind the Umno president not to exploit the occasion for partisan gains in domestic politics.

According to the soft-spoken Fadzil Noor who is also the Leader of the Parliamentary Opposition, "it is his right to meet the Pope... but what can be achieved is left to be seen, especially if it is for political gains".

He added that although the Palestinian issue was evidently a main concern of Muslims worldwide, a positive outcome from Mahathir's trip to the Vatican was not likely if it he was there for "other reasons".

He said PAS, too, has had meetings with leaders of different faiths before, but "the publicity was never to this extent". Earlier, PRM president Dr Syed Husin Ali also expressed a similar observation.

The scenario is now rather clear. There is no opposition to Mahathir's visit to the Vatican, at least not from oppositionists who are Muslims like Fadzil Noor, Kelantan Menteri Besar Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat and Syed Husin, but there is a rather widespread concern of whether the trip would be politicised by the official media to insinuate that while Mahathir and his supporters are 'moderate' and 'tolerant', Muslims in PAS, Keadilan and PRM are 'intolerant', 'sectarian' and 'fanatical'.

BN propaganda

Ultimately, rightly or otherwise, the concern is not without basis. Even some older Chinese Malaysians who are neither Christians nor Muslims are cynical about the trip. Who can blame them?

They remember how a coloured photograph of a former prime minister and Umno president, the late Tun Abdul Razak Hussein, shaking hands with Mao Ze Dong (the 'Great Helmsman' of communist China), was exploited as a Barisan Nasional propaganda in the 1974 general election to fish for Chinese votes.

The photograph was taken in Beijing when Razak and his entourage officially visited the city to establish diplomatic relation with the People's Republic of China under the communist leadership of Mao who began his revolutionary career in a secret cell in Shanghai in 1921.

Before the 1974 general election, anyone, however innocent, found to be in possession of Mao's photographs, writings, portraits or red cloths suspected to be materials for making red flags would most likely be detained under the Internal Security Act (ISA).

However, it is the observation of this writer that Malaysians, including Chinese and Catholics, have grown up and are more mature and sophisticated. Catholics who are well-versed in the 2,000-year history of the Church certainly know how to see things with subtly critical and more balanced perspectives, always remembering the political errors and misjudgments made in the early 1930s in Germany, and Somoza's Nicaragua and Marcos' Philippines, while preserving their faith, hope and love for all, and drawing appropriate lessons.

Gov't and 'gang'

As for Mahathir, to be able to travel to the Vatican, and frequently to all corners of the globe, is undoubtedly glamourous but there must also be honest and sincere self-assessment: What good is there if one enjoys all the 'glamour', 'glory' and 'recognition', while other Malaysians are languishing in solitary confinement in detention camps without trial, or fair trial, and crying for justice?

What about the many moral, financial and political scandals now spreading like contagious diseases in Umno, MCA, Snap, other component parties of BN as well as the government? Can these scandals be eliminated by merely travelling to the Vatican and other parts of the world, or even by suppressing and oppressing the opposition domestically ?

Seen in perspective and with the current situation in Malaysia in mind, it is surely true that the political concerns of St Augustine of Hippo (AD 354-AD 430), one of the greatest theologians of the Catholic Church, is worth being reflected upon by Mahathir and his advisers on their way to the Holy See.

In Chapter 5 of Book IV of his magnum opus, City of God, St Augustine draws the attention of his readers to the similarities and difference between a government ("kingdom") and a criminal gang, by posing the following question:

"Remove justice, and what are kingdoms but gangs of criminals on a large scale? What are criminal gangs but petty kingdoms?

"For it was a witty and a truthful rejoinder which was given by a captured pirate to Alexander the Great. The king asked the fellow, 'What is your idea, in infesting the sea?' And the pirate answered, with uninhibited insolence, 'The same as yours, in infesting the earth! But because I do it with a tiny craft, I'm called a pirate; because you have a mighty navy, you're called an emperor.' " (St Augustine, City of God, London, Penguin, 1984, p139)

Indeed, that justice as the defining element of a government is central to, and shared among Christian and Islamic politics. It is the value of justice that self-evidently distinguishes a government from a gang of criminals or pirates.

Note: This article continues from an earlier one, The Vatican — A journey for the conscience and was scheduled to be published yesterday. We apologise for any confusion.

JAMES WONG WING ON is chief analyst of Strategic Analysis Malaysia (SAM) which produces the subscriber-based political report, Analysis Malaysia. Wong is a former member of Parliament (1990-1995) and a former columnist for the Sin Chew Jit Poh Chinese daily. He read political science and economics at the Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. While in Sin Chew, he and a team of journalists won the top awards of Malaysian Press Institute (MPI) for 1998 and 1999.