Seizing the unruly gathering at Kuala Ketil in the northern state of Kedah in which a police truck was burnt as an excuse, the government has disallowed all political parties to hold ceramah (public talks) without police permits, particularly when no elections are around the corner, in the interest of public safety and national security.

On the surface, the ban appears fair because it applies to all political parties, and even laudable because it is for public safety and national interest.

The problem of such a blanket policy is that it will be perceived as going against the democratic process. The ban contravenes the freedom of assembly and speech guaranteed in the constitution.

The heart of politics is persuasion. In a functioning democracy, all contending political parties ought to be provided the avenue and forum to persuade.

Without ceramah, how is PAS to persuade its political viewpoint other than in parliament and state assemblies, the reports of which for dissemination are again dependent on government influenced mainstream media?

Police permits are perceived by the opposition to be hard to procure when the police are perceived, rightly or wrongly, to be an instrument of the state and its agenda. This is why PAS supporters direct anger at the police by burning their trucks.

The fact that the ban applies to all political parties is of no consolation to PAS because the playing field, from its viewpoint, is not level when the ruling coalition controls the mainstream media.

For example, the government earlier this month broadcasted a clip of the 1985 Kampung Memali incident involving a violent stand-off between Muslim dissidents led by a local religious teacher, Ibrahim Libya, with alleged links to PAS.

This kind of propaganda is very negative to PAS' image especially in the aftermath of Sept 11 terror attacks. How is PAS to counter this subtle extremist stereotyping if it cannot even organise the ceramah to dissociate its politics from that violent incident? Surely it will be too late and too short a time to have to wait until elections are around the corner.

On the point of public safety and national interest, which is always a legitimate abridgement of the freedoms of speech and assembly, the recommendation by the Malaysian Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) to unconditionally allow ceramah in closed premises is a cogent compromise.

If the government does not even allow this compromise (suggestion) that mitigates the risks of public disturbances, it would lend credence to Suaram executive director Cynthia Gabriel's suggestion that the ban appears "politically motivated rather than in the interest of the public."

On the matter of political motivation, there is no doubt that the ruling party is concerned.

Besides Kuala Ketil in the northern state of Kedah in which a police truck was burnt, it was reported that earlier this month, police thwarted a PAS assembly in Baling, Kedah and another one last Sunday. The opposition party was planning another gathering in Kampung Iboi also in Kedah but cancelled it on the advice of the police.

These events evince that PAS is aiming the thrust of its campaign at the Malay heartland in the northern states in competition for the very constituency of the president of Umno. Is the Umno-led government to sit quiet and give PAS a free rein to reach the masses through ceramah?

To the proponents of unabridged democracy, the answer will be in the affirmative so that PAS may be afforded a level playing field to contest Umno's traditional hold on these states.

But on levelling the playing field for PAS in a democracy, this is not a straightforward issue admitting a simple conclusion.

For PAS to deserve democratic fairness, it must, itself, be fair democratically. Before PAS is entitled to make the moral claim to a level playing field from perspective of democracy, is it prepared to do the same?

Should PAS be allowed to take advantage of the premises of a democracy including freedom of assembly and speech when its politics proceed on the premises of a theocracy of an Islamic state that are divergent from that of a democracy? Let me explain more this incongruity.

In a democracy, political parties of different agendas are allowed to flourish and are afforded freedom of assembly and speech to contend their conflicting agenda as to what is good for the nation and the people. The underlying premise is the existence of a common language and common ground for all contending parties in the debate on what is perceived or provable empirically as being good or bad for the nation and the people.

The political language and conversations of a theocratic party are, however, radically different.

Religious arguments proceed on a priori of absolute truth revealed (both in Islam as well as Western religious thought) by the Almighty Himself. They do not lend themselves to resolution, debate, or compromise.

On this premise, what the Almighty said through clerics cannot be debated in a meaningful way in a secular legislative body like parliament or by a pluralistic communities acting in corporate fashion.

Hence when PAS accuses Umno leaders of being un-Islamic, such a judgment carries in the eyes of the devout the absoluteness of God's judgment to which no amount of propaganda through government media can counteract effectively, rebut or disprove empirically.

PAS and Umno share a common constituency, whose cultural identity is defined by religion, and it is natural for many religious folk to defer to religious leaders to the point where independent judgment based on temporal considerations and empirical arguments are sidelined.

Our Constitution, upholding freedom of speech and assembly, was laid down by our colonial masters based on Western liberal democracy.

But Western liberal democracy assumes the autonomy of the citizen who could vote on the basis of a well-informed decision after listening to the arguments of different parties and evaluating them on the basis of empirical experience. The right to religious observance, though upheld, does not extend to public domain and affairs.

A religious theocracy is radically different. It dictates that the believer is not fully autonomous, that he or she is obligated by the guidance of God's command revealed through (in PAS' case) its ulama and leaders. The sense of being commanded holds profound sway on a constituency that believes it, and this sense of command cannot be outlawed, or even directly challenged, much less counteracted by government propaganda through the media.

The government is therefore afraid that PAS will effectively disseminate its religious propaganda structured on terms carrying the weight of God himself and the promise of the hereafter convincingly to the Malay heartland of the north through ceramah against which it could not effectively rebut given the absolute and unqualified terms of its religious discourse. Where is the level playing field afforded by PAS to the ruling party here?

In all fairness, I think PAS actions should be viewed as they are such — an attempt to plead the rules of democracy for an opportunity to use religion for the advancement of its ultimate cause of religious theocracy, never quite minding that by definition and dynamics, the tenets of democracy and the tenets of theocracy are diametrically opposed, and the enforcement of the latter will effectively abrogate the former.

Therefore, on this premise, before secular opposition parties like DAP, non-governmental organisations or interest groups oppose the government ban on ceramah as being undemocratic, they should think, and think again whether democratic forces and elements are operating on the side of the aggrieved party (PAS) in the first place and that democracy is really a relevant issue at stake in the circumstances surrounding this ban.

The position between PAS (as distinct from NGOs and proponents of democracy) of the one part and Umno of the other part is however different in that it is asymmetrical to considerations based on democracy on this question of a level playing field. It is based on pure realpolitik.

Umno's dilemma is that it cannot denigrate PAS exploiting purely religious arguments for political support as being counter to democracy because Umno, in its twenty year Islamisation programme, and now by its own version of the "Islamic state" is doing basically the same thing albeit by an institutionalised, modern and moderate approach on matters of religion.

What is sauce for the goose ought however, to be sauce for the gander too, PAS could argue with cogence. The fact that PAS advances its raison d' etre based on religious arguments should not be a bar to its political interaction through ceramah because Umno uses the religious card too, PAS would say.

On this premise, PAS being an advocate of theocracy can no more argue that the government is undemocratic for the ban on ceramah anymore than the government could claim PAS is undemocratic to use religion for the advancement of its political cause.

Democracy then is not a relevant issue pertaining to the blanket ban on ceramah as far as the principal players are concerned.

If Suaram executive director Cynthia Gabriel's suggestion that the ban appeared "politically motivated rather than in the interest of the public" is right, then it is attributable to pure realpolitik of one side not giving the other the level playing field in political discourse.

This is because, given the opportunities and over time, the more radical, conservative and absolute voice of PAS, from the very religious nature of such discourse, always tends to put to defensive and drown the comparatively more moderate and less absolute one of Umno by reason of the latter having to make compromises with other component parties of the Barisan Nasional coalition as well as the imperatives of secular economic development in this Information Age of globalisation.