What do we have here in Kazim? A non-conformist

COMMENT Whatever else may be said about religious scholar Mohamed Kazim Elias - there's quite a lot said, mostly derogatory, to be sure - one ought to rate his streak of independence as impressive.

In these highly polarised times, reminiscent of George W Bush's ‘If you are not with me you are against me' demarcation of the battle lines in his war on terror, Kazim has been remarkable in wanting to steer clear of the two Muslim-dominant behemoths of Malaysian politics, Umno and PAS.

Over a hectic five days, Kazim (left) has risen from a nationally unknown Islamic preacher to a designated Umno supreme council member, to an expelled PAS member and, finally, to a refusenik (one who refuses to conform), to borrow a term that was in vogue during the days of the Cold War.

This swirl of events must be one of the more head-twirling sequences in local politics in recent times, the kind that would give delight to headline writers - ‘Kazim's dizzying whirl', ‘In-out-in Kazim is out again', etc.

The Islamic preacher might have been popular on the religious talk circuit, but on the national front Kazim was unknown until named on Nov 29 as one of 13 co-opted members of the Umno supreme council.

Within a day of the announcement of Kazim's co-opting by party secretary-general Tengku Adnan Mansor, it ignited a flurry of speculation as to whether he was a PAS member or an independent preacher.

This is the kind of nebulous territory that piques the curiosity of the politically-conscious. Recall the controversy that was triggered in 2012 by the disclosure that the Election Commission's No 2, Wan Ahmad Wan Omar, was a member of Umno.

The news sizzled in the public arena for a couple of weeks before receding. Short-fused controversies serve the purpose of briefly highlighting an issue, attracting the public's attention.

Najib's trumpted desire to be inclusive

The backdrop to Kazim's co-opting into the Umno supreme council was of course Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak's trumpeted desire to be inclusive.

To include a PAS member - the Perak PAS youth chief said Kazim was a party member since 1998 - as an Umno supreme council member can be seen as Umno bending over backwards to be inclusive.

Kazim added to the spiraling interest in the matter of him being co-opted by chiding PAS for having ignored him whereas its nemesis, Umno, was keen to co-opt him.

Then Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man, (left) who prior to his election last week as PAS vice-president had been its information chief, weighed into the mushrooming controversy by revealing that Kazim had last May been sacked from the Islamic party.

For someone who is inclined to give a reason for saying anything at all, Tuan Ibrahim was unusually terse: he did not disclose the grounds for Kazim's sacking.

Predictably, Tuan Ibrahim's disclosure drew Kazim to claim that the indignity of expulsion had not been preceded by a disciplinary hearing or even the courtesy of a dismissal letter.

A homilist of formidable drawing power

This only ratcheted up the curiosity surrounding the whole affair, a curiosity that is now poised to be heightened further by the announcement by Kazim that he is not accepting the Umno offer of a seat in its policy-making body.

That should fortify his standing as an independent preacher, popular on the preaching circuit, supposedly ignored and then sacked by PAS, and now spurning an offer from Umno - who could be more independent than that?

It appears that the Muslim public's appetite for religious talks is voracious, as any motorist who has had to wait at a busy traffic intersection in the country would infer from scanning the banners that are strung at these crossroads.

Given the plethora of Islamic preachers, Kazim's popularity on the circuit must mark him out as a homilist of formidable drawing power.

A reported 2,000 people attended a talk of his in Sungei Petani two nights ago, when he announced he would not accept the invitation to sit on the Umno supreme council.

Surely, this decision to steer clear of the two giants of the Islamic political landscape, Umno and PAS, would augment his drawing power.

It's good to know that there is an increasingly popular Islamic preacher who is a non-conformist as far as membership of the two Islamic political titans is concerned.

TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for four decades now. He likes the profession because it puts him in contact with the eminent without being under the necessity to admire them.