The present ruckus about the so-called threat of Islamist militants and extremists taking over the country has now taken on a life of its own as the infernal logic of the rumour mill animates itself beyond anybody's control.

If one were to believe what one reads in the press and in cyberspace, there are clandestine terrorist groups popping up all over the country and next thing you know, you won't even be able to pop out for a quick teh tarik or satay without the fear of being mowed down by an AK-47 or laid low by a homemade pipebomb.

But putting aside the fear that such lunatics might be out there lurking behind the banana trees (and no doubt such characters must exist, no matter how small and insignificant they may be), the present campaign to crack down on such motley characters threatens to sideline other more important developments in the country.

Worse still, observers of Malaysian politics have begun to suspect that the powers-that-be are about to shoot themselves in the foot once again and that the campaign to whip up apprehension and fear of a localised Islamist threat may well end up with yet another own goal straight out of the 'How to Lose Friends and Win Enemies' book.

Flavour of the month

What is truly surprising about the present campaign to crack down on these militant groups is the way the term 'jihad' (1) has come into play.

Though the statements of political leaders and establishment figures seem to contradict each other on an hourly basis, there seems to be an unwritten consensus on one issue at least: that these shady characters out to destablise the country are all part of some underground 'jihad' movement bent on starting some holy war against the state and bringing down the 'munafikin' government led by the Umno party.

Now members of the Islamist opposition only have themselves to blame if they have been caught in Umno's grip at the moment. For years, maverick elements within some of the Islamist movements and parties in the country have been allowed to get away with murder when they were writing some of the most irrational, hysterical and downright offensive sabre-rattling rhetoric that has hit the local press.

(The loose cannon-cum- PAS propagandist C N Al-Afghani comes to mind when talking about our very own homegrown fanatics. In many of his books, Afghani has openly called for an Islamic revolution in the country following the Iranian model, led by our very own Mullahs and their followers. Just how and why this character was allowed to get away with such inflammatory writing remains a mystery that this author, for one, cannot answer.)

But to claim that the Islamist opposition are the only ones to resort to the 'Jihad' card would also be far from the truth. Embarrassing though it may seem, Umno's own backroom boys have been up to their antics of late.

Those who have been going through the website of the Umno party would have seen that the modernist-nationalist party even has a link page which talks at length about Umno's own 'jihad' to uphold the good name of Islam in the country and beyond.

The bottom line, therefore, is this: to bash a bunch of uncontrollable hapless lunatics on the grounds that they happen to believe in this nebulous thing called 'jihad' is a double edged sword for the simple reason that the concept of Jihad itself has become common currency and part of public discourse these days.

Ever since the Afghan conflict (when even the Malaysian government came out in support of the Afghan people against their Soviet oppressors), 'jihad' has been the flavour of the month. Not only that, the support that the Malaysian government has shown to other struggles in the Muslim world - from Palestine to Bosnia - has only helped to locate the concept of 'jihad' firmly within the orbit of Malaysian political discourse and made it a respectable subject to talk about.

Thanks to this concerted effort on all sides of the Malay-Muslim political arena to play to the gallery and up the stakes in the Islamisation race, 'jihad' is something that none of us can avoid by now.

What is more, we have also reached the point where to question the concept of jihad has become synonymous with questioning the religion of Islam itself. Woe to the politician who dares utter the question of whether jihad is relevant in the here-and-now:

The likelihood is that he will be lynched by the very same people whom he may have thought were his natural political constituency.

Thus to condemn the rise of Islamist militancy on the grounds that some of these shadowy figures may believe in an armed struggle for an Islamic state may well serve to compromise the establishment's own Islamist credentials even further, and add to the myth that this 'Mahafiraun' government is truly walking on the road to oblivion.

Coming as it does at a time when Malay-Muslim society is already clearly more conservative and religious than ever, to issue outright blanket condemnations against unruly elements on the grounds that they happen to be 'jihad militants' or uncontrollable 'Mujahideen' may well turn them into martyrs and heroes instead.

A sad catalogue

"The Martyr", as the late Ayatollah Khomeini once said, "is the essence of history". True enough, most (if not all) of the political struggles in the contemporary Muslim world have been built on the gravestones of dead heroes and fallen martyrs. The phenomenon of revolutionary Islam - like any other revolutionary ideology - thrives on the blood of the dead and oppressed, the downtrodden and abused.

Nothing feeds the mentality of the committed revolutionary than the feeling that he/she happens to be fighting a righteous cause and that he/she is the victim of more powerful (and cruel, unjust, tyrannical) adversaries.

This is true of the revolutionary brand of Islam as it is with any other revolutionary creed all over the world.

To help the revolutionary fanatics further, a host of oppressive regimes the world over have given them exactly what they wanted: even more persecution and repression which adds moral legitimacy to their actions.

For every Tamil Tiger killed, every BJP activist arrested, every hooded Basque separatist liquidated, their respective organisations have grown all the more strong and consolidated.

Why on earth should Islamist movements be any different?

The recent history of the contemporary Muslim world is a sad catalogue of ne'er-do-wells and Forest Gump equivalents propelled and promoted to the pages of history thanks to the persecution meted out to them.

Illiterate Mullahs who can barely string together a coherent sentence have been miraculously transformed into wise sages and prophets of doom thanks to the persecution they suffered at the hands of the numerous Shahs, Ataturks, generals and dictators who lorded over them.

University drop-outs and third-rate pseudo-intellectuals have been turned into masterminds of underground cells and transnational networks thanks to the over-inflated imaginings of paranoid despots and edgy securocrats wanting to hold on to their seats of power at all costs.

The net result of all this is that sensible discussion on the reasons behind the rise and resurgence of political Islam have gone out of the window a long time ago.

The sound bites of CNN have taken over the plodding pace of academic research and sound fieldwork, leaving the space open for media pundits and spin doctors instead. Is it any wonder that if and when a genuinely committed militant movement appears on the scene so many of these Muslim governments (and societies) are caught unaware?

The real tragedy

What has been overlooked altogether is the fact that the concept of Jihad is and remains an empty signifier. 'Jihad' may mean a plethora of things to a multitude of people, but the concept itself remains plastic, vacant and unfulfilled - hence its utility and popularity with so many movements from all over the world.

When Umno and PAS grapple over the definition of the term itself, they prove that the concept is a contestable - and therefore open and incomplete - one.

There are two options that offer themselves to us immediately: Either to enter the fray and join in the struggle to redefine the concept of Jihad (to link it to the struggle for human rights, democracy and civil society for example), or to by-pass it completely and give religio-political discourse a miss altogether.

So far neither side has been able to make any decisive moves in either direction, and the Malaysian public has instead been held hostage to the realpolitik manoeuvrings of both. But one thing remains certain - despite the growing popularity of the concept and its stubborn tendency to cling on to the headlines, we are nowhere closer to understanding the meaning of Jihad than those who claim that they are willing to lay down their lives for it.

And that, in the final analysis, is the real tragedy behind the jihad of everyday life in Malaysia.

Endnotes

1) 'Jihad' is probably one of the most over-used (and abused) concepts from the Islamic lexicon that is in circulation today. Over the years it has even entered mainstream Western media discourse and understandably it is invariably associated with Islam and Muslim societies. But the term itself can be translated as 'to struggle' or to 'expend effort' for a particular cause.

Traditional Islamic scholarship has been careful to note that the concept of Jihad is a complex one with a multiplicity of meanings. According to some Islamist scholars, Jihad is primarily a personal endeavour and that its focus is on the spiritual struggle of the individual. They often cite the saying of the Prophet Muhammad who said that after the struggle against external oppression (Jihad Asghar) there is the 'greater Jihad' (Jihad Akbar) which is primarily the struggle against one's own baser instincts (the ego, pride, avarice, lust, etc.).

This reading of Jihad obviously locates it firmly within the orbit of the existential concerns of the individual, and is one which does not see it in terms of any political process.