There is no smoke without fire. And if you read the Malaysian newspapers, especially the New Straits Times, you get the feeling that a crackdown is imminent. The target appears to be PAS. The New Straits Times yesterday (15 February 2002) devotes most of page 2 to carry sundry reports of PAS perfidy: "PAS leaders responsible for the disunity"; The Persatuan Ulama Malaysia (PUM) is a PAS front and the government should, by implication, have nothing to do with it; Muslim student body denies it is 'used' by PUM; Chief Minister likens PAS actions to communist tactics; PAS cancels ceremah after meeting; the Government will do anything that would put pressure on PAS. The ceremah in Baling which turned violent and a police truck was torched is yet another sign of PAS getting out of hand. Radio Television Malaysia continues to dog PAS with its "trailer" advertisements about the Memali affair and other examples of what they see as opposition violence.

Does all this suggest the government is set to crackdown on PAS or its leaders? In the past, whenever the police mounts a political crackdown, the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, is conveniently out of the country, and it is the deputy prime minister who is blamed for what happened. So it was in Memali in 1985 when the then deputy prime minister, Tan Sri Musa Hitam, bloodied his hands. The Baling incident had all the hallmarks of an agent provacateur. When the police take an administrative decision to deny a political party the right to a ceremah, dragging its matter and deciding hours before it is due, it throws all preparations out of gear. This is deliberate. It is to raise the ante, and get those who come from long distances angry and dissatisfied enough to take matters in their own hands.

Malaysian opposition political parties are horribly restricted on how they can attract support. Their party organs cannot be sold to the public, they are not allowed the right to conduct ceremahs, they do not have the right of reply to accusations against them in media, all government-controlled and owned by one or the other of the National Front parties. (The only one that is is Harakah, the PAS organ, and amongst the rumours I hear is its banning. Its English section is still a must-read for those who want to know a view other than the official.) Worse, the buildup against the opposition is reduced to a naive recitation of what allegedly happened. Those who lived through the Memali affair in 1985 have a different view of what happened: At that time, Ibrahim Libya and his band of 14 supporters in a commune in Memali, in Kedah, was killed in a shootout. It was an excessive use of firepower, one in which the then home minister got a black eye.

There is always two sides to a question. The government view of Ibrahim Libya conflicts with what the people in the area thought of him. As it is in every issue. But only view, the government's, gets a public airing. The opposition is prevented from petty restrictions from holding meetings to explain their position. When you talk to the opposition party leaders, you notice a well of discontent at this. In other words, the government's petty restrictions raise the temperature, and it is a matter of time when it breaks loose.

This move to restrict PAS is part of UMNO's move to be the sole Islamic authority in Malaysia. PAS challenges its Islamic worldview so consistently and UMNO responds to it half-heartedly or not at all that the UMNO ulama is all but thrown. The problem, which UMNO would not address, is that once the ulema is given a power in the land, as UMNO tries to, they acquire a persona of their own, and react in its own interest and not of those who appoint them. It came as a shock to UMNO and the government that the PUM targetted five writers for denigrating Islam and them. If you read the statement carefully, you would notice it was angrier that they were attacked. Now, the government ulamas, usually turncoats from PAS, insist the PUM is a PAS-controlled group.

PAS, unlike the other parties, is organised to build up its support whatever the legal impediments, daring the authorities to act. They get their way. The police stay out of their way. And crowds gather by word-of-mouth. In contrast, if UMNO wants to hold a large meeting, it must bus the audience in, often bribing them with money. Now, UMNO decides to rein PAS in, with arrests if necessary. This sudden attacks on PAS is a prelude to a crackdown. The main issue to hang PAS with is its involvement with terrorist groups. What annoys the government and UMNO is the general belief that what it does is not to bring political peace to a country but to ensure UMNO's hold on power, come hell or highwater.

But can it pull this off? Methinks this government attempt to blacken the opposition could backfire. The first-time voter, about a million for the next general election, is alienated from it. Especially the Malay. And he sees these gratuitous television trailers of violence not in how the government views it, but as an option he should consider. The youth look upon the violence in the trailers as an option to get what they want; since they have nothing to lose, they are prepared to challenge every notion the government and UMNO holds dear. If that includes taking on to the streets, they reckon then so be it.

The government may show the TV trailer on Memali, but the young Malay see in how the crowds forced the Shah or Iran out of office. No one talks to the young, they are dictated to, or seen in controlled circumstances in which they are there to fete whoever is speaking to them. If the government now wants to crack down on PAS, it would create fear and mayhem in opposition circles, especially if a few non-PAS leaders and a few pesky critics join them. But since this is done not because the perceived threat is not to the nation but to those in power, and undertaken in near panic, it cannot sustain. Even if the Malaysian police -- thank God it does not -- had a fiercer reputation for violence than Zimbabwe's.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@mgg.pc.my