theSun | FRIDAY JUNE 5 2009
speak up!
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by Keith Leong
PAS vice-president Husam Musa’s
recent speech that the party needs to
embrace free-market principles and
pluralism ought to be welcomed on
two levels.
For the liberals, both classical
and social, it indicates that their
ideas are steadily gaining currency
in the public discourse. All Malay-
sians, however, should rejoice that
PAS, and increasingly other political
parties are seeing the need to ex-
pand their ideological base beyond
the narrow sectarian confines of the
past.
It remains to be seen if the
progress of liberal ideas and the
diversification of political ideologies
will continue in PAS. A lot rides
on whether or not reformists like
Husam, who is running for the
party’s deputy presidency, and his
counterparts on both sides of the
partisan fence prevail over their
conservative rivals who are indiffer-
ent, even hostile to such a paradigm
shift.
Many analysts have speculated
that a lot is riding on PAS’s internal
elections as it is increasingly obvi-
ous that the party will play a role
in whatever direction the country’s
political future takes. All this has led
to an increased amount of attention
on the party’s elections this week-
end and introspection among many
Malaysians towards the country’s
A liberal’s thoughts on PAS
most controversial political party.
As a young non-Muslim Malay-
sian with generally liberal leanings,
I have always had mixed feelings
about PAS. The party has been
painted as the ultimate bogeyman
by the establishment media and
pundits to my demographic group,
often with general success. Inci-
dents like their periodic campaigns
against alcohol consumption and
teenybopper music only served to
heighten my discontent towards the
brand of politics that they practised.
On the other hand, one cannot
help but admire the dedication and
perseverance that the PAS ranks
have shown in their long, twilight
struggle in opposition. The high re-
gard, even affection by which their
leaders like Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat
are accorded to, not only by Malay-
sian Muslims but their compatriots
of other faiths as well suggest that
there is more to PAS than what
the powers-that-be would have us
believe.
More importantly, however,
is the small but growing number
among them who realise, like their
colleagues both in Pakatan Rakyat
and Barisan Nasional that Malay-
sia can only be led effectively in a
broad-based, inclusive manner. The
politicians who realised this before
and since March 8, 2008 have grown
TELLING IT AS IT IS
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in stature, while those who have not
or will not have only exacerbated
the sectarian tensions that threaten
to rend this country apart.
It is unfortunate, therefore, that
practitioners of the latter brand of
politics seem to have the former on
the back-foot. Indeed, it seems many
young leaders, regardless of their
party, who want public life in Ma-
laysia to be more than a zero-sum
game dictated by archaic sectarian
rivalries are being hounded into
obscurity while the demagogues
triumph.
The possibility of this happening
in PAS is all the more sad because
Malaysians have had, for the last
couple of months the chance to see
what the party could be like if it was
led by moderates. The picture that
possibility presented was inspiring
and promising.
Shah Alam MP Khalid Samad
visiting a Catholic church (the
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The Immigration Department is tak-
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construction of which had faced nu-
merous bureaucratic obstacles) in
his constituency and receiving rave
reviews from the parishioners. Nik
Abdul Aziz standing up for his fel-
low PKR and DAP leaders smeared
by the reactionary press. The dignity
and courage that Nizar Jamaluddin
has shown in the Perak crisis.
These images present a power-
ful counter-argument to the picture
that the real enemies of PAS want
ordinary Malaysians to see, that of
an intolerant and exclusivist cabal,
rather than what they are or rather
could be – a dedicated band of indi-
viduals, united but not monolithic
in their belief that religious faith can
and ought to have a place in politics.
PAS will have to choose between
these two Janus-like images of
themselves this weekend.
One picture and the path it points
to may guarantee the party some
short-term political gains. But the
ing steps to overcome and further
improve the system. We would like
to apologise to the parties affected
by this delay.
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other will secure the future of our
country and the Malaysians who
are to come after us. Which will PAS
take, and indeed all other Malaysian
parties who will sooner or later find
themselves confronted with the
same fork in the road?
The last thing on this author’s
mind is to try and interfere with the
internal affairs of a political party or
the deliberations of its leadership
who are far wiser than he ever will
be.
But allow me to posit humbly that
Malaysians, especially the young
who will theoretically inherit the
mantle of leadership and who have
proven to be irrevocably unsatisfied
with the status quo, have a right to
demand, from PAS greater choice
and diversity in politics than what
we have had to make do with in the
past. The same goes for their allies
in PR and their adversaries in BN.
PAS itself deserves the kind of
leadership that will allow it to stand
on its own feet for its own platform
(which currently and hopefully
continues to champion the rights of
all Malaysians), rather than as part
of some misguided notions of unity.
Let me end by congratulating
the party on its long, illustrious his-
tory, its successes past, present and
future, and to wish its delegates a
fruitful conference.
Keith Leong is an associate at the Ma-
laysia Think Tank (www.WauBebas.
org). Comments: letters@thesundaily.
com.