Lim Kit Siang's BA and the Islamic State , now widely available on the newsstands of the country, already reads like a classic well before its time. The question is, which other classic can best be compared to this one?
Stairway to Heaven comes as a close second, but perhaps Celine's Long Day's Journey into the Night might be more appropriate.
However, the author of the speeches contained within the book has come up with the best clich that sums up the naivete of that merry band of brothers who thought that they could hook up with that other band of bearded brothers who were on their own campaign tour at the time: At one point in one of his speeches, Kit Siang himself claims that 'DAP will walk the last mile' to further the cause of democracy and justice in Malaysia (pg 78).
That walk came to an end last week when the DAP pulled out of the Barisan Alternatif alliance which lasted - against everyone's expectations - a full 22 months.
BA and the Islamic State is basically a compilation of the speeches of Lim Kit Siang, leader of the Democratic Action Party (DAP) that has been around on the political scene since the mid-1960s (1).
It reads like a time capsule which chronicles the uneven journey taken by the DAP with its new-found friends from the Islamist camp. The speeches follow a chronological order, and as one goes through them one by one, the reader cannot help but notice the feeling of despair and disillusionment that comes creeping in bit by bit, chipping away at the resolve of the DAP leadership as they realise that they have lost control of the ship they had helped to build together.
Optimistic beginning
At the beginning, the leader of the DAP sounds optimistic enough when he states that: "DAP knew of PAS' ideological stand for an Islamic state and PAS knew of DAP's ideological opposition to any theocratic state, but we decided to put aside our differences for the sake of the immediate task of saving Malaysian democracy and justice from savage and fatal attacks by the Barisan Nasional government." (preface, pg ii)
Insisting that the 1999 elections were not about defeating their opponents and dividing the spoils of power among themselves (pg 1), Kit Siang described the launching of the BA common manifesto on Oct 24, 1999 as "a historic event" when for the first time in the history of the country the major opposition parties have come together on a common platform "towards a just Malaysia". (pg 1)
But this mood of enthusiasm and optimism was rather quickly dissipated when the smoke of the elections had cleared and it became apparent just who the new leader of the opposition was. Kit Siang's sense of frustration and disappointment grows as the leaders of PAS become bolder by the day.
The introduction of the kharaj tax on non-Muslims by the PAS-led government of Terengganu was seen as something which flies in the face of the socio-economic reforms introduced by the new Mentri Besar Hadi Awang himself (pg 7).
By the end of the book - as we get to Kit Siang's later speeches - the feeling of apprehension and fear are more tangible. Kit Siang states repeatedly that the BA alliance was meant to work towards a more democratic and pluralistic Malaysia, and that it should not be hijacked by those who merely wish to use it as a platform to call for an Islamic state. (pg 83)
By June 2001, with the writing already on the wall, he makes his last-ditch effort to save the coalition from falling apart and warns that the establishment of an Islamic state would actually go against the principles of the BA common manifesto itself. (pg 85).
Perhaps the most important point raised in these later speeches is the claim that PAS (and Malaysian society in general, one supposes) should open itself up to sincere and genuine opposition to such a theological-political project, and that Malaysian citizens of all religious and racial backgrounds have the genuine right to speak, question, dispute and even reject such a model if they feel that it is against their own personal beliefs and principles.
By this stage, Kit Siang is at least back on his track, but the final mile has been walked and the rest is history.
Obvious questions
Now that the BA coalition is in tatters, many political observers have begun to ask the obvious question: Couldn't these veteran leaders have seen it coming? And how could the leaders of the DAP - men with decades of political experience behind them like Lim Kit Siang and Karpal Singh - have fallen for the idea that PAS, with its clearly stated Islamist agenda and manifesto, could possibly have accepted the idea of working within a secular political system?
The ideology, tactics and approach of the two parties have grown further apart from the 1970s, and while the DAP today remains fixed on its leftist course, the Islamist party has evolved a discourse and related ancillary practices that clearly take politics to the realm of what is often called 'pastoral care' - to the point where the murshid'ul am (spiritual guide) of PAS could go as far as offering sexual counselling advice to older men who have ended up marrying younger women who could easily pass as their grand-daughters. (Oddly enough, one cannot imagine Lim Kit Siang offering such friendly advice in his own 'meet the public' sessions.)
But to give them the benefit of the doubt, it has to be pointed out that the leaders of the DAP were not the only ones to fall into the trap. Scores of other Malaysian academics, intellectuals and activists had also put their faith in this project which has now come to naught.
Apart from that, it must be noted that PAS itself is far from a homogenous party and that there have been attempts by the progressives within its ranks to win over the support or at least the understanding of the non-Malays. This goes as far back as the mid-1980s and the elections of 1986 invariably come to mind. (2)
Then, as now, such attempts at cross-cultural and inter-religious understanding were scuttled thanks to the manoeuvrings of those among the establishment themselves. When DAP and PAS were beginning to show signs of some kind of common understanding (no matter how nebulous it might have been then), their opponents were quick to jump into the arena to ensure that their marriage of inconvenience would never be consummated.
PAS' rivals in Umno were quick to accuse the Islamist party of betraying the interests of the Malays for the sake of political gains, and former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim (who today many regard as a great Muslim liberal) condemned the new initiative by PAS as the biggest mistake ever made by the party. (3)
The BA alliance was the latest attempt by the opposition parties of the land to come together with a common objective: to break the hegemonic grip of the Barisan Nasional alliance and to deny it the two-thirds majority in Parliament that has for so long remained as a psychological block in Malaysian politics.
Crusade against porn
Yet this coalition of uneven and incompatible partners was an instrumental one from the very beginning - very much like the untidy (and in the end counter-productive) alliance between secular American feminists and bible-bashing religious fanatics of the moral right in their crusade against pornography.
In the end, the secular feminists found themselves sidelined and chucked into the dustbin of history while the raving lunatics of the pulpit charged on ahead in their moral crusade that eventually devoured their erstwhile allies as well. The same sad fate has fallen some of our secular comrades over here too.
BA and the Islamic State therefore makes for serious and sobering (if somewhat repetitive) reading and it comes at an appropriate moment in the evolution of Malaysian politics. After the elections of 1995 and 1999, it should be clear to all of us now that Malaysian society remains deeply divided along cleavages of race and religion which actually serve the economic and political interests of particular political groupings in the country.
These divisions may well serve the interests of the parties in the country (both government and opposition), but in the long run they do not help us bridge the divide of language and ethnicity, and they bring us no closer to the creation of a truly democratic and multi-cultural Malaysia. If the DAP was forced to pull out of the BA coalition, it was in part due to the fears and anxiety of many of its members which, as Kit Siang himself admits, was not entirely based on facts and reality.
Mistakes by both parties
But it takes two to start a divorce and PAS is likewise forced to share part of the blame here. While one could never expect PAS to abandon its goal for an Islamic state (which would be akin to a communist party dropping its Marxist ideology just to win a few extra votes), the leaders and intellectuals of the party should also realise that they are not going to get anywhere unless they learn the art of compromise which is the substance of politics, be it in Malaysia or anywhere else.
The real lesson to be learnt here is the need for true cross-cultural understanding and dialogue, which is something that can only be undertaken when the power differentials and divisions in society are looked into first.
The mistake of both the DAP and PAS in handling the thorny issue of the Islamic state was that neither side attempted to look at how and why the question of Islam and Islamic politics was so problematic for so many Malaysians.
Linked to this is the genuine need to address the fears held by many non-Malays (and Malays as well, I might add) that the pursuit of an Islamic state would merely lead to the further marginalisation of the non-Malays and non-Muslims in the country.
Concessions such as granting others the 'freedom' to gamble and drink themselves blind drunk are hardly political concessions of any kind, particularly if they are underwritten by a cultural perspectivism that continues to see those who belong to other religions and ways of life as kafirs who are 'destined to hell'.
Before we even think of forming another pan-Malaysian alliance of any kind, we should all put some serious thinking into how these constructions of identity and difference can be articulated in such a way that reflects the multi-culturalism and plurality of Malaysian society without serving as a convenient means to merely reproduce and reinforce social divisions instead.
BA and the Islamic State may not provide us with the answers that we seek, but at least it points to a degree of political awareness and realism that is at least refreshing in these times where clichs have become part of conventional political wisdom and down-and-out politicians think they can build a political career on slogans alone.
Endnotes
1) After the untimely demise of the Parti Buruh Malaysia in 1964, an opening was made for the rise of a new party called the Democratic Action Party (DAP) which was formed on March 18, 1966. The DAP was formed as a result of the split within the Parti Tindakan Rakyat (PAP - People's Action Party) that was based in Singapore and led by the lawyer and political activist Lee Kuan Yew.
In the years that followed, the DAP would find itself portrayed as a predominantly-Chinese party (despite the fact that in terms of its ideological orientation the DAP was clearly against ethno-nationalism and any form of ethnocentric politics).
This image of the DAP as a Chinese-based party was intensified even further in the 1970s when PAS came under the leadership of the staunchly ethnocentric leader Asri Muda, who was known to harbour deep-rooted fears and anxieties about Chinese economic and political dominance in the country.
By the end of the Asri era (in 1982) PAS was widely seen as an anti-Chinese party - an image the party tried to correct - while DAP was branded as a Chinese-leftist party that was often likened to the Malayan Communist Party (MCP) by its enemies.
2) During the election campaign of 1986, PAS had formed an informal alliance with the Parti Sosialis Rakyat Malaysia (PSRM) and the Parti Nasionalis Malaysia (Nasma) in order to reduce the competition between the Malay opposition parties.
PAS leaders also attempted to woo support from the non-Malay and non-Muslim sections of the electorate. PAS leaders like Ustaz Hadi Awang claimed that the Islamist party was willing to accept the idea of a non-Malay becoming the prime minister of the country (provided that the person in question was already a Muslim, or course).
The party also established its own Chinese Consultative Committee (CCC) with the hope of allaying the fears of the Chinese and non-Muslims in general. A number of Chinese Muslims like Kamal Koh were recruited by the Islamist party and put in charge of its information bureau and inter-communal relations section. The CCCs were meant to serve as part of the party's outreach programme and to convince the members of the non-Muslim communities that PAS was not the extremist fundamentalist party that the media had made it out to be.
3) See Khoo Boo Teik, Paradoxes of Mahathirism , 1995, pg 226.
Lim Kit Siang's BA and the Islamic State is published by the Democratic Action Party, Petaling Jaya, Selangor. July 2001. 103 pages. Price: RM8 (paperback).