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Australian Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 58, No. 2,pp. 241–256, June 2004

The Mahathir administration’s war againstIslamic militancy: operational and ideological

challenges

JOSEPH CHINYONG LIOW

Fundamentalism is a behavioural question, a psychology which cannot befought with armadas, but only with other ideas.

King Hassan II

When the only tool you have is a hammer, you treat everything like a nailAbraham Maslow

This article assesses the Malaysian government’s confrontation with Is-lamic militancy in its domestic political sphere. It suggests that while theoperational capacity of the Malaysian state and security forces has success-fully and effectively crippled militant Islamic organisations on the homefront, the long-term success in the battle against Islamic militancy lies notin operational capacity but in the realm of the ideological contest, and itis here that the current focus on the intensification of state control andsurveillance as the best means to counter militant Islam may well prove tobe a misplaced strategy that will undermine the key objective of undercut-ting sympathy and support for those militant groups purporting to engagein an Islamic struggle. It further suggests that while many of the hard-linecounter-terrorism strategies were formulated during the Mahathir adminis-tration, there is little indication that the government of Abdullah Badawiwill moderate Malaysia’s policies on Islamic militancy.

The 11 September terrorist attacks thrust Islamic militancy to the forefront ofthe international security agenda. In the wake of Washington’s global offen-sive against the al-Qaeda international terrorist network, terrorism expertswarned that Southeast Asia, with its porous borders and traditional receptivityto foreign Islamic ideologies and movements, might well shape up to beinternational terrorism’s ‘Second Front’ and ‘Crucible of Terror’ (Gunaratna2000; Abuza 2003). While Muslim governments in the region took umbrage atthese insinuations, the predictions appear vindicated by subsequent events.The uncovering of a plot to bomb the American and other Western Embassiesin Singapore in December 2001, the Bali bombings of 12 October 2002, and

ISSN 1035-7718 print/ISSN 1465-332X online/04/020241-16 2004 Australian Institute of International Affairs

DOI: 10.1080/1035771042000220105

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more recently the J. W. Marriott attack of 5 August 2003 brought home thereality that terrorism conducted in the name of Islam has found fertile groundin the region.

As the war on terror rages on, the regional spotlight has increasinglyfallen on the governments of Southeast Asia and their hunt for Islamicmilitants within their own territorial boundaries. Malaysia has stood outfor particular scrutiny in this regard. While the Mahathir administrationhas undoubtedly committed itself to the global war on terror, some havebeen critical of Malaysia’s efforts. Quoting Australian sources, a Singaporemedia report has suggested that ‘for years, Malaysia has played host tothe network of terrorists who have emerged as key suspects in the Bali attacksand other devastating strikes against the West’ (The Sunday Times 2002).Quoting the prominent terrorism analyst Zachary Abuza, a South ChinaMorning Post report questioned Malaysian commitment by noting that ‘theMalaysians are hauling in low-level members of Jemaah Islamiyah, question-ing and then releasing them’ (South China Morning Post 2003). Malaysia’sharbouring of terrorists was also alluded to in the highly publicised Inter-national Crisis Group report on the activities of Jemaah Islamiyah. On theother side of the spectrum, others have accused the Malaysian government ofcapitalising on the alarmist atmosphere surrounding the rise of Islamic mili-tancy by drawing tenuous connections between political dissidents and terror-ist organisations, and mobilising instruments of the state to detain andincarcerate ‘suspected terrorists’ without trial. These critics have argued thatthe war on terror and attendant concern for ‘threats’ to ‘national security’have legitimised the surveillance state to even greater extent. Indeed, thecontradictions embodied in these two contending perspectives of the Mahathiradministration’s approach to the war on terror demonstrate the complexitiesand convolutions associated with the government’s policy on Islamic militancyin Malaysia.

This article aims to critically examine Malaysia’s war on terrorism byassessing the policies and strategies adopted by the Malaysian governmentagainst Islamic militancy. It looks particularly at the implications andthe problems that initiatives employed by the government have encounteredin relation to the socio-political contexts that frame them. The papersuggests that two dimensions to the Malaysian government’s strategy againstIslamic militancy can be discerned, with one functioning at the operationallevel and the other at the ideological level. The article argues that, giventhe fact that the Malaysian government is already confronted by a credibility-deficit in the eyes of the Malay-Muslim community, the extent to whichit has successfully employed its operational strategy to apprehend terroristsand proscribe their activities has had the paradoxical effect of underminingthe more important ideological counter-offensive which is required todiminish the appeal of extremist Islamic ideologies that cultivate militantmindsets.

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The Mahathir administration’s war against Islamic militancy 243

Muslim militancy—the Malaysian experience

Given the popularity of commentaries and academic writing on Islamicradicalism and extremism in recent times, there is always the danger ofoverlooking the fact that the problem of Islamic militancy is one that plaguedMalaysia long before the September 2001 World Trade Centre and Pentagonterrorist attacks. As early as the 1970s, radical and extremist groups hadalready started surfacing in this Muslim-majority country. The Penang-basedCrypto cult movement, formed in 1977, claimed that the Malaysian govern-ment was not giving Islam its proper due and aimed to set up a theocraticorder by means of violent Jihad. It was only in 1992 that the Malaysiangovernment took action to clamp down on the movement. Another groupwhose interpretation of Islam threatened the incumbent regime was theKoperasi Angkatan Revolusi Islam Malaysia (KARIM or Malaysian IslamicRevolutionary Front). Formed in 1974 in Kuala Lumpur, KARIM preached theoverthrow of the government through violence. It was later banned, its leadersdetained under the Internal Security Act. In 1980, riots in Kedah by farmersdemonstrating against the government’s move to introduce a forced-savingsscheme were traced to a militant organisation called Pertubuhan AngkatanSabillullah, which according to the government had numbered among itsassociates members of the Muslim opposition party PAS. Later in 1988,elements from within the Malaysian government moved again to incriminatePAS by linking it to Muslim militancy. This time, members of PAS youth wereaccused by their UMNO adversaries of concealing weapons in the PASseminary Muassasah Darul Ulum in Kedah. Though a subsequent crackdownby security forces yielded nothing, several PAS members were later rounded upunder ‘Ops Kenari’ in response to UMNO’s further complaint that these‘militants’ were attempting to disrupt an UMNO rally in Semarak. During thiscrackdown however, weapons were apparently discovered in the possession ofPAS members. Nevertheless, attempts to censure the party failed because ofinsufficient evidence to implicate PAS in institutionalised involvement withmilitancy. It was in November 1985 however, that the Malaysian governmentrecorded its first violent encounter with militant Islam when security forcesclashed with PAS stalwart Ibrahim Mahmood and his supporters in Kedah.

Ibrahim Mahmood, or ‘Ibrahim Libya’ as he was popularly called, was amember of the Islamic opposition PAS, and had held senior positions in theparty organisation at both district and state levels. Trained at the Universityof Tripoli and Al-Azhar, Ibrahim was a popular religious teacher stationed ata Madrasah in Kampung Memali in Baling, Kedah. In his capacity as areligious teacher and PAS leader, Ibrahim was accused by the Malaysiangovernment of exploiting Islam by spreading radical teaching in the states ofKedah, Penang and Perak that incited Muslims to conduct Jihad against thestate. The government responded by demonising Ibrahim Mahmood as a‘deviant’ Muslim and moved to circumscribe his activities. This showdown

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reached its climax when government security forces stormed the compound ofIbrahim Mahmood’s residence while he was conducting religious lessons.After apparent armed resistance from Mahmood’s supporters, the eventreached a tragic end with 18 deaths and 160 arrests (FEER 1985). Several yearslater and in response to public outcry over their handling of the incident, thegovernment released ‘video evidence’ of the operation in an attempt toexonerate themselves from accusations of brutality and over-enthusiasm. Thevideo however, was heavily edited and did little to quell residual populardiscontent at the manner in which the Mahathir administration dealt with theissue.

Recent militant movements

More recent manifestations of militant Islam surfaced in the form of theal-Maunah (Brotherhood of Inner Power) movement that managed to success-fully pull off an arms heist from two Malaysian Armed Forces military campin Perak in June 2000. When the al-Maunah arms heist occurred, it proved notonly a surprise for the Malaysian people, but also an embarrassment for theMahathir administration given the manner in which members of the groupmanaged to penetrate the camp’s security infrastructure by dressing up inmilitary uniforms and driving jeeps painted in camouflage green. According topolice reports, the membership of al-Maunah, an erstwhile little-known cultled by a former army corporal Mohammad Amin Razali, numbered severalhundred (although the movement’s now-defunct website,www.al maunah.tripod.com, claimed a membership of 1000) and claimed tobe a Non-Governmental Organisation involved in martial arts. Numberedamong the 1000-strong membership were civil servants, security servicespersonnel, and even some UMNO members (New Straits Times 2000).

Malaysian security forces launched a high-profile operation against theal-Maunah camp in Sauk, Perak in July 2000. During the standoff 19 memberswere captured, but only after four hostages were taken and two non-Muslimsamong them executed. Following this, members of al-Maunah apprehended inthe raid were later charged with treason and plotting to overthrow thegovernment in order to bring into being an Islamic state. While the organis-ation was consequently disbanded and outlawed, what remains most alarmingabout the episode was the ease with which the militants breached security andgained access to a large cache of weapons.

In June 2001, the spectre of militant Islam reared its head again in Malaysiawhen nine members of another organisation which claimed to champion thecreation of a purist Muslim society in Malaysia via ‘Jihad’ were arrested in afailed bank robbery bid. Known as the ‘Jihad gang’, this group of militantswas connected to a range of crimes over a period of two years, including thebombing of a church, an Indian temple and a video centre, an attack on apolice station, the murder of a local politician, attempted murder involving the

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The Mahathir administration’s war against Islamic militancy 245

shooting of two ethnic Indians, and armed robbery. Police investigationssubsequently revealed the fact that all nine members were Malaysians whowere educated in the Middle East and Pakistan, had fought in Afghanistanduring the 1980s, and more recently, in Ambon (Indonesia) during thereligious riots there. It was during investigations into the activities of the‘Jihad Gang’ that information on another Jihadist organisation surfaced.

Several months after the uncovering of the ‘Jihad Gang’, Deputy HomeMinister Datuk Zainal Abidin Zin informed Parliament that the governmenthad detained another ten Islamist activists on the grounds that they weremembers of an underground militant group called KMM (Kumpulan MilitanMalaysia). The KMM was uncovered when a Malaysian was arrested for anattempted bombing of a shopping mall in Jakarta in August 2001. It wasalleged that the KMM was formed on 12 October 1995 by Zainon Ismail, andhad its roots in Halaqah Pakindo, a clandestine movement formed in 1986 asan alumni association for Malaysian graduates from religious institutions inPakistan, India, and Indonesia. The government later disclosed that eight ofthe 10 KMM detainees were PAS members, including Nik Adli Abdul Aziz, theson of Kelantan Mentri Besar Datuk Nik Aziz Nik Mat. Nik Adli wasallegedly elected leader by the KMM at a meeting of 12 senior members inKampung Seri Aman, Puchong, in early 1999, though it was later contendedby the government that real leadership came from Abu Bakar Bashir andHambali. According to government investigations and Nik Adli’s own ad-mission, the 34-year-old teacher had made frequent trips to Afghanistan (TheStar 2001). This admission formed the basis of government allegations thatNik Aziz was active in the Mujahideen resistance in Afghanistan during theera of the Afghan-Soviet war, and upon his return maintained connectionswith ‘the key leaders of radical groups in the region’ (Abuza 2002: 430).

What differentiated the KMM from other militant organisations uncoveredin Malaysia was the alleged regional scope of its operations. Though estab-lished in Malaysia, it has been suggested by several quarters, including theMalaysian government, that the KMM enjoys close links with the JemaahIslamiyah in Indonesia (Inside Indonesia 2002). Malaysian government sourceshave also revealed that the KMM is in fact led by Abu Bakar Bashir andRiduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, while Nik Azli is merely a‘nominal leader’. KMM was suspected to have participated in religiously-in-spired riots in Maluku and Ambon, and of having supplied arms to the radicalMuslims in the case of the latter. Upon their arrests, leaders were reportedlyfound to have in their possession ‘documents on guerilla warfare and mapreading, along with studies of militant groups in the Philippines, Chechnya,Afghanistan and Indonesia’ (AWSJ 2002). Concomitantly, the Malaysiansecurity forces launched a nationwide operation to capture remaining KMMmembers. At present, more than 70 are being detained without trial under theInternal Security Act for allegedly trying to overthrow the government throughviolent means in the name of Jihad.

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Post-11 September Malaysia

After the attacks of 11 September, investigations by US intelligence agenciesand their Southeast Asian counterparts uncovered Malaysia’s pivotal role as arendezvous point for the planning and facilitation of the terrorist attacks inNew York and Washington DC. Indeed, it has been suggested that ‘since theearly 1990s, al-Qaeda has found Malaysia to be a convenient base of opera-tions’, where militant Islamic ideology ‘has been able to graft onto a small butgrowing community of Islamic radicals’ (Abuza 2002: 444). In truth there werealready indicators that Malaysia was proving to be a haven for internationalIslamic militants long before the 11 September attacks. Already in 1995, WaliKhan Amin Shah, an international terrorist and a known associate of RamziAhmed Youssef, the man who was responsible for the 1993 World TradeCenter bombings in New York, was arrested in Malaysia. Another knownterrorist linked to Ramzi Youssef, Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, who emergedas a chief plotter of the 11 September attacks, was also believed to haveoperated out of Malaysia throughout the 1990s.

One of the suspects involved in the planning and implementation of the 11September attacks, Zacharias Massaoui, who has been accused conspiringwith Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda network to launch the attack oncivilians in the US, was known to have entered Malaysia. During his stay, hewas tracked by the Malaysian intelligence service and believed to have receivedassistance from a former Malaysian military officer, Yazid Sufaat. Yazid wasalso accused of providing shelter to two Yemeni hijackers who participated inthe 11 September attacks, Khalid Al-Midhar and Nawaf Al-Azmi, as well asTawfiq bin Atash, who would later be identified as one of the mastermindsbehind the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen. Throughtelephone intercepts, it further emerged that the operations chief of JemaahIslamiyah, Riduan Isamuddin (or Hambali), used Malaysia as a platform fororchestrating the activities of the terrorist organisation, known to be theSoutheast Asian arm of al-Qaeda. Malaysia was apparently also the locationfor three meetings of the Rabitatul Mujahideen, a coalition of Jihadist groupsfrom Southeast Asia organised around the Jemaah Islamiyah, in 1999-2000.Malaysia’s place in the web of international terrorism extends beyond itsapparent role as a ‘launch pad’ for terrorist activities, for it has also beeninsinuated by American intelligence reports that the necessary raw materialscould also be purchased in Malaysia relatively easily (The Star 2001).

The fact that Malaysia has been identified in the international anti-terrorismdragnet as a base from which militant Islamic groups and individuals operatedhas led Washington to label it as a ‘Terrorist-Risk State’ (Time 2002). Incertain respects, there is some substance to Washington’s concern. WhileMalaysian leaders have expressed publicly their unhappiness at being linked inany way to terrorist activity, Malaysian security officials do admit in privatethat Kuala Lumpur’s problems are rooted in its ‘visa-free’ policy towards most

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Middle Eastern states that enables al-Qaeda operatives and sympathisers toenter the country in the guise of financiers, businessmen, and tourists1. Thisprocess, they are quick to note, is almost impossible to monitor because of thesheer number of travellers involved.

While the Mahathir administration appears to be confronted with obstaclesin monitoring the activities of foreign militant networks in Malaysia, it hasnevertheless moved to deal with the threat of Islamic militancy on thedomestic frontier with impressive efficiency and effectiveness from an oper-ational perspective. Radicals associated with the al-Maunah and KMM organ-isations were swiftly rounded up. The Malaysian Special Branch which provedto be an instrumental component of the regional intelligence network thatexposed the Jemaah Islamiyah and later its connections with al-Qaeda,tracked down members of the organisation, and foiled potential attacks. TheInternal Security Act, in particular, has been employed as a decisive counter-terrorism measure against militants ‘identified’ by the surveillance state.

Another successful component of Malaysia’s operational strategy againstterrorism has been its commitment to multilateral cooperation initiatives. TheMalaysian government signed an anti-terrorism pact with Indonesia and thePhilippines in May 2002. Similar agreements were signed with Australia andthe US, in the case of the latter as part of ASEAN. Malaysia is also part of theFive Power Defence Agreement that pledged to re-orientate their 32-yearsecurity pact to counter international terrorism more effectively. Of particularinterest was the establishment of an anti-terrorism centre in Malaysia, osten-sibly in collaboration with the US. Given Mahathir’s vehement opposition toWashington’s conduct of the war on terror, the establishment of the anti-ter-rorism centre posed a potential problem for the Mahathir regime insofar as itsdomestic political standing was concerned. A quandary was quickly avertedhowever, when Malaysian leaders declared that Washington would haveneither influence over nor representation in the anti-terrorism centre, and thatas far as Kuala Lumpur was concerned, the initiative was undertaken indepen-dently as part of the government’s own counter-terrorism strategy.

In sum, it has been a combination of intelligence gathering, the swiftmobilisation of the Internal Security Act, the state’s effective control of thenational media, and close cooperation with neighbouring states that hasenabled the Malaysian government to detain suspected militants, dismantlemilitant cells, and curb future activities. Even terrorism experts who haveexpressed reservations towards the Malaysian government’s management ofthe problem will surely admit that compared to Thailand, the Philippines, andIndonesia, Islamic militants are finding Malaysia less of a safe haven than theymight have previously thought. There are, however, two observations thatrequire consideration.

First, in challenging the political legitimacy of the incumbent regime, mostof Malaysia’s militant groups appear to have a clear domestic political agenda.For example, while labelled a ‘deviationist’ group, the al-Maunah perpetrators

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of the raid on the army camps in Kedah pressed their political objectives whenthey demanded via radio communication with Malaysian security forces theresignation of Prime Minister Mahathir and his cabinet. Even in the case of theKMM, it is evident that of the three key objectives identified with theorganisation, namely 1) ‘to seek religious purity among Malay-Muslims’, 2) ‘toensure that PAS’ political struggle was maintained and encouraged’, and as along-term objective 3) ‘to implement Shariah within Malaysia’, all pertained todomestic political concerns (Kamarulnizam Abdullah 2003:7).

Second, investigations into links between these militant movements andexternal groups remain inconclusive. In other words, all indicators are thatthese groups were ‘home-grown’, and not under the control of externalorganisations, even if they do share similar ideologies. Links between theKMM and the Jemaah Islamiyah network have proven difficult to ascertain,to say nothing of ties with al-Qaeda. While purportedly supported by inter-national terrorist groups and hence sympathetic to their agendas, it was tellingthat the charges levelled by the state on the members of the group under theInternal Security Act mentioned only its attempt to overthrow the government.Despite attempts to associate KMM with external groups and regional objec-tives such as the grandiose vision of a Darul Islam Nusantara in the region,no mention was made of links with either Jemaah Islamiyah or al-Qaeda inthe formal charges. On the contrary, the history of Muslim militancy inSoutheast Asia indicates that more often than not, it has been Malaysians whohave supported the struggles of foreign militant groups, such as the Mu-jahideen in Afghanistan, the PULO in South Thailand, GAM in Aceh, andMuslim fighters in Maluku. These observations draw attention to the fact thatwhile militant Islamic ideologies in Malaysia may originate from externalsources, it has been domestic socio-political conditions that have allowed themto fester. In this respect, it is evident that the ideological battle, rooted in thedomestic socio-political sphere, forms an indispensable component to the waron terror.

Islamic ‘deviancy’ in Malaysia

For a long time, studies on Islam in Malaysia have focused on its intersectionwith the rich and vibrant indigenous culture that has given rise to syncretisticunderstandings and practices of the faith. Even when Islam took on politicalhues in pre-colonial Malay Kerajaan (traditional court government), it neverspilled over into militancy of the sort associated with Muslim extremismtoday. While the general consequence of this interaction between Islam andindigenous culture has been the production of a peaceful, status quo versionof Sunni Islam in a multicultural society, there have on occasion been‘deviationist’ groups identified by the Malaysian government whose teachingschallenge this tradition in Malaysia. In recent times, the Islamic DevelopmentDepartment, which operates under the supervision of the Prime Minister’s

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Office, has declared that there are 44 Muslim-based ‘deviationist cults’ operat-ing in Malaysia.

The concept of ‘deviancy’ has since become the ideological cornerstone ofthe Mahathir administration’s counter-offensive against militant Islam, wherethe ideological strategy has been premised on a policy of discrediting rendi-tions and interpretations of Islam that are incongruent with that of thestate-sanctioned version. At the heart of this strategy is the mobilisation ofstate Ulama and state-sanctioned Fatwa against what they allege to be deviantIslamic teachings. Theological and doctrinal debates over deviancy and theinterpretation of the Quran have been dealt with elsewhere, and need notoccupy us here. Suffice it to say that for current purposes, it is the politicalramifications associated with such contestations within Islam that take onparamount importance in respect to the Mahathir administration’s conduct ofits war against Muslim militancy.

Simply put, the concept of deviation refers to the distortion of Quranicteachings. In the first instance, this definition implies a ‘right’ or ‘authentic’Islam from which certain interpretations have ‘deviated’. Needless to say,such an assertion is clearly controversial from various perspectives. Forexample, conceptual lines are blurred when the idea of deviancy is juxta-posed against the notion of ijtihad or individual interpretation of thereligious texts. Notwithstanding its conceptual vagaries, it is a fact thataccusations of ‘deviancy’ remain arguably the most scathing in Islamic dis-course.

The language of deviancy in the history of Islam can be traced backto the struggle for legitimacy after the reign of the four rightly-guidedCaliphs between the followers of Ali (Shiat Ali), the cousin of theProphet Muhammad, and Abu Bakar, deemed to be the most qualified ofthe Prophet’s followers. At the heart of this tension is the debate as towhether lineage or ability should be the key determinant of credentials forthe leadership of the Muslim community. Today Shiism, which grewout of the Shiat Ali movement that challenged Abu Bakar’s legitimacy,has come to be viewed as deviationist ideology where Sunniism hasdominated. In Malaysia, Shiite Muslims associated with fundamentaliststrains of Islamic thought emanating from the Middle East, which theMalaysian religious authorities proclaimed as ‘deviant’, have regularlybeen arrested. The propagation of Shiite teaching is known to be an offencein predominantly Sunni Malaysia, and in 1997 the Malaysian governmentproposed to entrench this distinction by amending the constitution to makeSunni Islam Malaysia’s official Islamic sect, a move that would render thepractice any other form of Islam illegal (International Coalition for ReligiousFreedom 2001). In the same way, Baathism is seen as deviationist in a societysuch as Iran, where Shiism dominates. In other words, the prejudice ofestablished orthodoxy often dictates the nature and sources of Islamic devi-ancy.

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The ideological conundrum

In the aftermath of 11 September, there has been an increasing sense, evenamong former opponents of Southeast Asian authoritarian regimes in theWest, that heightened state surveillance and control was the best means toeradicate the threat of terrorism. This certainly appeared to be the case inMalaysia, where instruments of the state deployed against Islamic militancyhave managed significantly to disrupt the operational capacity of the JemaahIslamiyah network. However, concerns have also been raised that the Ma-hathir administration might capitalise on the alarmist atmosphere generatedby global awareness and concern for terrorism by evoking instruments of thestate so as to foster an exaggerated sense of threat and demonise politicalopponents as the sponsors of terrorism. While it must be said that to a certainextent these criticisms have been silenced by the Bali and Marriott bombings,which reinforced the reality of the threat in Southeast Asia, the crippling of theoperational capabilities of militant groups are a mere stop-gap measure unlessthe Malaysian government addresses the sources of sympathy support forIslamic militancy. It is on this account that attention invariably falls on theideological contours of Malaysia’s war on terror; it is also here that theMalaysian government’s counter-terrorism strategy is confronted with con-siderable challenges.

The ideological strategy of identifying and circumscribing Muslim ‘devi-ancy’, which lies at the heart of the Mahathir administration’s counter-offen-sive against militancy, is undeniably and intricately linked to the convolutionsof Islamic politics in Malaysia, where the ruling government has been underpressure from an increasingly popular Islamist opposition. This has in turnilluminated two problems for the ideological component of the Mahathiradministration’s counter-terrorism strategy. On the one hand, the credibilityof the government continues to be called into question over its creepingauthoritarian tendencies, and this has hampered its ability to harness resolutepopular support behind the fight against Islamic militancy on the home front.Second, the identification of deviant Islamic militants by the Malaysiangovernment has been a function of the exclusivist religio-political discourse inMalaysia, where a consequence of the Islamisation race between UMNO andPAS has been the denial of religio-political space for alternative modes ofrepresentation. Part of this process has been the government’s codification ofan interpretation of deviancy that appears politically inspired and foreclosureof Islamist counter-discourses that can potentially function as a structuralcheck on the emergence of fringe extremist interpretations of Islam of the kindthat motivates groups such as al-Maunah and Jemaah Islamiyah. Hence,rather than facilitating the illumination of the ‘un-Islamic’ character of someof these groups, the government has inadvertently fostered a religio-intellec-tual environment and created the conditions that precisely allow such narrow,militant interpretations to surface and garner appeal as voices of dissidence.

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Loyalty or credibility?

Responding to the growing threat from extremist groups, Defence MinisterNajib Tun Razak appealed to the Malaysian population’s sense of patriotismby emphasising ‘the need to have loyalty, and the need to instil loyalty’ inorder to confront these threats (Najib Razak 2001:85). In the final analysis,however, this article contends that beyond loyalty, the government’s ideologi-cal counter-offensive against extremist Islamic groups needs also to be built onits own credibility.

It was mentioned earlier that militant groups in Malaysia certainly sharesome measure of ideological affinity with foreign extremist Muslim move-ments. Concomitantly, the Malaysian government has accused many of thesemilitant groups of harbouring an interpretation of Islam that ‘deviates’ fromthe standard Sunni practice of the religion in Malaysia—hence their ‘deviance’label. Along these lines, both the government intelligence community andterrorism watchers associate these movements with the Wahabi organisationsof Jemaah Islamiyah and al-Qaeda, whose purported Islamic ideologies havebeen portrayed as deviant, and, as highlighted above, the government hasresponded by detaining their members on the basis of their subscription todeviant Muslim ideas and threat to national security.

The basis of government allegations against these groups has however beencontested by a broad spectrum of critics ranging from human rights groups,opposition parties, and many quarters from the academic (both secular andIslamic, it might be added) community. Chief among these criticisms is the factthat the government has provided insufficient evidence of the existence ofsome of these organisations, their militant intentions, or their alleged intimateconnections to international terrorist networks. To them, the government’scase against these ‘deviant’ movements appear to be politically motivated,given the regular reference to the relationship between these movements to theopposition PAS party. The government’s case against the KMM stands as acase in point. Given that several members of the KMM were members of PAS,suggestions surfaced that the accusations were manufactured by the Mahathiradministration in order for it to clamp down on the Islamic opposition. PASquickly responded by accusing the government of manipulating evidence inorder to pander to Washington. Others have raised doubts as to whether theKMM in fact exists (Fealy 2002). It is interesting that while the al-Maunahcase was handled in civil courts where conclusive evidence was provided ontheir activities, the KMM was charged under the internal security act and itsmembers were detained without trial. Upon its detention of alleged KMMmembers, the government had also declared that a White Paper on themovement’s militant activities and connections was being prepared. To date,this white paper has yet to be released. Indeed without substantial evidence,UMNO’s allegations that PAS and the KMM are linked may well workagainst the government as it allows PAS to exploit this as an instance of

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UMNO’s pandering to Western paranoia toward Islam, as well as anotherexample of the arbitrary application of state power to advance the interests ofthe ruling regime.

There are further political costs that the ruling regime may have to bear indemonising the Islamic militants. Since the late 1990s, the Mahathir govern-ment has been confronted with a credibility-deficit in the minds of theMalay-Muslim community, which has resulted in the loss of substantialMalay-Muslim support to PAS. In that respect, the government’s policies onsuspected Islamic militants continues to fuel the already highly-charged politi-cal atmosphere in Malaysia. Even if links between militant Islamist movementsand elements from PAS exist, given the decentralised nature of the PAS partycadre system, it is likely that these links fall outside the party leadership’sknowledge or direct purview. For instance, while no connection has beenmade between PAS and al-Maunah, it was revealed that a member of PAS’sTerengganu Youth Committee, Kamarudin Mustapha, was a member of theorganisation, and that PAS propaganda were allegedly found in the office ofthe organisation during a police raid. By and large however, Malaysiansociety, and in particular the Malay-Muslim community, continues to behighly circumspect when confronted with the government’s ‘evidence’ of theselinkages2.

UMNO, PAS and Islamic militancy

Since the early 1980s, the Mahathir administration has been engaged with theopposition PAS party in an ideological contest over representations of authen-ticity. Given the increasing prominence of Islam as the frame of reference forMalaysian politics, Islamic discourse lies at the heart of the political contestbetween UMNO and PAS. This contest has intensified of late, with theeconomic crisis and the Anwar Ibrahim episode used effectively by theopposition Islamists to undermine the Islamic credentials of the government.

In its endeavour to ‘out-Islam’ PAS, the Mahathir administration hascreated a mode of representation and inquiry that portrays the Islamicopposition in Malaysia not only as fundamentalists in their desire to transformMalaysia into an Islamic polity based on the reassertion of the caliphate, butalso as a deviant movement for wanting to do so. Consequently, the state hasused accusations of deviancy as a political tool to curtail the influence ofMuslim-based opposition. That said, the fact that the label of ‘deviationist’has become more politically than scripturally inspired has been attested to bythe fact that the state has been unable to take concrete action against PAS’ssupposed spread of ‘deviationist’ teaching.

The concept of ‘deviation’, as suggested earlier, assumes the existence of anauthentic interpretation. In the case of Malaysia, authenticity translates togovernment-sanctioned Islam, where all other opposition, including that of theIslamists who argue that state policies contradict the teaching of the Quran,

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is considered ‘deviationist’. This is clearly evident on the discursive terrain ofHudud law, where the Mahathir government has gone on record to accusePAS of being ‘deviationist’ for wanting to implement Hudud legislation thatthey deem to be unjust. Indeed, the manipulation of the concept for politicalends continues to be a pressing concern for those anxious about the politicisa-tion of religion in Malaysia. Through its Ulama, the government has exercisedhegemony over Islamic matters and has barred interpretations of the religioustenets and texts that differ from the official rendition3.

Consequently, discursive and doctrinal debate over the Quran and Hadithhave been construed as the ‘heretical’ questioning of divine will and henceproscribed (Liow 2003). To be sure, such an approach does circumscribe thepotential for militant interpretations of Holy Scripture to establish rootswithin Malaysia’s Muslim society. However, such a strategy also foreclosesintrospection and self-criticism within Islam, and in so doing denies theemergence of alternative, progressive interpretations of the religion fromsources other than the government, which as highlighted earlier is alreadyconfronted with a credit-deficit in the eyes of the Malay-Muslim communityin Malaysia. This state of affairs will not only continue to hand PAS theadvantage in terms of the political contest, but also ensures the survivabilityof militant mindsets, however modest their numbers, within the Muslimcommunity insofar as the appeal of extremism is concerned.

In the light of the October 2003 resignation of Mahathir Mohamad,questions may be asked if the Malaysian government’s approach towards theproblem of Islamic militancy and radicalism will change, given the new PrimeMinister Abdullah Badawi’s more consultative demeanour. In fact, Badawi hasgiven little indication of any intention to moderate hard-line policies inheritedfrom the previous administration. Indeed, he has already renewed detentionorders for the alleged KMM members who recently completed their two-yearincarceration under the Internal Security Act; he has also signed new detentionorders for 13 Malaysian students discovered to have been receiving training inmilitant Islamic ideology in Pakistan. It was also Badawi who oversaw thetabling of new counter-terrorism legislation which civil society groups andopposition parties have criticised as ‘excessive’ and open to abuse by lawenforcement agencies against legitimate expressions of political dissent.

Conclusion

When terrorism forced its way so dramatically onto the forefront of theinternational security agenda after 11 September, attention was drawn toSoutheast Asia as the likely ‘second front’ of the war on terror after Washing-ton’s campaign in Afghanistan to wipe out the Taliban regime and al-Qaeda.Malaysia in particular, was thrust into the limelight not only for its vocalsupport for the war on terror and equally staunch criticism of Washington’s

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conduct of this war, but also for its own domestic confrontation with Islamicmilitancy.

In the near term, the operational capacity of the Malaysian state andsecurity forces has successfully and effectively crippled militant Islamic organ-isations on the home front. Be that as it may, the crucial, longer term battleagainst Islamic militancy lies not in operational capacity but in the realm ofthe ideological contest, and it is here that the current focus on the in-tensification of state control and surveillance as the best means to countermilitant Islam may well prove to be a misplaced strategy that will underminethe key objective of undercutting sympathy and support for those militantgroups purporting to engage in an Islamic struggle. The government’s ideo-logical strategy thus far appears to be merely an extension of its operationalone—the mobilisation of state authority to substantially narrow the religio-political space and portray renditions of Islam alternative to the state’sinterpretations as examples of ‘heresy’ and ‘deviancy’. In other words, theMahathir administration’s war on Islamic militancy appears to be a functionof his regime’s domestic political contest with the Muslim opposition PAS,where the ruling coalition has been gradually losing ground, and its credibilityincreasingly brought into question.

Even if institutions of the state, such as the Internal Security Act, have apurpose to serve in the conduct of the war on terror, Malaysia (or indeed,other Southeast Asian states as well) might also benefit from piecemealdisclosure of relevant evidence in order to mobilise concerted support on thepart of the population for the government, especially in view of the upcominggeneral election. This would be particularly important if the faith and trust ofthe population is considered a critical ingredient in the war on terror inSoutheast Asia, as would presumably be the case. Such revelations could takethe form of white papers or even public trials, both of which would demon-strate to both domestic and international audiences the extent to which theMalaysian government is committed to fighting Islamic militancy and terror-ism, yet within the a legitimate framework of due process. It appears thatunless the government is willing to do so, its policies on militant Islam willcontinue to be a subject of intense scrutiny and criticism within the domesticpolitical sphere, for the appeal of political Islam, and in particular theextremist versions that give rise to militant mindsets, cannot be proscribedthrough force and coercion, and in the case of Malaysia the ideological battlewill certainly not be won by forcibly denying Islam political and discursivespace.

Notes

1. This information was divulged to the author by a former Malaysian security agency officialduring an interview in Kuala Lumpur on 8 September 2003.

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2. This sentiment can be gleaned from a perusal of letters and commentaries in media sourcesother than the government-linked newspapers, such as Harakah and Malaysiakini.

3. For example, almost all mosques now come under government control and very few stillremain under opposition control. The mosque officials such as the Imam and Bilal, as wellas the mosque committees, are all appointed by the religious department. Those Imam, Bilaland committee members who are known opposition supporters or who do not toe thegovernment line are removed and replaced. Every Friday, these mosques read the sermonprepared and distributed by the religious department of the government. Mosques are notpermitted to read their own sermons.

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