The Cat's Paw

Hantu Laut

The Bar Council chief Lim Chee Wee  again made a fool of himself by saying there is nothing sinister about foreign funding. How would he knows.

As a lawyer it would be better for him to confine himself to matters of law. 

Just like they don't teach you the pitfalls of the business world in business schools, they also don't teach you the academic of espionage, covert operations and regime change in law schools.

I do agree not all foreign funding have bad intention but accepting their formal benefaction leaves you open to be a cat's paw when the benefactor decide to call on your gratitude. 

For starter read the following:

The United States government has been involved in and assisted in the overthrow of foreign governments (more recently termed "regime change") without the overt use of U.S. military force. Often, such operations are tasked to the Central Intelligence Agency(CIA).

Regime change has been attempted through direct involvement of U.S. operatives, the funding and training of insurgency groups within these countries, anti-regime propaganda campaigns, coup d'états, and other activities usually conducted as operations by the CIA. The U.S. has also accomplished regime change by direct military action, such as following the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989 and the U.S.-led military invasion of Iraq in 2003.

For your entree:

The U.S. has also covertly supported opposition groups in various countries without necessarily attempting to overthrow the government. For example, the CIA funded anti-communist political parties in countries such as Italy and Chile; it also armed Kurdish rebels fighting the Ba'athistgovernment of Iraq in the Second Kurdish-Iraqi War prior to the Algiers Agreement.

For your dessert:

Syria became an independent republic in 1946, but the March 1949 Syrian coup d'état, led by Army Chief of Staff Husni al-Za'im, ended the initial period of civilian rule. Za'im met at least six times with CIA operatives in the months prior to the coup to discuss his plan to seize power. Za'im requested American funding or personnel, but it is not known whether this assistance was provided. Once in power, Za'im made several key decisions that benefitted the United States. He approved the Trans-Arabian Pipeline (TAPLINE), an American project designed to transport Saudi Arabian oil to Mediterranean ports. Construction of TAPLINE had been delayed due to Syrian intransigence. Za'im also improved relations with two American allies in the region: Israel and Turkey. He signed an armistice with Israel, formally ending the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and he renounced Syrian claims to Hatay Province, a major source of dispute between Syria and Turkey. Za'im also cracked down on local communists. However, Za'im's regime was short-lived. He was overthrown in August,just four and a half months after seizing power.^{[11][12][13][14]}

Read more.

The Bar Council, Ambiga, Suaram and of the ilk have played into the opposition's hand and are doing the opposition's bidding. 

[edit]

Real donors or philanthropists only give to charitable causes to help alleviate human sufferings and expecting nothing in return. Anything outside this sphere is highly suspicious.

Some donor may look genuine and sincere and may not demand you to do their bidding immediately and as the Malay saying "air yang tenang jangan sangka tiada buaya" such request may come much later when you are vulnerable and feel indebted and more than ready to show your gratitude.

The U.S government have helped to overthrow many foreign governments they deemed not friendly to them by covertly funding and use of NGOs, individuals and opposition parties as vehicles to destabilise and create political upheaval.If all these clandestine methods failed , they will resort to openly funding armed rebellion, supplying the rebels with arms and money. More often than not they ended up installing worse and more evil regimes. 

Saddam Hussein of Iraq was a monster created by America using him to stage a long war against Iran, America's No.1 enemy. Saddam later turned his back on the Americans.

America's biggest political fiasco is  in  the Middle East where they have brought down reigning regimes, some, through CIA covert operations and destabilisation through people power. The Arab Spring has changed the political landscape of the Middle East that have brought rapid succession the ouster of dictators like Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia, Moammar Gadhafi in Libya, Ali Abdullah Saleh in Yemen and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt.

Egypt, may be the U.S biggest miscalculation. The springing people power and the helluva democracy America wanted to install have sprung a helluva surprise, the rise to power of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist party that may not be so friendly to the U.S. 

Washington is now in a quandary on how to deal with the situation. They have supported the Mubarak's regime that have blatantly trampled and abused its citizens and human rights for over two decades with the help of the American government who saw it fits to fund the evil regime as long as they stay friendly to Israel.

The U.S media now claimed it is the American people who freed the Arabs from tyranny and are in bafflement and anger when the recent Muslim rage against a film that insulted Muslims and Prophet Muhammad that killed the U.S Libyan Ambassador and a couple of other American, calling the Muslims ingrates when they should have been more grateful to the U.S. for giving them freedom and democracy.

"Many Americans are asking...indeed, I asked myself...how could this happen, how could this happen in a country we helped liberate, in a city we helped save from destruction" Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said.

I can only give her one answer, the U.S double standard foreign policy sucks. The growth of democracy in the Middle East is going to bring plenty more anti-American sentiment that have been suppressed for a long time by dictators supported by the U.S.

Why should the Muslims be grateful to the U.S who had killed hundred of thousands innocent Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan on their so-called war on terror.

Are Malaysians, gullible, too smart for their own good or just plain stupid like the Arabs who wanted democracy and freedom American style and eventually turned their back on the Americans.

People like Ambiga, Bersih, Suaram and the Bar Council have played into the hand of the big bullshit U.S brand of democracy and freedom..... freedom to cause turmoil and upheaval in what used to be one of the most peaceful countries on the globe.

Who is the super rich obscured Melayu businessman who admits he paid for Anwar's ride on the private jet. He is not even on Forbes Malaysia's rich list.

Below is the cost of charter of a Falcon 7X similar to the one he used.

Cost per flying hour = US$8800. 

Assuming total hours covered to ferry him from KL to Sabah, Sarawak and back was 15 hours, the total cost would be US$132,000 x 3.00 = RM396,000.00

That's not a lot of money if you are filthy rich.

The Falcon 7X is a long range jet that have a range of 5950 nautical mile and cost US$50 million new.

Nice to have very generous rich friends and a huge war chest.

Ten Reasons Countries Fall Apart

Some countries fail spectacularly, with a total collapse of all state institutions, as in Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal and the hanging of President Mohammad Najibullah from a lamppost, or during the decade-long civil war in Sierra Leone, where the government ceased to exist altogether.


Most countries that fall apart, however, do so not with a bang but with a whimper. They fail not in an explosion of war and violence but by being utterly unable to take advantage of their society's huge potential for growth, condemning their citizens to a lifetime of poverty. This type of slow, grinding failure leaves many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and Latin America with living standards far, far below those in the West. Read more.

Four Reasons Why Israel Will Attack Iran

Foreign Policy

Washington Post columnist David Ignatius created a tempest last week when he reported U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's prediction that Israel will attack Iran and its nuclear complex "in April, May or June." Ignatius's column was as startling as it was exasperating. When the sitting U.S. defense secretary -- presumably privy to facts not generally available to the public -- makes such a prediction, observers have good reasons to pay attention. On the other hand, the international community has been openly dealing with the Iranian nuclear issue for nearly a decade, with similar crescendos of anticipation having occurred before, all to no effect. Why would this time be different?

Further, an Israeli air campaign against Iran would seem like an amazingly reckless act. And an unnecessary one, too, since international sanctions against Iran's banks and oil market are just now tightening dramatically.

Yet from Israel's point of view, time really has run out. The sanctions have come too late. And when Israeli policymakers consider their advantages and all of the alternatives available, an air campaign, while both regrettable and risky, is not reckless.

Here's why:

Read more.

Dangerous Minds

BY JAMIE BARTLETT

A new study finds that an alarming number of young people are too trusting of what they read online. But is there anything we can do about it?

Fears about the corruption of young, innocent minds always accompany new technology. Socrates used to worry that the written word would promote forgetfulness. When the first printed books rolled off Johannes Gutenberg's press, many thought they would overwhelm young minds with too much information.Read more

The World's Most Miserable Rich Country

The Lap of Luxembourgery

So what if it has the world's highest per capita GDP? A visit to the debt-ridden capital of European complacency.

BY ERIC PAPE | SEPT/OCT 2011

In the dark heart of Europe lies a nation rotten to the core. Renowned as a secret banking haven where North Korean leader Kim Jong Il allegedly squirreled away billions of dollars, its economy is tied to the whims of capricious global money markets. The country's per capita external debt is 84 times that of the debt-ridden United States (some $3.76 million for each man, woman, and child). Democracy is a joke, undermined by a hereditary and unelected head of state who not only can dissolve parliament, but appoints some of its members in the first place. Beleaguered citizens worry about just how sustainable their ever-more-fragile country is, which is no surprise given that foreigners make up 44 percent of the population and the equivalent of another 25 percent invade the country daily just to do its work.

So where is this armpit of the European Union, this cancer of the continent? Greece? The Balkans? Not exactly. Behold the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, population 503,000, a tiny freckle on the map between Belgium, France, and Germany.

Sure, cyclists and hikers might see this bucolic country as a verdant paradise, with its rolling green hills and lush pastures. And bankers may marvel at its spectacular wealth: Luxembourg boasts the world's highest per capita GDP, $108,832 in 2010. But something must be wrong. The miserable Luxembourgers -- who rate lower than all but one other European country on the Happy Planet Index (they're tied with war-torn Sudan!) -- buy more cigarettes and alcohol and have a higher per capita carbon footprint than any other country. And yet their national motto is "We want to remain what we are."

I had to know: Could this hard-partying little duchy hold the secret to the dark forces now tearing apart Europe?

On the cloudless summer day when I arrived, the quiet, well-kept streets of Luxembourg's capital, creatively named Luxembourg City, seemed idyllic enough. The only time I sensed any sort of abyss was when I looked down from the elegant stone Pont Adolphe into the lush, precipitous gorge that cuts through town. An 18-piece military brass band was playing "Come Fly With Me" in the city center as well-dressed white people filtered in and out of luxury chain stores on the edge of the charming old town. In the distance, a row of investment banks glistened in the sun, identically armored with reflective, modern exteriors.

I wandered into a stylish bistro that leaked pulsing rhythms onto the Rue de la Boucherie, the trendiest street in the center of the old town -- the kind of place, the waiter told me, where bankers gather to knock back copious amounts of booze on weekends. A bottle of whiskey in Luxembourg, explained Panagiotis Meidanis, an 18-year-old server with a truncated pompadour, sells for half the price that it does in his native Greece, where people earn a fraction of the local income, especially now. "When we close on weekend nights, they always want more," said Meidanis of his customers. "But for some reason they never get into fights here."

But what did he know? I needed to find a real Luxembourger. Across from the 19th-century Gare de Luxembourg with its art nouveau flourishes, I met with Georges Hausemer, who has published one of the remarkably few novels in the native Lëtzebuergesch language. Hausemer's 1998 novel, Iwwer Waasser (Above Water), is a tale of a broken marriage set in the world of banking that the author describes as a "portrait in miniature" of Luxembourgian society.Read more.

What did the Oslo killer want?

Posted By Blake Hounshell

I have just finished reading through what appears to be the 1,518-page manifesto and handbook of the perpetrator of the worst terrorist attack in Norwegian history.

The manifesto, bylined by someone calling himself Andrew Berwick, is entitled "2083: A European Declaration of Independence" and was posted on Stormfront.org, a white supremacist website, and discovered by American blogger Kevin I. Slaughter. [UPDATE: Norwegian TV has confirmed that the author is indeed the Oslo shooter, according to the New York Times.]

In it, "Berwick" declares himself a "Justiciar Knight Commander," a leading member of a "re-founded" Knights Templar group formed at an April 2002 meeting in London. He claims the founding group has 9 members, whom he does not name, and that three other sympathizers were not able to attend the original meeting.

"Our purpose," the document reads, is to "seize political and military control of Western European countries and implement a cultural conservative political agenda."

In grim, apocalyptic language, it advocates attacks on "traitors" across Europe who are supposedly enabling a Muslim takeover of the continent.

"[W]e should… not exceed (per 2010) aprox. 45 000 dead and 1 million wounded cultural Marxists/multiculturalists in Western Europe," the author writes. "The time for dialogue is over. We gave peace a chance. The time for armed resistance has come."

The manifesto also provides detailed instructions for everything from making a bomb to raising funds to preparing physically and mentally for what the author describes as a coming three-stage "civil war" between patriotic nationalists and "multiculturalists" who are, wittingly or not, destroying European civilization.

Filled with hateful rantings against Muslims -- whom the author claims are on a trajectory to take over Europe and erase its culture patrimony -- the writing bears a great resemblence to online comments attributed to Anders Breivik, 32, the confessed architect of a massacre that has so far claimed nearly 100 lives.

The author also claims to be Norwegian, and says that English is not his native language. And at the bottom of the document are several pictures of Breivick in different outfits, including the frogman costume pictured above.

Most suggestive of all, perhaps, is the detailed diary the author kept of his 82-day attempt to secretly build a fertilizer bomb while hiding out at a farm purchased explicitly for that purpose -- chronicling his attempts to construct a device that would kill as many people as possible.

Here's his entry from June 13, when he had his first successful detonation:Read more.

Nationalism Rules

BY STEPHEN M. WALT

What's the most powerful political force in the world? Some of you might say it's the bond market. Others might nominate the resurgence of religion or the advance of democracy or human rights. Or maybe it's digital technology, as symbolized by the Internet and all that comes with it. Or perhaps you think it's nuclear weapons and the manifold effects they have had on how states think about security and the use of force.

Those are all worthy nominees (no doubt readers here will have their own favorites), but my personal choice for the Strongest Force in the World would be nationalism. The belief that humanity is comprised of many different cultures -- i.e., groups that share a common language, symbols, and a narrative about their past (invariably self-serving and full of myths) -- and that those groups ought to have their own state has been an overwhelmingly powerful force in the world over the past two centuries.

It was nationalism that cemented most of the European powers in the modern era, turning them from dynastic states into nation-states, and it was the spread of nationalist ideology that helped destroy the British, French, Ottoman, Dutch, Portuguese, Austro-Hungarian, and Russian/Soviet empires. Nationalism is the main reason the United Nations had fifty-one members immediately after its founding in 1945 and has nearly 200 members today. It is why the Zionists wanted a state for the Jewish people and why Palestinians want a state of their own today. It is what enabled the Vietnamese to defeat both the French and the American armies during the Cold War. It is also why Kurds and Chechens still aspire to statehood; why Scots have pressed for greater autonomy within the United Kingdom, and it is why we now have a Republic of South Sudan.

Understanding the power of nationalism also tells you a lot about what is happening today in the European Union. During the Cold War, European integration flourished because it took place inside the hot-house bubble provided by American protection. Today, however, the United States is losing interest in European security, the Europeans themselves face few external threats, and the EU project itself has expanded too far and badly overreached by creating an ill-advised monetary union. What we are seeing today, therefore, is a gradual renationalization of European foreign policy, fueled in part by incompatible economic preferences and in part by recurring fears that local (i.e., national) identities are being threatened. When Danes worry about Islam, Catalans demand autonomy, Flemish and Walloons contend in Belgium, Germans refuse to bail out Greeks, and nobody wants to let Turkey into the EU, you are watching nationalism at work.

The power of nationalism is easy for realists to appreciate and understand, as my sometime collaborator John Mearsheimer makes clear in an important new paper. Nations -- because they operate in a competitive and sometimes dangerous world -- seek to preserve their identities and cultural values. In many cases, the best way for them to do that is to have their own state, because ethnic or national groups that lack their own state are usually more vulnerable to conquest, absorption, and assimilation.Read more.

What Happens When The U.S Froze Foreign Assets ?

The U.S. seized $30 billion from Qaddafi. Do we get to spend that money?

By Brian PalmerPosted Tuesday, March 1, 2011, at 5:36 PM ET

President Obama ordered the Treasury to block $30 billion worth of Libyan assets on Friday, the "largest amount of foreign assets ever seized in an American sanctions action." What will happen to all that money?

Nothing much. While some news stories refer to the president's move as a seizure, it's more accurate to call it a freezing or blocking, since the government hasn't actually taken control of any assets. Rather, the executive order prohibits U.S. institutions from transferring money out of any account owned by Qaddafi, his family and associates, or the Libyan government. Qaddafi will maintain title to his assets, and the accounts will continue to accrue interest until the order is repealed. As for stocks or other investments that are capable of declining in value, banks have a choice. They can simply leave his holdings as they are, even if the investments turn sour. Alternatively, they can apply to the Office of Foreign Assets Control—the agency responsible for enforcing trade sanctions—for a specific license to manage or liquidate the accounts.

The Treasury is normally inclined to grant such licenses, because allowing the investments to shrivel is inconsistent with the purpose of the policy. Asset blocks aren't just meant to punish international criminals; they also protect money for successor governments. The Treasury is trying to prevent Qaddafi from absconding with Libya's wealth. Many past presidents have used asset blocks to prevent this sort of plundering. Shortly after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, Iraqi officials began stealing money from bank accounts owned by Kuwaiti nationals. The Treasury Department blocked those accounts to preserve Kuwaiti capital. It did the same thing with Bosnian accounts after the Serbian invasion.

Qaddafi can probably kiss his money goodbye. The president, the Treasury secretary, and Congress each have the authority to repeal the block (the latter by a joint resolution), but they are extremely unlikely to do so during Qaddafi's lifetime. The Libyan leader probably has no recourse in the court system, either, because the law that permits the president to freeze foreign assets doesn't provide for judicial review and the United States doesn't recognize the authority of any international court to mediate such a dispute.

Once Qaddafi is dead or out of power and the United States has recognized a successor government, the president will lift the block on assets owned by the Libyan government itself. The future of Qaddafi's personal assets is less clear. Except in wartime, the president doesn't have the authority (PDF) to seize blocked money unilaterally and give it to someone else. He might persuade the courts to do so, however, if he can prove the assets were obtained through corruption or money laundering. In that case, a judge might transfer title to the government, which could redirect it to Libya's new leadership. Read more.

The Serpent King

How a notorious Malaysian wildlife smuggler was brought to justice -- and what it tells us about stopping the world's most profitable black market.

BY BRYAN CHRISTY |

It began almost innocently. A broken lock on a suitcase moving through Kuala Lumpur International Airport this summer led to an odd discovery: nearly 100 baby boa constrictors, two vipers, and a South American turtle, all hidden inside. It was a fairly modest cache for a wildlife smuggler, but the man who claimed the suitcase was no ordinary criminal. He was Anson Wong Keng Liang, the world's most notorious wildlife trafficker. And instead of a slap on the wrist, which he might reasonably have expected, Wong was about to receive a surprising punishment.

From the tiny Malaysian island of Penang, in a storefront no larger than your average nail salon, Wong commanded one of the world's largest wildlife trafficking syndicates. Much of the work Wong's company, Sungai Rusa Wildlife, had done since he got into the business three decades ago was above-board: He legally wholesaled tens of thousands of wild reptiles annually, making him the likely source for many of the snakes, lizards, turtles, and frogs on sale in American pet stores. But using a private zoo as a cover, he also offered an astounding array of contraband, including snow leopard pelts, panda bear skins, rhino horns, rare birds, and Komodo dragons. He moved everything from chinchillas to elephants, smuggling critically endangered wildlife from Australia, China, Madagascar, New Zealand, South America, and elsewhere to markets largely in Europe, Japan, and the United States. For a man capable of brokering these kinds of deals, Wong's arrest over a suitcase of boa constrictors was the equivalent of a Mexican narcotraficante getting caught with a few marijuana cigarettes in his pocket.

Wong's long career beyond the reach of the law offers a window on the illegal wildlife trade and our broken system to combat it. Underfunded law enforcement, government corruption, controversy-shy NGOs, and a feeble international legal framework have yielded few inroads against wildlife syndicates or kingpins like Anson Wong. Wong's arrest and his sentencing in November 2010 provide a lesson on how to change that.

---

The Things They Carried
Scenes from the illegal
wildlife trade.

The illegal wildlife trade is often described in the press as a $10 or even $20 billion-a-year industry, just behind illegal drugs and weapons trafficking in scale. But in truth, no one really knows how big the illegal wildlife trade is; the few serious efforts to quantify it have failed. Certainly the range of life forms on offer -- timber, fish, exotic pets, coral, ivory, skins, supplies for traditional Asian medicines, and on -- represents billions of dollars a year, legal and illegal. China alone consumes vast amounts of endangered species -- freshwater turtles, spiny anteaters, even tigers -- as delicacies or for medicinal purposes, while other countries in Asia and the rest of the world collect them as pets, or make watchbands, scarves, perfume, furniture, and wall ornaments out of them. What makes the illegal trade so lucrative is its minimal risk: Few traffickers are ever caught, fewer still are prosecuted, and those who are convicted generally end up paying fines the size of parking tickets. Almost no one goes to jail. As a result, the illegal wildlife trade may be the world's most profitable form of transnational crime.Read more.

Will PAS Be The Next Powers That Be?

How Malaysia's right-wing Islamist party became the country's best hope for political reform.

BY DUSTIN ROASA |

On Dec. 31 of last year, a Catholic newspaper with a circulation of less than 15,000 found itself at the heart of a major controversy in Malaysia. In 2007, the government had ordered the Kuala Lumpur-based Herald to stop using "Allah" to refer to a non-Islamic God, as the paper -- located in a majority-Muslim country -- had been doing for years. The paper sued, and when the case finally made its way to the High Court, a judge sided with the Herald and overturned the ban.

Protests followed immediately, with masked men on motorbikes firebombing several churches and demonstrators taking to the streets. Tension between the country's Muslim Malay majority and its Chinese and Indian minorities was already at a low boil, thanks to Malaysia's ruling coalition and its dominant political party, the United Malays National Organization (UMNO). Through policies such as pro-Malay affirmative action, the government had attempted to exploit the country's ethnic divisions in order to deflect attention from its economic mismanagement and corruption.

But as Muslim anger with the Allah case boiled over, an unlikely ally came to the paper's defense: Malaysia's opposition Islamist party, the Pan-Islamic Party of Malaysia (PAS). PAS President Abdul Hadi bin Awang (above) publicly supported the paper's right to use the word. "PAS would like to state that, based on Islamic principles, the use of the word Allah by the people of Abrahamic faiths such as Christianity and Judaism is acceptable," he said.

It was an odd turn for Malaysia's competing political parties: The ostensibly secular UMNO was stoking Muslim outrage, while PAS, which was founded half a century ago with the stated goal of transforming Malaysia into an Islamic state guided by the Quran, was calling for interfaith understanding. Yet it fit an emerging pattern. In the last five years, PAS has been moderating its onetime deeply conservative stance in order to reach out to non-Muslim Indian and Chinese voters, who account for nearly a third of the population.

The tactics have paid off. PAS has attracted more than 20,000 non-Muslim members, astonishing for a country where political parties are strictly divided along ethnic and religious lines. The support helped the party, along with its partners in the opposition People's Pact coalition, win an historic one-third of parliamentary seats in the 2008 national election, denying the UMNO a two-thirds majority for the first time since Malaysia's independence in 1957. Many Malaysian political observers are predicting that the opposition will finally wrest power from the UMNO-led ruling coalition in the next election, due by 2013.

But that victory is contingent on PAS's ability to perform a delicate balancing act. The party must convince its Muslim base that it is not abandoning its religious principles while quelling fears among non-Muslims that it is a radical party bent on scrapping Malaysia's secular constitution.

"I've always looked at the Islamic basis of the party as inclusive in nature," Khalid Samad, a PAS reformer and member of parliament, told me recently. "The party is for the benefit of all, not just Muslims." I had traveled to Kuala Lumpur's predominantly Indian neighborhood of Brickfields to have lunch at a local hotel restaurant with Khalid and Hu Pang Chau, the Chinese head of the non-Muslim wing of PAS. The two men are a driving force behind PAS's recent transformation, the second major shift in the party's history.

Originally a branch of UMNO, PAS broke away as an independent party in 1955 as a challenge UMNO's secularism. It was the first Islamist party in Southeast Asia -- and one of the first in the world -- to come to power through elections, winning more than a dozen parliamentary seats and control of two state governments in Malaysia's first election after independence. But while PAS officially supported the establishment of an Islamic state, in its early years it did so only vaguely, preferring instead to emphasize Malay identity over religion.

Then came the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which convinced Muslims around the world -- including Khalid, who at the time was studying in Britain alongside Muslim peers from the Middle East and India -- that Islam could be a political force. Following the Iranian example, PAS replaced its professional leaders with ulama, or religious scholars. By the early 1980s, the party was openly calling for an Islamic Malaysia.

The agenda sat poorly with UMNO's Mohamad bin Mahathir, who won election as prime minister in 1981 and proceeded to rule for 22 years. Mahathir was openly contemptuous of PAS and often had its members -- including Khalid -- arrested under Malaysia's Internal Security Act. At the same time, he worked to co-opt the Muslim vote, in part by enlisting popular Islamic activists to help the party. The tactics had the effect of pushing PAS further to the right in an effort to distinguish itself from the ruling party. By the early 2000s the party was once again aggressively touting its Islamist credentials.

By the 2004 parliamentary election, however, PAS's piety had become a political liability. Mahathir had stepped down as prime minister, but PAS was ill-placed to fill the vacuum he left behind; Malaysia's moderate Muslims and non-Muslims had come to embrace the progressive, development-focused Islam touted by Mahathir's replacement, Abdullah Badawi. The party took a drubbing at the polls that year, winning only seven seats.

After some soul searching, the PAS leadership attributed the poor showing to its overtly Islamist stance and failure to attract young and non-Muslim voters. "Most non-Muslims, especially those in the Chinese community, would tell you that PAS are fundamentalists and extremists," Hu told me over lunch, as we looked out over a tangle of high-rise construction sites in Brickfields. "If you support PAS, everyone will have to convert to Islam and give up speaking their mother tongue." PAS's political niche sat awkwardly with the multiculturalism of modern Malaysia: "If you are interested in governing a nation that only has mosques and doesn't have temples or pig farms or alcohol, then you are restricting yourself to governing Mecca or Medina," Khalid said, to booming laughs from Hu.Continue reading.