And so the controversy over the Malaysian Muslim Scholars Association's (PUM) complaint continues unabated. This time the salvos come from the Islamist opposition party organ. The leader of the opposition spent some time in Parliament to dwell on this issue when he debated the Royal address recently.

If eminent, well-meaning citizens and civil-society NGOs are wondering why the controversy seems to have taken a life of its own, it's because it isn't simply an issue of freedom of expression. It is an issue of wounded dignity, that a grievous hurt has been inflicted on the collective Muslim soul. Rightly, the issue has now narrowly focused on what really matters: the insult and abuse of the prophet of Islam.

Here is one lesson for multicultural, multireligious Malaysia that freedom of expression can mutate into freedom to abuse and insult in the hands of lesser men and women.

It is perhaps impossible for non-Muslims and cultural Muslims detached from its traditional teachings to grasp that to ordinary Muslims, love of the Prophet is essential to faith, that Muslims revere the Prophet in all his human-ness and his historicity, for he was not only the bearer of the divine message, he was also the message.

PUM's memorandum has been condemned as "one of silencing dissent and monopolising Islam" and I must agree with this to a certain extent. But in our current political context, who would believe that the authorities would act on the complaint?

But thanks to the memorandum, suddenly we have a freedom of expression that we must nobly defend, and now our media have become a cherished forum of free expression under threat from religious zealots.

Propaganda machine

In our hysterical screams of 'freedom of expression' we have suddenly lost sight of the long-held perception that our media is only little more than just a propaganda machine, the very same media that served us pornography for weeks in Sept 1998.

It is the same media that taught our children what sodomy is and introduced to adult Malaysians liwat (sodomy), a word that hitherto we have never heard of.

Every one of us is realistic enough to accept that journalistic perfection in terms of objectivity is only an ideal and a guiding principle for the media profession. But let's face it, the New Straits Times is not The Guardian nor is it the equivalent of le Monde .

Ever since I knew how to read newspapers, our media have long ceased to be a conduit for balanced reporting or a forum for open debate on important issues of the day. Ours is an instrument of manipulation and control, its practitioners ready to descend to the sewers at the snap of the executive fingers.

It is in this light, that is the state of our media, and in the light of our present political game that we should interpret the present controversy.

It is hardly an issue of freedom of expression, for the writers who denigrate Islam and the Prophet have plenty of that. Their position is unassailable. They're there for a purpose, to neutralise the other Islam, the Islam that does not conform to the religious outlook of the ruling Malay elite.

This is the Islam that scrupulously guards its core traditional teachings, and its uncompromising position on moral values can be honed into a potent critique of corruption, abuse of power, misgovernance, nepotism and exploitation and neglect of the poor and the voiceless without actually vying for political power.

This also happens to be the Islam that is associated with the political opposition, rightly or wrongly. The survival of the ruling elite depends on selling the idea to Malaysians, especially the non-Muslim and English-educated Malay Malaysians, that the Islam beyond the purview of officialdom is anti-modern, sectarian and violent. This is Machiavellian politics at its ugliest.

It might seem ironic that in a nation that places Islam as the religion of the federation and in which the head of state takes the responsibility as its protector, the Muslims can claim that they're voiceless and their dignity trampled. But this is not too difficult to grasp for those who have been observing closely the nature of Malay politics and the role of religion in it, i e the war of two Islams.

What our civil society NGOs and luminaries who passionately defended the writers' freedom of expression should ask is, has the aggrieved party, in this case the Muslims who have been denied a voice, as represented by PUM and its supporters, been given a similar freedom in the media to state their views in full and challenge the ideas of the liberal writers on the same turf? Is an open dialogue possible?

Salman Rushdie affair

During the Salman Rushdie affair, at least the writer's detractors and supporters could sit together at a television forum and respectable British newspapers published views from both sides.

Looking back at the Salman Rushdie affair, I could see the parallel between PUM's invocation of the Penal Code and Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa (edict) of the death penalty on the writer whose book had profoundly insulted Muslims all over the world.

Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa and the bounty placed on Rushdie's head, which is really an offensive idea, drew attention away from the content of the book itself which merited objective criticism, debate and censure.

Instead it was Islam and Muslims that were placed in the dock, and the age-old prejudices of associating the religion with violence, hatred, obscurantism, anti-reason and anti-progress resurfaced with renewed vigour, only to be surpassed by Sept 11.

The fatwa and promised bounty was so inimical to the spirit of the age that the issue became Rushdie's right to freedom of expression, not one billion Muslims' right to freedom from abuse. It was incomprehensible to westerners why Muslims were willing to lay their lives to defend the honour of their Prophet (scores died in demonstrations in India against Penguin's decision to release the paperback edition of the book there).

I remember well Gai Eaton, a former British diplomat and a convert to Islam well known for the book Islam and the destiny of man , saying succinctly on British television that only Muslims (referring to writers like Rushdie) know where to stick in the needle.

But Rushdie was smart because he had an escape device when the going got tough. His abuse of the Prophet of Islam was through the vehicle of fiction, a post-modern fiction. But even Rushdie's supporter, Connor Cruise O'Brien, could see that his claim that the story was purely fiction was preposterous, calling Rushdie "disingenuous".

The current controversy in Malaysia is perhaps the end-result when the politicisation of religion goes into high gear and intellectuals become willing professional propagandists.

It is true that to a certain extent religious discourse should not be monopolised by a group of specialists in religion, for this would introduce clericalism into Islam.

Sensibilities and sensitivities

No one would disagree that the Muslim world is in urgent need of intellectual regeneration. Everyone whose lives are affected by Islam, Muslim or otherwise, has a right to participate in the discourse.

But those who are unable to respect the boundaries of their knowledge, which is what civilised discourse asks of in any field of knowledge, do so at the risk of their intellectual honesty being called into question.

In a modern plural society, the wise will always consider the sensibilities and sensitivities of his/her audience, for he/she is ever mindful of the balance between freedom and responsibility.

But even if freedom of expression can grotesquely mutate into freedom of abuse in the hands of unrestrained egos, invoking the Penal Code in what is essentially an intellectual battle only serves to draw attention away from what the real issue is.

Islam has survived Salman Rushdie and it will continue to survive intellectual provocateurs.

We only need to bear in mind Voltaire's words: "I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

I cannot agree more, for, falsehood tends not have a long shelf life.