As both PAS spiritual leader Nik Aziz and the much younger editor of Harakah , Zulkifli Sulong, have reaffirmed, the ulama or Islamic scholars can be criticised, provided the critics do not denigrate Islam. It is certainly a very enlightened view which is in keeping with the spirit of the time.

It means that there is the need to balance the preservation of faith and collective self-identity on one hand, and the common search for justice and knowledge on the other.

It can, therefore, be argued that their view is more liberal, inclusive and democratic than some self-styled 'secular' or 'modern' political leaders who detain their critics without trial, and insolently assert that no one mad mullahs

What is the standard definition of national security? What are the standard criteria of detaining people without trial? What is the exact meaning of threat? If they cannot offer public account to these questions, and only think and act arbitrarily and capriciously, then they are no better than 'mad mullahs', and the Spanish Inquisitors in medieval or pre-modern Europe.

Progressive writers and secular intellectuals in the mainstream media must lecture them publicly, without fear or favour, on the true meaning of modernity: the elimination of arbitrariness and caprice in favour of reasoning and accountability in the administration of public affairs.

As a modern British scholar on national and international security observes:

In the real world, policymakers are only partially informed, do not fully understand other actors or the system, are capable of only limited rationality, and are highly constrained in what they can do.

Because of these imperfections, the policy-making process itself becomes an important component in the national security problem. Many factors within it have little to do with the problem itself, but none the less have a considerable influence on policies produced in the name of national security.

Barry Buzan, went on to remark in his People, States and Fear that for the practitioners of state policy, compelling reasons exist for maintaining its symbolic ambiguity because the appeal to national security as a justification for actions and policies which would otherwise have to be explained is a political tool of immense convenience for a large variety of sectoral interests.

Buzan challenges his readers to think national security in these terms:

What is the referent object for security? And what are the necessary conditions for security? Security as a concept clearly requires a referent object, for without an answer to the question 'the security of what?', the idea (of security) makes no sense.

To answer simply 'the state', does not solve the problem. Not only is the state an amorphous, multifaceted, collective object to which security could be applied in many different ways, but also there are many states, and the security of one cannot be discussed without reference to the others.

JAMES WONG WING ON is chief analyst of Strategic Analysis Malaysia (SAM) which produces the subscriber-based political report, Analysis Malaysia . Wong is a former member of parliament (1990-1995) and a former columnist for the Sin Chew Jit Poh Chinese daily. He read political science and economics at the Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. While in Sin Chew , he and a team of journalists won the top awards of Malaysian Press Institute (MPI) for 1998 and 1999.