That Umno and PAS have not resolved their internal contradictions towards the proposed Malay Unity talks becomes clearer by the day. The two political parties have ground to a stalemate, each accusing the other of bad faith and neither prepared to cut the Gordian's Knot that hinders it. So, we have a daily diet of the other's bad faith and little in the way of good faith.

Why so is clear: resistance within each to the talks. Neither Umno nor PAS accepts the other's good faith, with each bent on stealing a march over the other. The Umno initiative is viewed with suspicion in PAS, and whose response equally so in the other. And there is the niggling backdown of one important element left out.

Umno can say the National Justice Party, Keadilan, is not a Malay party, and PAS could go along. But it is an important component in this search for Malay unity. If nothing else, how the talks would fare depends much on the fate of Keadilan's eminence grist, jailed former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim.

He is the icon which sustains both - one in its antipathy and the other as a rallying call for Malay support. But if he should be released, as his supporters demand, internal problems within the two parties could only escalate.

So, the talks are as much to strengthen their respective ground, which could flounder if he is released and joins Keadilan, Umno or PAS. He is, in short, the joker in the pack in this search for unity.

Meeting with pagans

But Umno and PAS members are disenchanted at how relevant Malay unity now is and what the talks would achieve. It is a political solution to a cultural hiatus, that the two parties must struggle even harder than it wants to with the other political party to convince members that they negotiate from strength.

This view is muted in Umno but not in PAS. PAS leaders explain to their members why they partake in the talks by relying on historical and religious allusions, why PAS could meet Umno for talks without losing faith. This is so telling and expressive that Umno is tongue-tied to respond.

The Prophet Mohamed's Hudabiyah accord with the pagans 1,400 years ago is how PAS president Fadzil Nor justifies the talks with Umno. If the Prophet Mohamed could talk to the pagans, why not PAS with Umno? Another variation, which Harakah , the PAS journal, expands with relish, is God meeting Iblis (in the Christian tradition, Satan) in the Garden of Eden before Adam ate the apple, as justification for PAS meeting Umno.

Umno should have responded that in the Hudabiyah accord, it was the pagans, like PAS now, who insisted upon conditions before they would meet the Prophet. And God sought to meet Iblis in the Garden of Eden as Umno with PAS. This is as I view it as a non-Muslim and a layman. No doubt, the anti-PAS ulama view in Umno could embellish on this. It has not. Why?

Confusion on the ground

That is not enough. Umno leaders find they cannot talk to the members as they once could. More than Malay unity is the confusion in the Umno ground. Malay unity is only one major problem Umno has with its members. That mainstream newspapers, radio and television, ignore branch and division meetings, which, by past statements, are now held, is one pointer that all is not well on the ground.

So, while for PAS, the Malay unity talks is the only game in town, for Umno it is one of several, and in all of which it does not hold the aces. Umno tries to kick-start the stalled negotiations with fresh incentives, but it cannot. It allowed the runup to the talks to descend into farce. However one looks at it, PAS now has the upper hand. But this does mean there would be Malay unity talks between Umno and PAS yet.