So now it appears that the Prime Minister of Malaysia, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, is talking the language of jihad as well. Not to be outdone by Umno's arch-nemesis PAS, the leadership of the Umno party has been taking up the concerns and ideas of the Islamist opposition party in no uncertain terms.

Speaking to a group of Muslim businessmen and intellectuals at the Diplomatic Club of Qatar, Mahathir called for a revitalisation of the spirit of jihad to animate the Muslim countries of the world today, so that Muslims will be able to confront the challenges of globalisation and the Muslim world would not continue drifting apart and fragmenting. To master the latest communications technology in the Information age was, for him at least, the real jihad that awaits Muslims.

Just how the entire Muslim world is going to meet this challenge remains an open question - particularly when we consider the contradictions that exist in the Muslim world at the moment. One has to ask how the Muslims are ever going to be able to catch up with the 21st century when there remains vast pockets of illiteracy, poverty and underdevelopment in so many parts of the Muslim world today - more often than not right at the doorstep of their political leaders and rulers themselves.

Apart from such calls for jihad on the international level, the Umno party has also taken the war of words to the domestic front. To this end, Umno has now opened up a new jihad website of its own, [#1] jihad-UMNO.online.com [/#]. The website features a number of articles and commentaries that describe how Umno's political struggle has actually been part of a great jihad all along. We are told, for instance, that Umno is actually the biggest Islamic party in Malaysia, that it was Umno that was defending the cause of Muslims the world over and that Umno's jihad has been aimed at upholding the rule of Islam (kedaulatan Islam).

That the leadership of Umno now feels the need to play the game of jihad is itself an indicator of how the political terrain in the country has shifted towards the Islamist register. After its appalling performance at the last general election, Umno (rightfully) feels the urgent need to win back some much-needed support from its natural constituency, the Malay-Muslims. It also knows that Islam and Islamic concerns are something that it cannot ignore or allow to fall into the hands of PAS exclusively.

For Umno to take up the cause of jihad is not necessarily a bad thing. For a start, it means that the concept of jihad itself is now up for grabs and open for contestation. As the contestability of concepts is a fundamental part of any political process, it is quite right for the concept of jihad to come under competition and contestation too. Contesting the use and meaning of such terms would help to ensure that we do not inhabit a static discursive arena where the meaning of political terms remain fixed indefinitely - that would in effect spell the death of politics and the political process itself.

But the way that the Umno party has tried to enter the Islamist arena and to play by the same rules of the Islamists is bound to have serious and long-lasting implications for the political, social and cultural development of this country in the long run. There are at least three major factors that have yet to be considered in detail here:

Inflation of Islamist discourse

The first problem that arises with Umno's newly-revitalised Islamist fervour is that it will invariably lead to the inflation of Islamist discourse in the country. By this we mean the tendency to resort to more and more Islamist terms and ideas when dealing with matters of state or daily government.

While it is understandable that Umno does not want to concede precious discursive ground to the Islamists of PAS and other Islamist opposition movements, there is also the danger that by taking up such Islamist concerns Umno will only help to increase the penetration of religion (more specifically Islam) into the mainstream of national politics. This can only lead to a further normalisation of religious discourse in political practice, and it contributes to the steady erosion of a non-sectarian political culture which does not favour any particular religion or religious community in the country.

The inflation of Islamist discourse also has another side to it - it carries the potential of alienating those who are outside the Muslim community and it threatens to introduce an internal frontier between Muslims and non-Muslims. One can only wonder aloud about how the non-Muslim communities are meant to take all this, and how the Muslims in the country might react if other parties start talking about religion non-stop. (How, for instance, would the public react if other parties start championing the cause of Hinduism, Buddhism or Christianity in the country?) Coming at a time when the country needs to concentrate on broader goals like nation-building and getting the economy back on line, one can only question the wisdom behind Umno's decision to talk the language of Jihad at this point.

Even if we were to bracket aside the concerns of non-Muslims (and secular Muslims) who may not be all that happy with the direction that politics in this country is heading, there remain other unanswered questions that cannot simply be ignored. Where will all this lead to? Will we face a race between Umno and PAS trying to out-Islamise each other even further? And should the two parties succeed in upping the stakes in the Islamisation race of the country, where will it take Malaysia? Will we eventually come to a point where we cannot even distinguish between Umno and PAS? Those who fear the prospect of an Islamic state being introduced in the country through the back door need not worry too much at this stage, for if the lessons of history have anything to teach us, it is that manouevres such as what Umno is attempting now will not even work in the long run.

Why Umno's 'jihad' doesn't wash

The reason why Umno's jihad doesn't have all that much credibility is that the people who are leading this jihad are not exactly the best Islamic models themselves. The fact that the prime minister has been (unfairly, I believe) compared to a number of anti-Islamic baddies ranging from the Shah of Iran to the great Pharoah of ancient Egypt is already a dangerous sign. This shows just how far he has been alienated from and rejected by a substantial section of the Malay-Muslim electorate. To play the game of jihad at this stage does not add to one's Islamist credentials - it only makes one look even worse compared to the ideal that one desires to project.

The impasse that the Malaysian elite now faces is not unique to Malaysia. There have been many other Muslim governments and leaders who have tried to project their own Islamic image in the face of opposition from local Islamists. This has happened in countries like Tunisia, Libya, Iraq, Egypt, Pakistan and Turkey - and in all these cases such projects have ended in failure.

The reason for these failures is quite obvious if we look at their history. Most of these governments have embarked on modernising programmes of their own. They tried to develop and modernise their economies and societies and they hoped that by doing so they would also work towards the political liberation of their people. Muammar Ghadaffi's infamous 'Green Book' plan, which sought to create a hybrid ideology based on Islam and Socialism, is an example of such a botched approach. So was Gammel Abdul Nasser's experiment with Pan-Arabism which merged ethno-nationalism, Islam and Third Worldist concerns together.

But all these regimes failed because they were led from the top and they failed to fully integrate the totality of their societies in their vast and ambitious nation-building programmes. Modernisation in the Muslim world was eventually discredited because it was identified with corruption, abuse of power and the perpetuation of an elite lifestyle that stood in stark contrast to the poverty and underdevelopment of ordinary people. The result was growing resentment from below and the gradual discrediting of those at the top. When these leaders began to persecute their Islamist opposition (such as Nasser's attacks on the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, the Ikhwan'ul Muslimun movement), the recipe for disaster was there.

To a lesser extent, Malaysia can be put in the same boat. For generations the Umno-led government has tried to push the country into the modern age through a programme of intensive economic development. But this led to foreign capital penetration, uneven economic development and the creation of a neo-feudal political culture based on patronage and clientelism instead. In the race for development, the integrity of some important public institutions was also severely compromised by a State that was a little too keen to use its prerogatives. The ruling elite has also shown disdain and contempt for the Islamists in their midst, labelling them as backward village folk blindly led by imam and lebai . Those who chose to confront the state and challenge its will (such as the Darul Arqam movement and the militant Islamist leader Ibrahim 'Libya' Mahmood) were branded extremist religious fanatics instead.

The Malaysian elite may have been successful at developing the country's economy and infrastructure (something that nobody can deny), but this success came at a cost. Islamist opposition groups have been quick and adept at turning the frustration and anxiety of the people to their advantage. In the long run, Umno and the government were seen as un-Islamic and secular in orientation, leading to the impasse that we see today.

The Other 'Jihad'?

To say that the situation is lost and that there is no way out of this predicament is to fall prey to narrow cynicism that is unwarranted. All political situations, by their political nature, are open to change and re-direction. What we are facing in the country now is no exception.

For the major Malay-Muslim political parties in the country to start talking about jihad and the need for an Ummah -tic struggle is perhaps normal in the context of a predominantly Muslim country. What is sad about the current discursive exchange, however, is that the understanding of jihad remains so narrowly fixated on notions of violent struggle, political opposition and the need to create artificial boundaries between the Muslim Ummah and the Other. This is clear when we look at how Umno understands the meaning of jihad as well.

The fact that the leadership of the party continues to talk about the need to close the boundaries of Islam and to protect the Muslim Ummah from a host of external threats confirms the belief that this is an understanding of jihad predicated solely on a simplistic dialectical opposition between Islam and the Other. After so many centuries, Muslim leaders and thinkers still reside within what the contemporary Muslim thinker Ebrahim Moosa has called the 'epistemology of Empire' which sees the frontiers of the Muslim community and Islamic civilisation as tension-points that need to be policed and guarded. No wonder so many Muslims today are so defensive and fearful about Islam- despite the fact that it is the fastest growing religion in the world!

But there are other ways that we can think of jihad . As the Prophet Muhammad himself once said, the real struggle ( jihad akbar ) is the jihad that we fight against ourselves and within ourselves. This is the jihad against the nafsu (egoistic desires), anxiety and fears within all of us. This would include not only our vain and conceited material desires but also the other all-too-human weaknesses that accompany us in our daily lives: racism, ignorance, xenophobia, class prejudice, corruption and intolerance, to name but a few.

Such a jihad would be one that is directed towards the ends of creating a progressive school of Islamic thought, one that addresses the needs and concerns of humanity as a whole (and not just the Muslim community exclusively) in the light of present-day realities. This would be a jihad based on the values of Islam that are progressive and positive: humanism, rationalism and enlightenment.

While such a view of jihad may not be every intolerant fanatic's cup of tea, it is at least an understanding of jihad that is able to transcend the confines of the specific faith community that is the Muslim world. It may not be a jihad based on notions of political greatness or instrumental myths about some fabled 'Golden Age' that hardly existed, but it will, at least, be an understanding of jihad that escapes the grimy clutches of political parties that are using and abusing the discourse of Islam for the sake of their own (very worldly and profane) struggles in the gutters of politics.