The Malay unity talks are stalled. Umno, for its survival, needs it. PAS would go along, but only if Umno proves its good faith. That is in short supply, on both sides. Each moves to spite the other, so that it is all but impossible for talks to be held with one party on the defensive.

The Terengganu state government sues to recover Petronas royalties the federal government unilaterally canceled, after paying the state for 21 years and RM7 billion, and after PAS captured the state in the 1999 general elections. Umno shows its irritation by widening the pressures against PAS.

The police has since filed a report to investigate PAS for sedition, in the political play to apportion blame for the communal clashes at the Old Klang Road shanty towns in south Petaling Jaya. Keadilan has also been similarly accused for a joint statement their leaders made over the clashes.

The prime minister, in his first major statement since the clashes broke out, blames the opposition, in his now familiar simplistic arguments, for turning the Malays against the government in the communal clashes.

He implicitly accepts the Barisan Nasional (BN) and Umno, government and party, systematically and deliberately ignored the poor Malaysians in squalid shanty town concentrations throughout the country, except during general elections.

The Malay alienated

When he orchestrated the political and personal humiliation of his deputy prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim, this alienated Malay rushed to his support - and rejects the BN and Umno day-by-day.

Neither the government nor the BN could intervene in the large squalid urban underclass in south Petaling Jaya; their impotence staring in their collective faces. Worse, a hidden hand seems to emerge in how the fracas got started.

So, when PAS and Keadilan were threatened with sedition, it was more than to apportion blame. Political parties are rarely accused of sedition, though its officers could be. Otherwise, it should have been Keadilan, not its youth chief, who would be charged with sedition now.

Why PAS and Keadilan now? Is it to do PAS in by other means? If PAS is charged with sedition, and is convicted, as it must, the fallout is horrendous. The party could be made illegal, as Umno was in 1987; it would then lose its permit to publish its very successful fortnightly Harakah newspaper; it could stop PAS in its tracks, apply for a new licence for a PAS Baru, then impose conditions which could include the dropping of the word 'Islamic' from its name, and other conditions.

PAS stands in the way of Umno's attempt to regain its lost Malay ground, and Keadilan stands firm to give Umno nightmares.

Lost ground

For however you look at it, PAS is best organised to counter Umno moves, with Keadilan a challenger to the Malay cultural mantle. I am not suggesting the action against PAS would go as I have described. But why Umno would be so stupid as to make PAS even more reluctant to engage in Malay unity talks with it.

If this is Umno's wish, it would be folly to proceed. In 1987, the prime minister wanted Umno dissolved, if only to put his hated opponents, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah amongst them, out of his hair once and for all.

But he cannot now dictate events in the party, government and nation as he then could. He grasps as straws to retain what semblance of power and support he can. He thinks his cause is advanced by taunting the opposition. Not so. He has yet to visit Kampung Medan, for instance: that he could be ignored, or taunted or worse, is too real to put himself to the test.

His view of Malay unity is with Umno at its head, as before. How could he if PAS and Keadilan continue to challenge it. So, what better way than to move to convict PAS for sedition.

Convict, did I say? Yes, indeed. Like in the Anwar fiasco, PAS cannot but be convicted if it is charged. Umno cannot, politically and culturally, allow PAS to be acquitted of it. Malay unity, anyone?