With the arrest and detention of Anwar and a number of Islamist intellectuals and activists, a major break had been made in the discourse of Mahathirism.

Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad was always known as a modernist who was against the forces of traditional obscurantism in Islam, and his government's repression of the Sufi-inspired Darul Arqam (4) movement was a case in point. (Interestingly, it should be noted that Umno's 'hammer' against Arqam was none other than the Islamist-activist turned Umno politician, Anwar Ibrahim himself.)

But at no point was Dr Mahathir seen as an un-Islamic leader, despite his own controversial ideas about the path that Muslim society should take into the future. This only came about in the wake of the 1997-98 crisis, dubbed the 'Anwar Ibrahim' affair.

With the removal of Anwar and the arrest of a number of prominent Islamist leaders and activists, the discourse of Mahathirism was left open and vulnerable to attack from outside. In time, a new chain of equivalences was formed through the writings and polemics that came from a whole army of Islamist or Islamist-inclined politicians, activists, intellectuals and writers.

Elsewhere (5), I have looked at how the image of Dr Mahathir has been re-invented at the hands of a number of local Malay writers like Mohd Sayuti Omar, Ahmad Lutfi Osman, Dinsman (Shamsuddin Osman) and CN al-Afghani.(6)

But what is important to note is that from 1997 'Mahathir' the man was no longer linked to modernisation, development and economic progress.

Finally, Mahathir the man was being identified with a host of unsavoury evils that were considered repugnant by the Malay-Muslim community in particular. Nowhere was this process of discursive contestation more evident than in the field of vernacular Malay tabloid writing.

Un-Islamic villains

In Mohd Sayuti Omar's Sumpah dan Airmata Reformis Bangsa (1997), for instance, the author radically re-casts Dr Mahathir as some anti-Muslim villain while Anwar is reinvented as the great reformis-Mujaheed who is fighting a jihad (holy war) for reform:

' Harapan musuh-musuh Anwar apabila mereka menahan para mujahid itu, semangat reformasi tidak lagi berkembang dan mengarus di negara ini. Itulah yang mereka fikir.Tetapi perhitungan mereka itu silap. Mereka boleh menahan jasad para reformis itu. Namun semangat dan api jihadnya tidak bisa disekat.

'Semangat itu akan tetap mengalir dan bergelombang ke dalam diri sesiapa sahaja yang insaf dan sedar akan tanggungjawab kepada agama, bangsa dan negaranya. Reformasi akan terus bergerak. Harapan Anwar, seorang 'Anwar' jatuh akan bangkit seribu Anwar lain tidak sia-sia.

'Hari ini kita sudah dapat melihat dengan jelas, 'Anwar' bangkit dan berada dimana-mana sahaja. Orang yang menyebut tentang kezaliman dan ketidak-adilan wujud dimana-mana. Semuanya menuntut agar segala unsur-unsur Syaitanisme itu dibersihkan.

( pg.186)

In Omar's Talqin untuk Mahathir (Funeral prayers for Mahathir) (1998), the author courageously straddles the boundary between prose and hysteria when he blames the prime minister for everything that has gone wrong within the country, including the water shortage, the environmental crisis and the unnaturally long drought season.

Here we see Omar's eschatological logic reaching its logical apotheosis, where the figure of Dr Mahathir is compared somewhat unfavourably to a host of popular un-Islamic villains such as the Pharaoh of Egypt and the Shah of Iran:

' Jikalau kamu (Mahathir) seorang ahli sejarah dan pengkaji Quran; dikau akan bertemu dengan nama-nama seperti Firaun, Qarun dan Haman! Apakah dikau tahu apa yang telah jadi kepada mereka itu? Ketahuikah dikau kenapa Tuhan melaksana dan menghina mereka?

'Mereka itu makhluk yang kufur kepada Allah. Firaun mengaku dialah Tuhan. Qarun pula tamak haloba dengan harta dunia, yang mana akhirnya ia ditenggelamkan dengan hartanya sekali. Wahai Mahathir anak Wan Tempawan, kami bimbang nasib yang menimpa mereka, akan turut sama menimpa dirimu.

'Kami bimbang kehinaan yang berlaku keatas Shah Iran, Suharto dan Marcos akan berjangkit kepadamu. Ketahuilah oleh kamu bahawa peralihan sanjungan rakyat kepada mu adalah kerana kegagalan kamu dalam beberapa tahun terakhir ini. Bala yang menimpa negara ini adalah dalam tanggungjawab mu sebagai pemimpin.'

( pp. 77-78)

The supreme irony

Dr Mahathir the man has, in the end, become overwhelmed by Mahathirism itself. In the same way that Mahathirism was blown out of proportion and turned into an epic discourse of disproportionate achievements in the past, so has Mahathirism been overblown into a meta-discourse for all that is bad, wrong, un-Islamic and even 'Satanic' (to quote Sayuti Omar) in Malaysia today.

Mahathirism is now equated with all that is wrong in the country, and Mahathir the man is now contemptuously labelled Mahazalim , Mahakejam and Mahafiraun instead.

The supreme irony of it all is that Mahathir the man has now become overpowered by Mahathirism the ideology. What is worse, as the ideology of Mahathirism comes into question, so does everything the man says as well.

This makes it not only difficult to explain or justify what Mahathir the man says and does, but it even makes it near-impossible to defend the man when he actually says something right these days. And contrary to what the mujaheed reformists may have to say about him, the man is still capable of saying the right thing occasionally.

When Dr Mahathir says that Islam as a faith and a way of life cannot be reduced to empty rituals and cosmetic appearance alone, he happens to be right. When he says that Islam should not be an excuse for Muslims to flee from the painful realities of life, he also happens to be right.

And when he says that the economic and political decline of the Muslim world and the underdeveloped South is due to the gross inequalities and deficiencies within the global financial architecture, he is also right.

But whatever the man says - even if he claims that two plus two equals four- is now dismissed as the words of the great Mahazalim who is cruel, tyrannical and unjust.

Real tragedy

More so than any political campaign, act of violence or public demonstration, it is this concept of Mahazalim that has done more damage to the image and standing of Mahathir the man in the eyes of the Malay-Muslim community who should otherwise be his natural constituency. (Hardly a surprise then if he now turns to the Malaysian public as a whole, to broaden his appeal and reach out to new audiences.)

But even as the state-controlled media tries to manage the image of Dr Mahathir - to the point of force-feeding the captive public with his kata-kata emas (golden nuggets of wisdom) on an hourly basis - the charm of the old spell is broken.

Mahathir the man allowed himself to be identified with Mahathirism the ideology, and the fate of the man is now inextricably linked to the fate of that ideology as well, which today is besieged by an army of angry and frustrated radicals who can only see traces of kezaliman and Syaitanisme in whatever is handed to them.

And that, in the final analysis, is the real tragedy of Mahathirism.

Endnotes:

(4) The Darul Arqam Movement was formed by Ustaz Ashaari Muhammad in 1968. It began as a study group among Muslim scholars and reformers, many of whom were university lecturers, academics and students.

In time it evolved into a Sufi-inspired alternative lifestyle movement that was very much centred around the personality of its founder. Its activities were based at the Madinah Al Arqam Saiyyidina Abu Bakar As-Siddiq, Sungai Pencala near the capital Kuala Lumpur.

The movement's aim was to create an alternative model of an ideal Islamic society that was organised and managed according to the standards and norms set by the Prophet Muhammad himself and his sahabat (companions).

The movement grew in size until its membership expanded to tens of thousands. Its followers dressed and lived according to Ustaz Ashaari's interpretation of the sunnah . The men wore green robes and turbans while the women wore black hijab (complete coverings) all the time. (For a detailed analysis of the Darul Arqam movement, see [Chandra (1987), Jomo and Shabery Cheek (1992) and Husin Mutalib (1993).]

(5) See: Farish A Noor, Constructing Kafirs: The Formation of Political Frontiers between the Islamic Opposition and the Malaysian Government during the 1998-1999 Political Crisis in Malaysia , in Angelika Neuwirth and Andreas Pflitsch (eds.), Crisis and Memory in Islamic Societies , Orient Institute of Beirut, Beirut, 2000.

(6) See for example: Mohd Sayuti Omar, Sumpah dan Airmata Reformis Bangsa (Promises and Tears of the Nation's Reformer) and Talqin Untuk Mahathir: Nepotisme dan Qarunisme Alaf Baru , (Funeral Prayers for Mahathir: Nepotism and Cronyism in a New Era);

Ahmad Lutfi Othman, Layakkah Anwar Ketuai Reformasi? (Is Anwar Fit to Lead the Reform?) and Anwar: Skadal Seks atau Konspirasi Politik (Anwar: Sex Scandal or Political Conspiracy); Dinsman (Shamsuddin Osman), Gawat: Gagalnya Formula Mahathir (Economic Meltdown: The Failure of Mahathir's Policies) and CN al-Afghani, Rakyat Semaking Matang (The People Have Awoken).