Lately, a number of letters espousing the need for the Internal Security Act (ISA) has appeared in malaysiakini . Since it is self evident that a person should be considered innocent of (any) punishable crime until he is proven guilty (beyond reasonable doubt) in a court of law, reading these letters pained me greatly.

Democracy and detention without trial are compatible, one author said, and, therefore, he concluded, the use of ISA is not regressive; in fact, he asserted, it is necessary for stability ('ISA for stability', June 27). Indeed, democracy by itself means little. It has many, many flaws. After all, many Western states, the United States especially, sanctioned slavery; these democratic states, too, happily colonised foreign lands, subjugating their inhabitants.

It is obvious: Democracy and barbarism are consistent. Westerners had their infamous 'Dreyfus Case', that - ipso facto - doesn't mean we should have one, too. Imprisoning innocents is immoral, disgraceful, and ultimately self-defeating. It is, as history has taught us over and over, utterly, and totally, destabilising.

It appears to me that many of those who advocate the use of the ISA for stability, safety, etc., have not grasped neither the notion, nor the significance, of the civil society - particularly its protean role in the past, and the present. Civil society, they should realise, is not about wreaking havoc, or loving chaos and anarchy.

No. In its essence, civil society is about stability and public safety, about safeguarding the society from state tyranny.

In the past - before the 1950s in the West, and (roughly) the 1980s in the rest of the world - the state-centred (as opposed to society-centred) perspective wielded prominence. In those days, the preferred strategy was armed struggle that sought to capture the state power; of late, it is one of unarmed civil struggle that attempts to create a self-limited power .

In other words, a paradigm shift has occurred: it is incumbent upon the powers that be to recognise this dramatic change, and, hopefully, gauge the present events through a new prismatic lens. Anything less, I fear, would only hasten our descent into chaos - one that is not unlike Indonesia.

For the very same reason, it is wrong and irresponsible to think, or to label, the reformasi activists, and the movement behind them, as enemies of the state. They aren't; nor is the whole episode merely an Anwar phenomenon. Anwar's sacking, and his infamous 'black-eye,' may have given birth to reformasi, but the movement has since outgrown Anwar.

At this juncture, the use, or rather the misuse, of the draconian (and much abused) ISA in the hope of halting the very 'march of history,' and possibly reversing the tide against the civil society, only means more waste, and continued wallowing in tribalism.

The present state of affairs is crying for reform - for progressive policies. We have to move forward; the governance ought to be more inclusive, more broad based. ISA certainly is not the answer: It might have a stabilising effect in times of war; in peacetime, however, the opposite is true.

The days when the privileged few did as they pleased are long gone. It is a new millennium; ditto the reality. Let's wake up...