COMMENT These days political naivety has two faces.

One is that of the doctrinaire wing of PAS which holds that when and if it can command the numbers in a ruling Pakatan Rakyat government, it will push for the implementation of syariah law in Malaysia.

The other face of political naivety belongs to Karpal Singh of the DAP who cannot seem to countenance the notion that it is obligatory of Muslims to support syariah law because, as the Quran says, it the pathway to the headwaters.

Periodically, in the last 14 years of the reformasi movement in the country, these two faces of political naivety in Malaysia have aped the crazy trajectory of disturbed bees, smacking against resistant surfaces before buzzing into the open air.

Just now the bees have banged against surfaces and that is distressing because a general election is near and supporters of Pakatan don't want any buzzing bees under their bonnet.

Karpal Singh at Pakatan convention Kedah Karpal expects Pakatan's putative chief, Anwar Ibrahim, to play the apiarist and take the swarm out to where their collisions with resistant surfaces won't scare the neighbourhood.

In politics, when an irresistible force comes up against an immovable object, it's best to keep in mind what Oliver Wendell Holmes said about the democratic process.

The celebrated US Supreme Court justice held that the purpose of civilised argument between friends is to arrive at the point where you agree that some day it might be necessary to shoot each other.

Until that day is unavoidable, the democratic process, said Holmes, both in public and in private, is no more but no less than an acceptance of the notion that in important issues you may be wrong.

Considered opinion holds that besides Holmes, only three or four others - Winston Churchill, Reinhold Niebuhr and EM Forster (of what they said, some other time) - have conveyed the essence of democracy as profoundly or more so.

It would help that Karpal keeps this bit of wisdom from Holmes in mind when next he jousts with the doctrinaire wing of PAS on the issue of syariah law.

Putting the cat among the canaries

PAS is a democratic party - of that, there is no lingering doubt - and have pledged to uphold the democratic process.

In the common policy framework hammered out at least three years ago among the Pakatan trio of parties - DAP, PKR and PAS - there is no mention of syariah as a plank in the platform on which the coalition is going the fight the 13th general election.

pakatan leaders pc in pakatan 2nd convention 191210 hadi Pray, then, why does the doctrinaire wing of PAS bring the matter of syariah up every now and then when they know it is not in the manifesto of the coalition? Is it from a simply mischievous intent to place the cat among the canaries?

Or, more seriously, is it from a subversive intent that is said to be worried about possible Pakatan success at taking over Putrajaya and what this would mean in terms of greater non-Muslim influence and power in the country, something that make Islamic supremacists decidedly unhappy?

Speculation as to the motive is a sterile bit of business.

Better to deal with the hard realities which are that to an Islamic party, the fact that it does not espouse syariah would tantamount to a suicidal loss of essence.

How then are the secular politics of the DAP to co-exist with the theocratic inclinations - make that obligations - of PAS?

Not for nothing is it is said about politics that it is the art of the possible.

With that as foundational wisdom, let the following realities be submitted to a candid world:

The fact that the DAP and PAS are now cooperating in a viable partnership that is moderated by PKR towards the objective of the democratic restoration of Malaysia is one of great achievements of our times.

The principal adhesive in this seemingly disparate alliance is Anwar, whose whole political career is wedded to a world-historical issue that of Islam being compatible with democracy.

This is the pivotal issue of the 21st century, just as fascism versus democracy and then communism versus the free world were the central issues of the previous one.

A weak coalition but...

In Malaysia, this issue of whether Islam is compatible with democracy is being played out against a background of the struggle for the democratic restoration of the country after a half-century of the guided democracy of Umno-BN now devolved into a stultifying plutocracy.

Aware of the dangers of that plutocracy, the democratic opposition in the country have banded together and forged an understanding, albeit a shaky one, to free the people from bondage.

Along the way, the doctrinaire segment of one wing of the tripartite democratic coalition is theologically bound to insist that it will push for what its scripture says it should.

NONE The response of the others has simply to be Holmesian: "No, I don't think yours is a good idea and if you insist that it is so, we have to reach for our pistols which we also don't think it a good thing to do.

"But, seriously, this is how we feel. We are not asking that you abandon this idea; merely that it's not a good idea in a multi-racial, multi-religious country. We simply insist on our position even as you yourself insist on yours."

Some would say this type of argument is another projection of political naivety.

In response, one is inclined to quote Churchill's opinion of democracy: he said it is a weak form of government until you have considered the alternatives.

Ditto Pakatan Rakyat. It is a weak coalition until Malaysians have considered the alternative.

TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for close on four decades. He likes the occupation because it puts him in contact with the eminent without being under the necessity to admire them. It is the ideal occupation for a temperament that finds power fascinating and its exercise abhorrent.