Page 43 - Conflict, Terrorism, and the Media In Asia

32 Benjamin Cole
The central thrust of government policy is to co-opt Islam and ‘out-Islam’ PAS. It
has built mosques, social and educational facilities, and other infrastructure, espe-
cially in rural areas, and has initiated a host of initiatives including financial support
for pilgrimages to Mecca, as well as setting up an Islamic bank and an International
Islamic university. Former Prime Minister Mahatir also led Malaysia to play a lead-
ing role in the Organization of Islamic Co-operation. This approach to fighting PAS
also forms the foundation for the political dimension of the fight against the KMM.
The government also uses the media to control the theological debate by claiming
that the use of Islam for political ends often results in the deliberate misinterpreta-
tion of Islam to support political agendas. It attempts to educate the population about
what it argues are the ‘true values’ of Islam. Its basic message is to emphasize the
Islamic credentials of the government by arguing that the government is following a
fundamentalist form of Islam and is leading a return to the true teachings of Islam.
This definition of Islamic fundamentalism is opposed to militancy and the Islamists’
rejection of modernization (New Straits Times 2003b).
The government has also highlighted cases of militancy in the hope of frightening
voters away from PAS (Abdoolcarim and Mitton 2001). The media has at times
aided this process by attempting to link PAS to militant violence. In 2003, televi-
sion stations ran footage of a bloody clash between police and villagers in the late
1980s in an attempt to portray PAS as being prone to extremist tendencies (Asia
Times Online 2002a), and stories also circulated that the leader of PAS had attended
a meeting with militant leaders in Indonesia in 2000 (New Straits Times 2003c).
Government control of the media means that it has a significant advantage in
publicizing these messages but its control is not all pervasive. Opposition and
independent media sources do challenge the Islamic and fundamentalist creden-
tials of the government. However, government controls mean that these stories are
outnumbered by pro-government stories.
Analysis of media coverage proves that the government receives significantly
more coverage than the opposition, the majority of which is positive in nature. Yet
the impact is perhaps not as great as it could be because the mainstream media
has a declining level of credibility with the public. Analysis has shown that in 2000
Malays believed less in the mainstream media than they did in 1990 (Oorjitham
2000), and in March 2004, a survey found that only 56 per cent of Malaysians
believed news obtained from the media (The Straits Times Interactive 2004).
The other risk factor for infecting popular opinion with militant ideologies is
the internet. Militant websites offer Malaysians direct access to these ideologies
together with opportunities for communicating with individuals who share simi-
lar views. As noted previously, Malaysian ISPs are known to have hosted militant
websites. The numbers of such sites is unknown, but it is in any case possible
to access a whole variety of international militant sites, assuming that language
barriers can be overcome.
The impact of the internet should not be overstated, however, since cyberspace
is more than just a forum for militants to propagate their messages. Ordinary
Malaysians also post messages on websites and message boards expressing con-
cern about what life in an Islamist state would be like, rejecting radical Islamism
and stressing the non-violent aspects of Islam (Malaysiakini 2003a). A survey in