Page 51 - Conflict, Terrorism, and the Media In Asia

40 Benjamin Cole
for PAS, unstructured political violence, or recruitment to the KMM and JI. Yet
there is no discernable upward trend in any of these indicators.
The size of the KMM remains unknown, although a report from 2002
suggested that the police were looking for 200 people who were linked to the
group (New Straits Times 2002b). Even more uncertain is the extent of the passive
and active support that it receives. Small numbers of Malaysians do figure promi-
nently amongst the ranks of JI, and there is occasional reporting of continued
recruitment. Yet support for PAS has declined, which indicates that the majority
of Malaysians are still adhering to a moderate view of Islam. As in other coun-
tries, therefore, there remains a disjunction between popular support for the
causes which Islamists fight for and active engagement in militant activity. This
indicates that the vast majority of Malaysians are not accepting violent militant
ideologies.
Another reason why it is so difficult to assess media impacts on community
action is because there are limited opportunities for direct political action in
Malaysia. Political gatherings require a police permit which are rarely given to
opposition groups, and the police regularly used force to break up demonstra-
tions. In 2003 Prime Minister Badawi committed himself to allowing a wider
range of views to be expressed but has been evasive about allowing political
meetings and demonstrations (BBC News Online 2004a). There is some limited
evidence of a link between media reporting and direct action. This included a
demonstration organized by PAS outside the US embassy in Kuala Lumpur in
October 2001, following media coverage of the US bombing in Afghanistan.
Despite concern that the media coverage would radicalize Muslim opinion
the demonstration was relatively small. Moderate Muslims continued to reject
radicalization and PAS lost support as a result, prompting it to step back slightly
from its anti-US position (Abdoolcarim and Mitton 2001).
This suggests that both the old and the new media are having a limited impact
in infecting the Malaysian population with militant ideologies. The mainstream
media acts as an agent of stability by reflecting and re-enforcing the views of both
the government and mainstream public opinion. The media is not, however,
totally an instrument of the government, and sections of the media do attempt to
perform a limited role as an agent of restraint in challenging the government,
although there is little evidence of it having any impact. Instead, this limited
criticism of the government coupled with government messages serves to
reassure public opinion that its concerns about oppressed Muslims and the US
‘war on terror’ are being addressed. At a more general level, some militant causes
and objectives have been assimilated into the mainstream political debate. Whilst
this generates broad sympathy throughout Malaysian society it has not fostered a
causal link to militancy.