What upset this cosy arrangement is the ubiquitous war on terror President Bush unleased upon us all. Public statements must fall in line with his war. So when the deputy defence minister, Dato' Shafiee Apdal, threatened to shoot the Abu Sayyaf rebels if they should venture into Malaysian waters, it was received in some surprise. He threatened fire and brimstone, which the Malay Mail duly recorded yesterday (10 December 2002). There appeared to be a policy change. One could find no evidence of it. So what did he say? The Malaysian security forces would shoot if fired upon in Malaysian coastal waters. Is that not standard operating procedure not only for the Armed Forces but all security forces? Is that not what a police man routinely tells an armed gunman when he has him cornered? So, why did he say it? Is it to impress all and sundry, that in this global war on terror, former friends end up foes? Is it to show that Malaysian terrorial waters, leaky at the besk of times, is now so tightly patrolled that no one could slip through?

THE AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER, Mr John Howard, picks a needless if understandable, in his view, necessary, fight with Southeast Asia when he insisted, in a radio interview this month, on his nation's right to pre-emptive attacks against terrorists in foreign countries. The Bali bombings provided the backdrop. About 200 died, half Australians, as many Indonesians, and a smattering of other nationalities. Seven or more groups, including dissident Indonesian Armed Forces, even a high-level power play between the Armed Forces and President Megawati Sukarnoputri, and one to warn off Australia for its overt and covert meddling in Indonesian politics, could have been responsible. But within days, the elusive Muslim Pimpernel, Osama bin Laden, is proclaimed guilty, condemned, Indonesian Islamic clerics allegedly linked to him are arrested and quickly blamed. So far, nothing is proven. When Mr Alexander Downer was asked, in a BBC interview about the involvement of Al-Qaida, he fudged it. The best President Bush has allowed in apportioning blame is he "believes" Al Qaida is responsible.

You build a 'rumah haram' (illegal house) and the Federal Reserve Unit is there as municipal bulldozers will pull down your house without by your leave. But let a Tan Sri or some one high and mighty build one, and no one in authority would dare pull it down. The Selangor mentri besar, Dato' Mohamed Khir Toyo, says about forty houses in MPAJ are 'rumah haram', none had building plans approved nor certificates of fitness issued, some, if not most, built illegally on MPAJ land. One of the 40 'rumah haram' belonged to the former Armed Forces chief, Tan Sri Ismail Omar: MPAJ did not approve its building plans nor issue a certificate of fitness.

Three years ago, the retired Malaysian Armed Forces chief, Tan Sri Ismail Omar, built a house in the vicinity. On 20 November 2002, a mudslide in heavy rains in the wee hours of the morning reduced it to rubble. The general, chairman of Affin Bank, was dug out of the rubble, but six of his family, including his wife, and two Indonesian maids, died. He was rushed to nearby Ampang Puteri hospital, muttering incoherently about important documents he needed to get his hands on. The MPAJ rushed in to flex its muscles: Residents in nearby houses were ordered evacuated, and if they did not, be fined RM250 for every day they did not. Meanwhile, technical experts explained how this building on slopes of hills already upset from its geological foundations was a tragedy waiting to happen.

The Royal Malaysian Navy Chief, Admiral Dato' Ramly Abu Bakar, who is where he is because he is a Malay, now finds it politic, now that he has reached the top of his line, to plead for more non-Malays to join the Armed Forces. But he, like the other generals who now spout the obvious, during their long career in the Armed Forces, did little to ensure they are. It is official policy not to allow non-Malays into the Armed Forces, except as a token: in the first flush of the political arrangements after the 13 May, 1969 racial riots, the token non-Malay became official policy and enforced in vengeance. Only two non-Malay police officers were taken in the first recruitment after the riots. It has not improved by much. In the latest naval recruitment, of 645 recruits, only 50 were non-Malays. The ratio of four Malays to one Malay in the civil service became, in time, eight-to-one and wider. The non-Malay was reduced to a token. The army, for instance, allowed for only three generals amongst the Indians and the Chinese: one major-general and two brigadier-generals. This rule is varied only if these officers would convert to Islam; if they do, they would be promoted as Malay officers.

All we have so far is this demonising belief in Washington, Singapore, Canberra that it is JI and Al Qaeda that did it. It fits in with the official view of Islam as an enemy. So it is not challenged. For Islam replaces the Communist as the ogre of the day. Unfortunately, when battle lines are drawn on such simplistics basis as if you are not with us, you are against us, a lot of people would, and do, get hurt. In the Bali bombings, other factors could well be at work. Osama, Al Qaeda and JI could have done it; so could the nationalist Indonesian angry at Australian meddling in East Timor in the runup to its independence from Indonesia; the Armed Forces in an attempt to provide the conditions of utter chaos which only they could resolve; internal religious conflicts; to destabilise the government of President Megawati Sukarnoputri; an extension of the religious conflicts that have emerged in Indonesia in recent times; a deliberate Machivellian act by the US government -- not necessarily officially but through one of its agencies, like the CIA -- to warn Indonesia of the dangers of waffling in the face of a threat Washington insists she faces, with the side product of getting the Australian peoples mad and angry enough to agree with what their prime minister, Mr John Howards, as Washington's sergeant major in this war on terror.

Malaysia is a nation of tokens. In the civil service, there is the token Indian, Chinese and other non-Malay secretaries-general, in the Armed Forces, there is the token major-general who is either Indian or Malay, in the diplomatic service, there is the token non-Malay ambassador. It is to prove to the world -- and, more important, to itself -- Malaysia's multiracial credentials. Once it was. Today, it is but a tired slogan brought out, when the non-Malay recoils at the injustices and impediments meted out to him or when a Chinese political party elects a non-Chinese in a sensitive party post, to reassure him that not only is Malaysia a haven of multiraical peace but how lucky the non-Malay is living here than from where his ancestors come from. It is impossible, in today's political climate, for a political party to have as its head one who of a different race from the majority of its members.

The Malaysian government is worried not enough non-Malays joined the Armed Forces and the police. The army chief, Gen. Tan Sri Mohamed Hashim Hussein, is convinced more Malays join the Armed Forces -- in Malaysia, you do not join because you want to be a soldier, airman or sailor; you join to serve the country -- as a direct response to historical events in the past -- the Emergency and the exploits of a Lieut. Adnan Saidi, since made into a film. Gen. Tan Sri Hashim describes Lieut. Adnan, conferred a dato'ship posthumously, as a Malay warrior, whose exploits encouraged Malays to join the Armed Forces. Few non-Malays, indeed Malays, had heard of Lieut. Adnan, whose exploits were glorified in the perennial search for modern Malay heroes. He makes no mention of the non-Malays or the need for them to join the Armed Forces. He was only interested in the Malays. The non-Malays have fought as gallantly but there is a conscious attempt to erase their role as there is to preserve the Malay, even if it has to be manufactured.

The Armed Forces cannot understand why non-Malays do not want to be soldiers, sailors, airmen. A half-hearted, half-baked attempt to recruit them fails dismally. The Armed Forces brass cannot understand why. But the non-Malay knows what the brass professes not to. They are not welcome. The Armed Forces are so structured that it benefits the Malay. The non-Malay gets into a few technical branches, with the proviso that he faces a glass ceiling very early in his career. If he is an officer, he must suffer the indignity of having to salute the man he trained as an officer because Malay officers are speedily spread through the ranks while the non-Malay plods on to his glass ceiling. So, what we get in the end is not a professional army but an army in which the non-Malay is told in no uncertain terms he is a washout, especially when he is not.

The 1999 General Elections put paid to that. Dato' Seri Hamid lost his parliamentary seat, and since he had completed his maximum six years as senator, could not remain in the cabinet. In his place, in the cabinet and at Tabung Haji, came the former Malay school teacher turned chief mullah for the Armed Forces with the rank of Brigadier, Dato' Abdul Hamid Zainal Abidin. Dr Hamid Othman became the Prime Minister's adviser on religion matters. The pair went hammer and tongs at each other, the resultant warfare all but destroying Tabung Haji's financial and commercial competence, with predators encouraged to privatise the money-making operations. This reorganisation is so the brigadier mullah could put his impramateur and remove all traces of his nemesis' successes. The man is so insecure he would not allow his predecessor's name mentioned in his presence.

The Elections Commission, after every general and bye-elections, finds creative reasons why elections laws, rules and regulations must be rightened, and the Opposition hobbled. To it, all political parties not in the National Front (BN), even in Kelantan and Trengganu, is the Opposition. It ascertains, even before campaigning starts, the Opposition is out to make Malaysian democracy the laughing stock of the world. It prefers, it seems, issues in the campaign, and the raucuous campaigns comes with it, should be bottled up until one fine morning it bursts out into the open for the police and the Armed Forces to put it right. In conformity with the time-honoured Malaysia Boleh tradition of passing the buck. It cannot understand why elections campaigns should not function like government departments: orderly, unethusiastic, no sense of purpose, authoritarians, lackadaiscal, genuflecting to authority, decorous where even the lowliest can hold the unempowered to ransom with a flick of his finger. Or take the easy way out by bribing the fellow.

So, it is not surprising that the Prime Minister, after every general or bye-election, praises the police, the Armed Forces, and other security agencies for keeping the polls secure and quiet. Why does the government harp on its inability to keep the peace -- for that is what it is if it insists 33 years after the event, Malaysia is still a demonstration away from anarchy and racial riot -- unless it is a form of threat and danger? Peace comes at a price. If the government is not prepared to pay the price -- which is reasoned debate of issues of the day -- then it has all the more reason to be frightened of chaos, threat and instability. This would not happen overnight, but a gradual descent into the darkness.

This list grows in Malaysia, and large groups of potential postal voters are shifted from constituency to constituency for a block vote. How the Armed Forces get its soldiers to vote is an open scandal. What the government should do is to restrict the postal votes to those who need to be out of the constituency. Soldiers must register where they are, not where their base it. But that this is even talked about is proof of how BN wants to cushion future shocks. The UMNO vice president, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Abdul Razak, retained his Pekan parliamentary seat in 1999 by under 250 after 2300 postal votes were counted. The implication is he would have lost without the postal votes. In other words, the postal votes are bonus votes for BN leaders whoever they are.

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