THE WAR ON TERROR, as dictated by the United States, is fast becoming one in Malaysia, as it already is in many countries with fealty to Washington. This is adopted to keep the opposition away from politics, but all it has done is to keep it alive. In Indonesia, this is more widespread than is reported in the news reports, that getting prominence only when this affects the government or foreign countries with an axe to grind, usually and not exclusively Australia. In the process, President Susilo Bambang Yudhyono is seen against the war of terror, the fine elements of which are Washington's, or Australia's dictates. Malaysia has gone wholly with the United States on this, because its largest opposition is Islamic, which it wants to say is pro-war on terror, mainly to blame it Islamically, but gets caught in a bind as the National Front's version of Islam – now Islam Hadhari, but that is under the present prime minister, Pak Lah, only; it was not under the former leader – does not cut much ice in the villages.

What has happened to Iraq happens every day in the rest of the country. We live in an age of spin. The governments today are more efficient in spin than in explaining their policies and aims, often being elected for it. Their enemy it seems are those who voted them in. The leaders have more in common with leaders of other countries than who voted them in. The voter in Kelantan or Kedah has less in common with their wakil rakyat than he has with his counterparts in the United States, United Kingdon, India, Pakistan, Indonesia or wherever. After the war on terror, this is closer than one realises. It allows the governments to use terror against its people to remain in power and more in common with other leaders. Laws are used, often incorrectly for which they were originally passed, to hobble opponents, or those with a different point of view. It does not matter whether one is a communist, Islamicist, or who thinks for himself, he is what the government tells he is, with usually with the spin thrown in.

Singapore thinks it is a Chinese island surrounded by a hostile Islamic sea, and first patterned itself to Israel in the Middle East, and then a United States outpost in the region. It remained afraid of Malaysia, and became globalisation's South-East Asian centre. It ignored its traditional entrepot trade with its neighbours, Malaysia and Indonesia, and thought it had a march on its neighbours by being as Western as possible. Mr Lee had a plan, and has faithfully followed it, but he has created a capitalist soceity with a communist heart. The people who carried this out kept their mouths shut and made themselves rich and western. The second generation of civil servants knew the value of keeping their mouths shut, and doing what they are told. It brought in the US armed forces into the island republic so that it assumed a Malaysian attack on the island republic would be an attack on the United States. But it could also be the other way. In any case, if the past is any guide, it would harm Singapore more than Malaysia. The US leaning towards Pakistan has not prevented India from attacking it.

The ASEAN organisation does not deal with individuals. It does not interfere in each other's affairs. It should not deal with the Thai Malays. But it issued in its Summit communique its concern for internal affairs: it brought out its concern for one individual that the United States supports: the Myanmarese lady, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. But it could have delayed its extinction if it had also reported on other internal issues – the Thai Malays, Acheh and the Moluccas in Indonesia, Mindanao in the Philippines, even Sarawak and Sabah in East Malaysia, for example. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi heads one of theposition groups in Myanmar, abeit one the United States supports. Do we want to be unable to establish links with Mynamar if the 'wrong' opposition group takes over power. Malaysia supported the wrong part in Afghanisation by establishing diplomatic ties with the group in power, in which 'our' man, Gulbudeen Hikmatyar, was Prime Minister, but it was swept any in the round-robin of governments the country is famous. Malaysia once had links with Afghanisation, but not any more.

An organisation must reorient itself to make it relevant. The United Nations is dead, ever since the United States took it as an extension of its foreign policy when it liked, and attacked when it did not coincide. It is regarded around the world as an organisation of substance, but it has failed perhaps for 40 years. The Non-Aligned Nations, which Pak Lah is the current president, lost its importance once the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union ended. It should have revitalised itself into a third force, but it did not. It was once important. The prime movers of the body was President Gamel Abdel Nasser of Egypt, President Sukarno of Indonesia, President Tito of Yugoslavia in Djakarta in 1955. Hovering in the wings was Prime Minister Jawaharlal of India, Prime Minister Kwama Nkrumah of Ghana, Prime Minister Ahmed Ben Bella of Algeria, President Haib Bourghiba of Tunusia, and others. The deaths of the founders did not cease its relevance. But the leaders of non- alighnment when the Soviet Union cracked up did not reorient the Non- Alignment Movement, and it now is of no importance. And so it is with ASEAN.

THE ASEAN SUMMIT IS OVER. It is held every year now, instead of occasionally as it was agreed in the past. The next one will be in the Philippines. The most important decision it has taken is to fine- tune the East Asian Summit, in which is invited the United States's Sheriff in the region, Australia, and New Zealand, which though has taken an independent stance in the past is always on the side of the West where it matters. ASEAN was once an economic grouping, in which the foreign ministers met annually. It was effective then. Now it is another talking shop, more of interest to the Western academics than its members. It was founded in 1967 in Bangkok to stop Indonesia and Malaysia going to war with each other again. It met annually to discuss common issues. ASEAN was accused then of not pulling its weight, but as more nations became members, it lost its raison d'etre. Indonesia and Malaysia, and therefore Islam, was sideline as the Buddist nations - Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar - joined Thailand to dominate the grouping. It means nothing now. It is more like the European Union now. The presence of 2,000 journalists, and this did not include the 200 that came with the Indian prime minister, Mr Manmohan Singh, and the 300 was in the party of the Japanese prime minister, Mr Junizuro Koizumi, and the academics joined to make this meeting irrelevant.

There is no universal health care in poorer countries. They take life as it comes. If a person should die because of bird flu or other pademics, then so be it. There is the usual sorrow of course, the more so when television cameras are round, but death holds no terrors to these people. It is part of life, as it is not in the developed countries. The governments, barring a few, are not interested in the poor. The more so when they are taken care of, and expensive medicine is given them at a fraction. Corruption is the more the poorer the country. The funds they collect are rarely sent to those who badly need them. Malaysia never admitted that it was struck with tsunami, as Thailand and Indonesia was. But it was, and out of the press because the victims were fishermen and poor people in the north western states of peninsular Malaysia. The aid was given to Indonesia and Thailand and none to Malaysia's victims. But Malaysians gave aid to the fund thinking it was was the local tsunami victims. The aid for the quake victims in Southeast Asian earthquakes was few and far between. Much of the aid there was by private groups.

Statements from Washington and London suggest that it is the crusades all over again. President Bush has told Palestinians that God told him to invade Iraq. He seems to be finding creative reasons for the mess the United States created in Iraq. But it would not wash. The Muslim, particularly the Sunni, now takes the United States and the West as their enemy. Islam is not what the Christian nations of its supporters, like Malaysian or Pakistani leader, say it is. Islam today is the religion of the street, and with a mind of its own. Otherwise, President Bush would have such opposition in Iraq, with outside Sunni Muslims coming in to fight. The US and its supporters are trying to get Muslim leaders to go on the bandwagon, but the Muslim street in these countries refuse to do so. They try to get Muslim leaders on their side, like in Indonesia, but the president does not want Jemayah Islamiyah banned, as the Western countries would like it to. Enough in the government there are not certain it should be. Islam in Indonesia is much more gentle, but the Indonesian street, although still not as extreme as elsewhere, is becoming more extremist as Bush and his supporters around the world blame Islam and the Muslim for much of their problems. The fact is that President Bush and his supporters have turned Islam into an extremist organisation, and since there are 2 million of its believers, a quarter taking the law into their hands spell danger for President Bush's plan.

The West thinks it can ask Muslim nations, those who support it, to treat Muslims as they have often been treated by these governments. But they forget that these Western nations, like those of old, adopt Islamic methods of punishment. The prisoners at Guantanamo prison and the British ulltra-legal methods are contrary to their legal system, and are adapted from the Islamic brethren. Aft the earlier crusades, from Pope Urban II's in 1089, the Christians learnt from the Moslems, as they have in the latest Crusade as President Bush put it. Though what the Western nations have taken to heart is what they reject. It is Islam's great fault, but now it is the Christian nations' fault as well. No one talks of it, but it is a fact that the Christian nations of the West have taken to heart all the things they criticised in the past. Is the West telling us that education teaches us to be cruel to our fellow men? On the other hand, Muslim nations are blamed for what they do at the West's behalf. I happen to know the background, most of which still confidential, of Malaysia and Indonesia's role in East Timor. It was egged on by the United States, Great Britain and Australia, among others, and the two nations did a creditable job. But the Western nations turned against Malaysia and Indonesia after East Timor had become independent, and it was these countries that were blamed, and discredited. Even by Great Britain, the United States and Australia. We now know why. It was to enable an Australian firm to grab the oil revenues between East Timor and Austria. It was important at that time of Portugal discarding its last two enclaves, Macao and East Timor, of those in Macao, and therefore the Chinese, coming freely to East Timor and going freely into Indonesia. It was the time of the clash between capitalism and communism, and countries were either with the West or with the others. Malaysia and Indonesia acted on the side of the West, and were blamed for being colonialists after the threat was over.

Similarly in Bali. The emphasis is on how badly off the Balinese are, and the tourists, mostly Australians, who are put to such terrible inconvenience, by being bombed out of their revelry. No one stops to think why they are bombed. The news is about Balinese who lose their tourist dollars, and the news wring us our tears, and makes us not to think. But the Bali bombing is not accepted as an Indonesian attack. It is to get Indonesia on the anti-Islamic terror bandwagon. There is widespread news on Malaysians taking part, and we are told soon enough that they have escaped. We are shown on television the sabotuers leaving the scene in grainy pictures, and we concentrate our attention on news about the saboteurs, and the impact on the locals and the tourists, who have had an idyllic existence destroyed by the bombers. It did not work as those in authority intended. As is well known, cameras can lie. Early this morning (05 October 2005), the Bali bombing is still news on CNN and BBC. The Western reporters are sceptical of Al Qaeda or its fraternal cousins responsible. So CNN is forced to bring on Rohan Gunaratne, a questionable security expert, to show the Al Qaeda or Jemah Islamiyah is responsible. No one has yet told us why it took place, or given a credible explanation why the bombing should be in Bali, other than it is Hindu and a popular Holiday resort of lumpen Australians. But to have Al Qaeda or Jemah Islamiyah conduct two or its four alleged bombings in Indonesia in Bali suggests that the organisation operates to make the Western powers look good. But as I wrote on 04 October 2005, they used bombs normally available to governments. What the Bali bombings showed is that they have an arsenal as powerful as the Western powers. That may not be correct, but it leaves us wondering if the Western powers are a match to them.

There is an Australian researcher in town looking at the early foundantion of ASEAN, and speaking to the people involved in it, and I have accompanied her on many occasions, the story she got was not what the printed records of historians and researchers reveal. So, which are theories, and which facts? Or do participants lose their objectivity 40 years after the event, and it is the historian and the book writer of the period who has the facts correct? There is a fetish about "correctness" of facts, but how historians and journalists get their facts correct is by going to who is in authority and take their word for it. They do not delve into events beyond what they cannot see. Four days after the Bali bombings last week, it is a replay of events three years ago at the Bali bombings, but the reporting is the same. There is no attempt at anaysis, except to blame Al Qaeda and its fraternal organisations. Indonesia is not allowed to conduct its own inquiries, Australia, like the Bali bombings in 2002, have offered to 'help' Indonesia to solve the 'crime". But is Australia coming in to help or to rub out its own involvement? We do not know if Australia is involved, but reporters were quick to blame Al Qaeda and its fraternal organisations. And they would not blame Al Qaeda and others if the Western embassies do not say so. (I have worked for Reuters, and I could not write a story until a Western embassy 'confirmed' it.) It has to do with the war in Iraq and the war on terror. It is not going well, as any invasion would not, but it is going worse than in Vietnam. Indonesia is the world's largest Muslim country, and it was important to the 'West' it is on board. So pressure is put on President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyone and his governent, and the result is conflict between the Indonesian people and its government, just as there is in Pakistan.

TUN MAHATHIR GOT IT RIGHT. He did not apportion blame on the Bali bombings to Al Queda or the Jemayah Islamiyah or to other Muslim groups. But the ease with which both these organisations were blamed, and that this has been on the news particularly round-the- clock ever since the bombings last week, and the defensive posture of the Indonesian government followed by the British blaming the Australians for not letting it know of its 'early warning' to Australian revellers in Bali, and the constant berating of those who would listen that Al-Qaeda was involved, suggests something has gone wrong. The Western governments, or its intelligence agencies, are behind it, and keep at it because the people on the ground in Indonesia and elsewhere do not believe the events in Bali last week. The United States (and Australia, among others) created incidents in South Vietnam in the 1960s, blaming it on the Vietcong. There is no unanimity among Western reporters that Al Qaeda was involved, Jason Burke of the Guardian thought that Al Qaeda could not be involved, and the discordant voices in the Western media is matched by the ordinary people around the world, Muslim or otherwise, having doubts on the official story of the Bali bombing.

If it does not, why did the minister make the statement in parliament? He is more than UMNO deputy youth chief, he is Pak Lah's son-in-law, a law into his own hands, the second most powerful man in government. It does not matter if he is in office or not. Recently, he and his wife, Pak Lah's daughter, called on President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, in Jakarta. He was honoured as a state guest, and the meeting carried live on Indonesia radio and television. Who did he represent? The Malaysian government? His father-in-law? UMNO? UMNO Youth? Who sent him there? Why was not stopped from going? Did Wisma Putra, the foreign office, know of it? Why did it not stop him?

So when Malaysia peremptorily threatened to cane illegal workers last year if they did not leave within a fortnight, it set off fear and panic. That this deadline was periodically extended because it raises more problems than solving them. Many went into hiding when they could not leave in time, and held to the mercy of policemen, petty officials and others. Since most illegal workers are Indonesian, it strained bilateral ties and worsened when linked to oil exploration in diputed territory in the seas between Sabah and Indonesia. There is a promise to allow those who leave to return legally, but the red tape and shifting rules makes it all but pointless. Registering the illegals in Indonesia is all but impossible. Internal travel to remote registration centres, often across waters, is not easy. It is often cheaper to just pay a middle man and cross the waters into Malaysia.

THE SINGAPORE Prime Minister, Mr Lee Hsien Loong, visits Indonesia and Malaysia. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia vists Singapore and Malaysia. The Malaysian Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, visits Singapore and Indonesia. Each of these official visits on taking office were dressed up as bilateral visits when it should have been as part of the ASEAN mechanism. But is there an ASEAN consensus now? No. What was once a powerful regional organisation is now a pale shadow of it, with neither Malaysia and Singapore, once its anchor, working hard to keep it going. What saved it was Singapore, which kept it going, with its active interest in it, especially when ASEAN doubled its members to ten, its centre of focus shifting from Jakarta to Bangkok as the Buddhism replaced Islam as its dominant faith. Singapore did not see any point in continuing with this charade, for that is what it became, gave up the ghost, hitched its star as the US's regional proxy in its war on terror and Islam bashing.

MALAYSIA HAS ALL BUT forgotten its tsunami victims, as National Front (BN) cabinet ministers, led by prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, pulls no stops so aid is dispensed to Indonesia and Sri Lanka. Their need is seen as more important than our own victims. The Malaysian mainstream media ireports in copius detail the havoc and destruction overseas, but not the horrors on our own backyard – Kuala Muda, Langkawi, Penang. The official callousness beggars belief. The deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, promises no aid without a proper bureaucratic survey, wants one ready in three weeks so it could be dispensed 'instantly'. The victims are told bluntly there should expect no more than the piffling charity a caring government would throw their way.

Meanwhile, we pat outselves in the back for our lucky geological position, buffetted from the worst of the tsunami by neigbours who bore the brunt of it. Malaysian casualties, especially in India, Thailand, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, are barely mentioned. Wisma Putra is clueless when Malaysians telephone for help about the fate of their relatives and friends on holidays in these lands when the tsunami struck. No one is in charge, as in the early warning centres.

Earlier this month, he visited Indonesia about the same time the Malaysian deputy minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, arrived for a general border committee meeting. His media coverage was impressive, making the front pages while Dato' Seri Najib had to be content with the inside pages, though, in truth, his overall coverage was better in Indonesia than in Malaysia. The Malaysian embassy in Jakarta moved to restrict Dato' Seri Anwar's access to top officials, including President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, and his media coverage. It only reinforced senior Indonesian officials' contempt for those across the Straits of Malacca.

Whatever he does is a political issue. He visits Pak Lah at his open house in Kepala Batas, in Penang, and deputy prime minister Najib Razak gets political ischemia. He is in Jakarta when Najib is there on an official visit, and corners the headlines; this frustrated Najib so that he requested his host, Vice President Jusuf Kalla, to ask for more media coverage. The latest issue of the Indonesian weekly, TEMPO, interviews Anwar at depth, one of several high profile events that had UMNO, Najib and the embassy in Jakarta tearing their hair in frustration. Najib forgot he got a higher profile in Jakarta than he would in Malaysia's main newspapers, and if Anwar had not visited Jakarta at the same time, it would not have made much difference.

Malaysia can at best pick up the pieces after the fact. As with Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines. There is no standard policy on anything: it shifts with prime ministers, cabinet ministers, official, local warlordly reaction to official policy: the water issue with Singapore is one example; Malaysia sending in peacekeepers, at Manila's request, to Mindanao, where Kuala Lumpur has sided in the past with Muslim leaders fighting for autonomy from Manila. I met Mr Nur Misuari, the local Muslim leader at odds with Manila, in Tripoli, Libya, in 1976; he was travelling on a Malaysian passport.

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