Kuala Lampur, Aug. 11 -- AUg 11 - The language of "Malay-Muslim unity" sounds reassuring.

It invokes solidarity, communal protection and the political consolidation of the Malay-Muslim majority. Yet beneath this apparently benign vocabulary lies a fundamental question: unity under whose leadership, according to whose ideological definition, and ultimately for whose political benefit?

This is where a Hadi-led PAS presents both Barisan Nasional (BN) and Perikatan Nasional (PN) with a strategic problem.

Malay-Muslim unity can easily become a political bogeyman: the perpetual warning that Malays are divided, Islam is threatened and political consolidation is therefore necessary.

Once this proposition is accepted, almost every disagreement...