Since you've established that PAS is perpetually growing, here's something that's worthwhile to be pondered first and foremost.

WHY do people turn to religion as time goes on?

IMO it could be a few things:
1. Facing insurmountable obstacles (for coping)
Pretty relevant, especially in modern time where people can work but still be in 'relative' poverty. Life used to be simpler, and simpler means harder for people to feel hopeless.
Why else would suicide rate goes hand-in-hand with a nation's progress as it becomes more developed?

2. Pursuing a sense of community, solidarity, togetherness, strength.
Modern, urban living promotes isolationism (just earn enough money, anything else can be solved if you have enough,
no need to befriend your neighbors in case of emergency,
no need to know your farmers, fishermen, butchers for your daily needs
no need to know your plumbers, electricians, carpenters.)
We're still social animals in the end.

3. Return to form
Religion used to play a major part in society right up until the modern era. As we now face signs of societal decay, some go back to what has arguably worked previously.

4. Finding purpose & meaning
Religions tell people of life's meaning and purpose. In end-stage capitalist era where people are mostly in perpetual rat race, people look for alternative to such lifestyle.

5. Prophetic fulfillment
Niche, but some religion (I only know of abrahamic ones) foretold of end of times. No comments here, differ from one religion to another.

Here's a take on Nietzsche's God is Dead


Transcript at 6:17 onwards:
Nietzsche recognized the value of religion as a 'social cement' and moral compass.
Even though he was critical of it, he also feared what would happen if Christianity in the West would fade.
Why? Because according to him, the West (and the rest of humanity, for that matter) lacks an adequate replacement for religion,
something strong and robust enough to fill the and existential vacuum that'd emerge from it.

tl:DR
People turn to religion to solve an underlying problem. Solve those problems (1-4, 5 would be difficult) and people wouldn't be turning to PAS who tunggang religion for answers.
Instead Anwar opted prove he's the better jockey, so that's where we are today.

To be fair you can see a trend around the world that a number of society are turning conservatives and re-embracing traditional values, which I'd wager for the exact same reason for 1-4.
Even part of China youth falls under such category.

Yeah, just expanding the discussion. People who are anti-religion likes to dismiss things straight, just pointing out that people do not seek religion for no reason.
The focus is here is to find out which is the main pain point, because different demographics have different priority
(e.g. chinese may think economy is most important, malay may rate self-fulfillment & community value higher, etc.)

However if people pursue it because of point 5, then you don't really have much choice tbh.

Although I'm younger than that, I'd like to clarify that what you call islamization back then is what I'd say correction/re-adjustments to the faith teachings.
Practice of Islam back then was heavily intermingled with practices that's heavily focused on malay culture (which as we all know was also heavily influenced by other faith like hinduism & buddhism from Srivijaya time and what not).
The islamization was more towards re-examining the faith moving towards the proper one as per the teachings and cutting off the malay-cultured-but-opposing-islam part.

PAS's 'if you don't vote for us you're going to hell' & 'vote us to enter heaven' is still bullshit though.
Else they'd have gained so much more traction in the 90s instead of being a fringe party since their PMIP days during Tunku Abdul Rahman time.
Apparently they once even made a solat hajat group prayer event to wish for Mahathir's immediate death kek.

sos: my late grandfather who went to British School but is also a pious person who studied & taught religion to kampung folks.

EDIT: Also people need to ask this, if PAS is really the champion of the faith, why did islamization need to come from UMNO folks like Anwar?

This post has been edited by keybearer: Jul 8 2024, 12:36 AM

My point is people listened to UMNO on religion when that is PAS's niche. They've been around since the 1950s, if religion was really their thing islamization should've come from them.
Ergo, people should wise up that they're not really who they say they are (but then again, which politician is lmao.)

To be fair I don't really know how PAS was like pre-current era. Just like how Gerakan had their moments, PAS back then is likely different too (easiest to see is before & after Nik Aziz's passing)

Well I won't comment on who benefited more back then, just sharing my grandfather's take and clarifying even if it wasn't political it would've happened eitherway sooner or later.

Speaking as somebody who do not trust Anwar ever since what he & Rafizi did to the late Tan Sri Khalid, he's on too much of trust deficit with the bumi to ever get back to zero, much less become positive.
That is considering if he even do a great job during this term, which evidently he's not.
Don't get me wrong, I want him to do good too cause he's the PM that we got for now (the same way I felt about all the previous PMs), but he is who he is.

Nons underestimated how much we've pretty much labelled him as a snake / chameleon, but I guess you guys are finding that out right now.
I used to highlight this but kena label macai PN, so I just senyap and let his true nature come out for all to see.

His snake nature is working against him, you can't cry about not having enough money need to cut subsidy introduce taxes then blow it all away on something that's not critical.
Can't say the government do not have enough money then announce 'unprecedented' salary raise to the public sector.
Can't say people need to save up for retirement then allow for EPF account 3 withdrawal.
Can't say 10As get free pass to matriculation then say quota is unaffected.
Can't say madani is corruption free when he's in bed with one of the bigger crooks.
Can't say you're pro-palestine / neutral whenever it suits your needs depending on your audience.

See what I'm getting at? He must still think this is some pre-newspaper era or something where information do not flow as freely and it's hard for people to criticize with facts.
He's practically begging to be called out.

IMHO to be perfectly honest, he can continue his strategy, provided the situation at home is flourishing.
If he did his job well enough then people would compromise to a certain extent.
Ultimately what strategy he implements does not matter if he's still being a snake AND doing a shit job overall.

That's likely a lost cause, how many time have you seen a snake at a workplace buckled up and started pulling his own weight?
Zero time in my case. People who depended on their mouth to get where they are usually do not polish other necessary skills in life.

If you're aware of his pattern from even before becoming PM, he's never one to take a strong stance from the get go.
He usually wait for the general sentiment of an issue to develop then only insert himself at the front, usually atleast 1-2 days after the buzz on socmed.

Difficult to turn an invertebrate populist to a vertebrate.