Rudyard Kipling"
āWhen you're left wounded on Afganistan's plains and
the women come out to cut up what remains, Just roll to your rifle
and blow out your brains,
And go to your God like a soldierā
General Douglas MacArthur"
āWe are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.ā
āIt is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.ā āOld soldiers never die; they just fade away.
āThe soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and be the deepest wounds and scars of war.ā
āMay God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't .ā āThe object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
āNobody ever defended, there is only attack and attack and attack some more.
āIt is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.
The Soldier stood and faced God
Which must always come to pass
He hoped his shoes were shining
Just as bright as his brass
"Step forward you Soldier,
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To My Church have you been true?"
"No, Lord, I guess I ain't
Because those of us who carry guns
Can't always be a saint."
I've had to work on Sundays
And at times my talk was tough,
And sometimes I've been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.
But, I never took a penny
That wasn't mine to keep.
Though I worked a lot of overtime
When the bills got just too steep,
The Soldier squared his shoulders and said
And I never passed a cry for help
Though at times I shook with fear,
And sometimes, God forgive me,
I've wept unmanly tears.
I know I don't deserve a place
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around
Except to calm their fears.
If you've a place for me here,
Lord, It needn't be so grand,
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don't, I'll understand."
There was silence all around the throne
Where the saints had often trod
As the Soldier waited quietly,
For the judgment of his God.
"Step forward now, you Soldier,
You've borne your burden well.
Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets,
You've done your time in Hell."
Little evidence of justice in hudud-ruled nations by K Temoc
Saturday, November 23, 2013
From Malaysiakini : I refer to Malaysiakiniās news article
āDewan Ulama wants Pakatan alliance reviewedā, in which we learnt of
PASā intent to assess whether there has been genuine progress in the
tahaluf siyasi or political consensus in Pakatan, which incidentally
left me wondering whether there is a Bahasa word for the Arabic term
tahaluf siyasi?
Further reading on the tahaluf siyasi has
indicated that PAS has far-reaching expectations beyond mere political
cooperation among coalition members, that of requiring Pakatan-held
states like Penang, Selangor and Kelantan to implement hudud laws within
those states.
While understanding PASā keenness to implement
hudud in Kelantan, I am deeply concerned by the Islamic partyās
expectation that Penang and Selangor are to follow suit. And there is no
mistaking this as its information chief, Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man, has
stated this very clearly.
Already we have had glimpses of PASā
value system in the recent threat by its Penang deputy commissioner
Muhammad Fauzi Yusoff for the party to withdraw from the state coalition
if certain conditions were not met.
Two examples of those
conditions have been that PAS and not the state exco, the voice of the
Penang people, will have sole control of (a) appointments to the state
religious council (MAIPP), as well as board directors in agencies and
subsidiaries under the council, and (b) appointments of Village Security
and Development Committees (JKKK) members in the six state and two
parliamentary constituencies in Penang contested by the party,
regardless of whether those constituencies are held by PAS.
The
above demands coupled with PAS ulama factionās proposal to leave the top
three party positions for only ulama indicate that the partyās ulama do
not understand both democracy and coalition cooperation when it boils
down to holding posts of power. I am beginning to speculate what will
PAS do to general elections if it comes into federal power?
PASā
intention to implement hudud even in states like Penang and Selangor
shows at best, a deeply religious fervor or, in reality, an unbridled
arrogance that is terrifying when one can remember that in a hudud legal
system, the ulama will reign supreme as unquestionable, unchallengeable
and unaccountable overlords with the powers to prosecute and persecute,
punish and prohibit at will.
PAS has of course claimed that
hudud will reduce if not eliminate crimes, perhaps a la the Japanese
occupation when the dreaded Kempeitai policed Malaya?
Just last
year, the Islamic Republic of Iran executed 1,663 people, followed in
numbers of execution by other Islamic states like Saudi Arabia with 423
people, Iraq with 256, Pakistan 171, and Yemen 152.
Their
respective executions all exceeded even that of the draconian
dictatorship of North Korea, whose state executions numbered 105.
Obviously
hudud in those Islamic nations hasnāt done much at all to quell crimes,
or if it has, then those executed were not criminals.
Iāve read
that under hudud, in cases of adultery a womanās pregnancy could be
evidence of that crime. What happens when a woman has been the raped
victim and then becomes pregnant?
Victim ordered flogged
If
anyone believes my question is ridiculous, just recall that in 2007 in
Saudi Arabia, a 19-year old Shiite woman who reported she was raped was
penalised with 90 lashes because prior to the rape, she was with a man
to retrieve her photo from him. They were then set upon by seven other
men who sexually abused both of them.
That was the hudud system
in action, where instead of dealing with the horrendous crime of rape,
the judges wanted the rape victim flogged for being with a man.
She
then appealed, no doubt unsuccessfully, but the outcome of the appeal
saw her sentence increased to six months jail and 200 lashes. The judges
claimed she attempted to influence the judiciary by the ensuing
publicity.
Just how in the world did those cleric-judges
determine she was guilty of the ensuing publicity, when the media was
attracted in the first place by the initial punishment of 90 lashes for a
rape victim?
Now this was the most shockingly notorious part of
the rape trial. The court ruled it was the girl's fault in the first
place that she was raped, and that the rape would not have happened if
she had not met with the non-related male friend. The judges failed to
mentioned it was not her male friend who raped her but seven other men.
The judgesā appalling atrocious ruling reminds me of a similar misogynist remark
by Abdul Fatah Harun, former PAS MP for Rantau Panjang, who told
Parliament in 2006 that āIf we see women who donāt have husbands and are
divorced not because their husbands are dead, (it must be because) they
are āgatal sikitā.ā
But wait, thereās more. Apparently
a rape conviction carries the death penalty in Saudi Arabia, but the
court did not impose it for those seven rapists because, according to
the amazing court, there was the ālack of witnessesā and the āabsence of
confessionsā.
I wonder whether the coincidence that the victim
belongs to Saudi Arabiaās minority Shiite community, while the rapists
have been all Sunnis, had anything to do with the syariah courtās
ruling?
Alas, given such unbelievably disturbing standards of
jurisprudence, I am forced into suspecting our PAS people and those
Saudi syariah court judges could be sharing similar values vis-Ć -vis
women and minorities.
Continuing with the Saudi rape trial, the
victimās husband told Arab News they would appeal (again), but the court
warned that the sentence could be increased if she lost the appeal
again.
Wasnāt it shockingly hideous for the court to threaten
that the rape victimās sentence could be increased if she loses the
appeal? What did it mean for syariah laws?
It would seem those clerics had misused the laws of God vindictively and maliciously rather than justly.
Laden with human prejudices
Remember,
Saudi Arabia is the land of Prophet Muhammad, but we mustnāt blame
the laws of Allah just because that court in supposedly dispensing
out justice in accordance with those divine laws, could yet make
misogynist and threatening comments, because those so-called
cleric-judges were laden with their inherent human prejudices,
weaknesses, failings and self-interests.
And thatās precisely my
worries about syariah law, more so hudud, when it wonāt be administered
by Allah swt Himself but by such clerics who have shown that they are
not only unquestionable, unchallengeable and totally unaccountable, but
unable to fairly and impartially dispense out the divine laws of Allah
swt.
Thus for us to accept a theocratic state (of any religion)
where we leave justice and its punishment system completely in the hands
of those unquestionable, unchallengeable and unaccountable priests,
monks, and mullahs would produce the most frightening unjust system, one
of perpetual terror a la Maximilien Robespierreās 18th century France.
Such
a system in the past was exploited by unscrupulous clerics of many
religions, all in the name of their respective god. There is no doubt
that it will again be, for that is human nature.
Today there is
not one Islamic nation that has shown itself to be a shining example to
the world in terms of exemplary justice. For example, last year in
syariah-hudud governed Pakistan a man and his wife poured acid on their
daughterās face and body, yes their own daughter, because she had talked
with a boy.
The local doctor who examined her corpse said,
āThere were third-degree burns on her scalp, face, eyes, nostrils, both
arms, chest foot and lower part of legs. Even her scalp bone was
exposed.ā
And the cowardly parents didnāt even have the āhonourā
to admit to their āhonour killingā, lying through their teeth that their
daughter had committed an un-Islamic suicide.
Then there was the
most infamous case of the so-called revenge rape in 2005 where
Mukhtaran Mai (or Bibi) was gang raped by another clan on fabricated
accusations that her 12-year old brother had sex with a 30-year old
woman from that clan. In fact the sub-teenage brother was already
sodomized by men from there.
The Pakistani authorities initially
took no action until international pressure forced them to. The rapists
were arrested with six sentenced to death, but subsequently, in that
syariah-ruled land, were all released by the Pakistani High Courts due
to ālack of evidenceā. And to add insult to injury, the Pakistani
government banned Mukhtaran Mai from leaving Pakistan to attend an
Amnesty International forum in the USA.
Defensive arguments
The
usual defensive arguments by some Malaysians have been that the
oxymoronic āhonour killingsā or revenge rapes had nothing to do with
Islam or syariah or hudud, and were local tribal customs in Pakistan.
But
tribal or not tribal custom, we need to point out those Pakistani and
Saudi cases all took place under the umbrella of syariah jurisprudence,
proving consistently and beyond any doubt that Islamic law per se is no
guarantee for justice or a crime-free society, and could even be argued
on the basis of records that it has shown it is far less effective that
secular civil legal systems.
It is not because the laws of Allah
swt is not perfect but fundamentally, because His Muslim cleric-judges
most certainly havenāt been, arenāt nor will be.
Thus I rather
believe that our only defence against the insidious subversion of Godās
laws into an unacceptable clerical-centred āGod only proposes but itās
Man (the cleric) who disposesā has to be the strengthening, upholding
and non-negotiable protection of the secular constitution and the civil
courts (warts and all). K TEMOC is a Penangite who enjoys
being an independent blogger and loves to share his opinion on Malaysian
and world affairs without fear or favour, though currently is
politically inclined towards DAP, only because the political party has
thus far shown faithfulness to its promise of competency, accountability
and transparency.
