Rudyard Kipling"
“When 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 soldier”
General Douglas MacArthur"
“We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.”
“It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.” “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.
“The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and be the deepest wounds and scars of war.”
“May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't .” “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
“Nobody ever defended, there is only attack and attack and attack some more.
“It 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."
The opposition is indebted to Anwar Ibrahim - By Commander S THAYAPARAN (Retired) Royal Malaysian Navy
Monday, January 08, 2018
Anwar Ibrahim and Mamakthir were the ones who brought the Iranian Street to Malaysia. Religious tolerance went into the toilet with these two architects!
Malaysiakini : “If I'm sincere today, what does it matter if I regret it tomorrow?” ― José Saramago, Blindness
COMMENT | Former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad is not the only person who is indebted to political prisoner Anwar Ibrahim. The opposition, its supporters and whoever is contemplating regime
change in this country is indebted to the hopefully-soon-to-be-released
political prisoner. Without Anwar, there would be no opposition in this
country.
While it is easy being critical of someone like Anwar, whose
political and historical baggage defines the political landscape that
some Malaysians desperately want to change, I would argue that there
would not even be an opportunity for some sort of change if it were not
for Anwar and his compromised crusade against the Umno regime.
We must never forget that before Mahathir, the newly-christened
PM-designate of Harapan, exhausted all possibilities of removing Najib
Abdul Razak from within Umno, he was still committed to vilifying Anwar
and the opposition. While hatchets may have been buried, the opposition owes the people
who support them a commitment to the reformasi agenda that was, and
still is, a threat (albeit muted) to the Umno weltanschauung (world view).
It is important that a political leader like the DAP’s Lim Guan Eng
reaffirms his support for Anwar, it is even more important that the
opposition remains committed to the reform agenda that is the basis of
Anwar’s struggle against the Umno regime. While some people may scoff at that premise, the reality is that
opposition supporters who vote for this compromised coalition want
something more than the “stability” and “social contract” offered by the
Umno establishment.
Here is a reality check. When Amanah’s Mat Sabu (photo)
reminds us that non-Muslim majorities in Japan and Korea reject
establishment corruption but in a country like Malaysia, "The Malays
listen to khutbah on a weekly basis, but the more they listen
the more they (seem to) support corruption," it is an indictment against
the racial and religious politics that dominates this country.
However, the irony is that Bersatu, a political party designed to
combat Umno, carries on the narrative that this country is defined by
race and religion. This last part is axiomatic and to invest further in
this narrative is not the point of this article. Anwar could have gone the route of creating a solely “Malay” power
structure but instead he followed the path of the DAP and attempted
something unifying instead of following in the footsteps of Umno.
Now, some would argue that the factional politics in PKR is
Malay-dominated but the same criticisms could – and have – been levelled
at the DAP. Racial politics so long ingrained is hard to shed but it is
a process, not merely a destination.
If Anwar Ibrahim had just created another clone of Umno, instead of
gambling on the belief that Malaysians were ready for change, would he
have succeeded? Certainly, the old master Mahathir plays for keeps and
what Anwar did when he was ejected from the Umno paradise seems
idealistic and naive. Read more here.
While my criticisms against the DAP and PKR are a matter of public
record, the reality is that both parties are attempts at multi-racial
collectives – so too is Amanah, with certain ideological qualifications –
which have crashed into the reality of Ketuanan politics. Hence the
need for Bersatu. Some folks would argue – and they do have a point – that is Harapan
really an alternative? Is Harapan an alternative to the desideratum of
mainstream Malay politics? Are we not just changing the driver and not
the direction of this country? This of course is an important question,
and it would be disingenuous of me if I did not mention that I have posed the same question:
“In partisan politics, which is an illusion (in case you did not
know), each side would point to certain issues that set one apart.
Partisans would then claim that these issues, sometimes major sometimes
peripheral, are the only thing separating right from wrong. The smarter
ones link them to some sort of ideology and this becomes easier for
identity politics to get in the way of facts. Every issue becomes a
Manichaean struggle and people become invested in the side they choose
to support.”
So people question how we can move beyond race and religion when the
majority sought after by the opposition are defined by these concepts.
Okay, maybe the majority of opposition supporters are not preoccupied by
this question. They are preoccupied with kleptocracy. But in case you
are a supporter of the opposition, which is troubled by the religious
imperatives of mainstream Malay power structures, where do you go from
here?
Which brings us to Anwar’s Islamic credentials and the need for
religion – Islam – in the political strategies of this country and
Harapan. To understand the dialectic, we have to refer to Dr Ronnie
Ooi’s Open letter to Anwar Ibrahim – Is a secular Malaysia, the only way
to save Malaysia? From the letter – “In this letter, I have argued that
the fault line between the Islamism of the PKR, Amanah and Bersatu and
the secularism of the DAP is only over the word secular, ie, only an
argument over terminology and not an argument over substance.
“So long as the DAP does not insist that all component parties of PH
must call the country secular, no harm is done. The idea that the
Malaysian public will only be impressed if all PH MPs sing the same tune
all the time is outdated, counterproductive and stands in the way of
achieving desirable political objectives. PH must be a broad tent with
room to agree to disagree.” (Apropos everything, in another piece, I will attempt to answer the very important question that Dr Ronnie Ooi raises.)
All of this, of course, has brought the opposition to where it is
today. You could say, everything old is new again. This is where it will
all end, in the beginning. A time when former prime minister Mahathir
attempts to reimagine the political landscape of Malaysia. Some would argue that we are waking to a nightmare but I would argue
that Anwar Ibrahim may have given us a chance for a different, maybe
even better Malaysia, because in politics anything can happen.
People should not forget that the opposition gets to roll the dice because of the efforts of political prisoner Anwar Ibrahim.