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."
Fake news for a fake democracy - By Commander S THAYAPARAN (Retired) Royal Malaysian Navy
Saturday, February 03, 2018
Malaysiakini : āTotalitarian propaganda perfects the
techniques of mass propaganda, but it neither invents them nor
originates their themes. These were prepared for them by 50 years of
imperialism and disintegration of the nation-state, when the mob entered
the scene of European politics. Like the earlier mob leaders, the
spokesmen for totalitarian movements possessed an unerring instinct for
anything that ordinary party propaganda or public opinion did not care
or dare to touch. Everything hidden, everything passed over in silence,
became of major significance, regardless of its own intrinsic
importance. The mob really believed that truth was whatever respectable
society had hypocritically passed over, or covered up with corruption.ā ā Hannah Arendt, āThe Origins of Totalitarianismā
COMMENT | DAPās Lim Kit Siangās offer to the Umno regime to form
a bipartisan committee to tackle āfake newsā is the cherry on top of
the horse manure cake that is politics in this country. This is exactly
what Malaysia needs right now - two highly partisan entities determining
what news is fake or otherwise.
Any rational person would realise that this is just another way for
the propagandists of Putrajaya to control the narrative and the
opposition to play the blame game and make ridiculous suggestions of
bipartisanship when the reality is that nobody in the current system has
any genuine intention of working on specific issues for the betterment
of the rakyat.
Umno contention with this committee is to legitimise the crackdown on
press freedom in the hopes that they can finally cripple not the
alternative press ā them too ā but social media, which is the main
medium that the opposition uses to get its narratives out. Politicians
lie, spin and fabricate to get votes but more importantly, to control
the narrative.
Remember when people thought the Umno grand poobah would be arrested
if he went to the United States and the elaborate ānewsā articles that
were fabricated and disseminated online or how Kit Siang was in Kuala
Lumpur during the May 13 riots and was part of the cabal who instigated
it. This is what we are dealing with here in Malaysia.
It is, of course, no surprise that Singapore also intends to form a committee to combat fake news. As reported in The Diplomat
in the beginning of the year ā āOn Wednesday, Singaporeās parliament
agreed to set up a new select committee to study what the government has
characterized as ādeliberate online falsehoodsā. The move is just one
of several steps that the Southeast Asian state has taken in its
response to the growing challenge of fake news, in spite of various
concerns raised by some opponents.ā
Singapore, like some of its other neighbours such as Malaysia and
Indonesia, has become increasingly aware of the growing magnitude of the
challenge of fake news (See: āWinning Asiaās war on fake newsā).
āAs part of this, the countryās top officials have been publicly and
privately emphasising the dire consequences of fake news to the country
specifically ā including generating unnecessary public alarm, diverting
limited resources, and harming the reputations of individuals and
institutions ā as well as considering new measures that can be taken.ā
Laws to combat fake news, as lawyer Eric Paulsen (photo)
rightly points, is detrimental to freedom of speech but more
importantly, points out that nobody has a monopoly on the truth. We live
in a time when fact-based assessments are clouded in a patina of
partisanship, hence any attempts by politicians to control the news
should be rejected by rational Malaysians.
Another weapon for oppressors
Paulsen referenced a Malaysiakini case which is worth considering because it demonstrates how the Umno regime defines fake news. You can read my defence of Malaysiakinihere ā āIt was not (editor-in-chief) Steven Gan or Malaysiakini
that claimed that the attorney-general (AG) was not fit for his job and
should resign; they were reporting on what a critic of the AG said
during a press conference. Furthermore, and this is also important, is
it really āobscene, offensive or falseā for a citizen of this country to
call into question the credibility, fitness for office or the
resignation of a public official?ā
Franceās Emmanuel Macron (photo) whose campaign was target
by Russian provocateurs, is naturally inclined to believe that laws are
needed to combat fake news but what he has done and indeed many other
āWesternā governments who have been plagued by Russian operations, is to
give tyrannical regimes the opportunity to propagate laws which further
stifle freedom of speech and expression. Here are two interesting aspects of what Macronās intends his legislation to achieve as reported by NPR -
1. āAmong other things, Macron said the law should require websites
to disclose their source of funding and have a cap on the amount of
money they receive from sponsored content.ā 2. āDuring an election, the government would be authorised to block a
website to suppress fake news, he said. He insisted that press freedom
could be preserved under such a law.ā The above, of course, is already happening in Malaysia. Websites have
been closed down and donors who fund news sites deemed detrimental to
the Umno hegemon have been targeted by the state security apparatus. Malaysiakini has
been on the receiving end of harassment because they propagate āfake
newsā and numerous attempts have been made to threaten social media
users who spread āfake newsā on chat groups and the like.
The phenomenon of fake news as propaganda of foreign powers
threatening domestic elections has morphed into news that is detrimental
to tyrannic hegemons or political personalities. Mainstream news
organisations in the West are target by either left-wing or right-wing
ideologues when it suits their purposes In the Malaysian context as with many other kleptocratic or
theocratic regimes, fake news is anything other than the official
narratives of the establishment. While there have always been lies, spin
and propaganda by both sides, this idea that fake news is a danger to
this country is nothing but outrage porn for the political elites.
While the establishment through it mainstream propaganda organs
demonises the opposition, the opposition has to fight with one hand tied
behind their backs because the legal and political realities favour the
Umno establishment. Meanwhile, the fake news about the Umno hegemon
that floats around the social media are sometimes debunked or is taken
as gospel truth by a highly partisan electorate. What I want from the opposition are guarantees in writing that
restrictions on freedom of speech and expression enacted by the Umno
hegemon and by political operatives who not too long ago were part of
the hegemon, would be lifted.