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."
Do Malaysians want religious freedom in Malaysia? - By Commander S THAYAPARAN (Retired) Royal Malaysian Navy
Sunday, April 22, 2018
Malaysiakini : āIf a believer demands that I, as a nonbeliever, observe his
taboos in the public domain, he is not asking for my respect, but for my
submission.ā ā Flemming Rose, Danish journalist and author
COMMENT | Since as academic
Manjit Bhatia correctly points in one of his replies to me - that there
is really no such thing as a "Malaysian" - we will have to make do with
the various diverse voting blocks that make up this country. A visiting
journalist (who I have known for some time) from a Southeast Asian
country, here to cover the May 9 general election, posed this question
to me - do Malaysians want religious freedom in this country?
I won't bother going into definitions but I could make the case that
non-Muslims definitely want "freedom of religion" in this country. When
it comes to religious freedom in this country, the constraint has always
been Islam's interactions with the other religions. Our religions are
defined by how much freedom the state grants us, which depends on the
state's definition of Islam. I get that it is election season and BN political operatives are
scrambling to regain the middle ground.
Mind you these days, the middle
group is mainly composed of the non-Malays (which I suppose includes
bumiputera non-Muslims) and the dreaded āpuak liberalā that right-wing
types love to demonise. Just last year in October, Deputy Minister in the Prime Ministerās
Department Asyraf Wajdi Dusuk reminded us that BN ā and this cannot be
emphasised more, BN not Umno ā is committed to making Malaysia an
Islamic state. Not only that, Lim Kit Siang claimed that the DAP
supports āIslamisationā based on the constitution (whatever the heck
that means) which really stuck in my craw.
Meanwhile, out of the blue (or maybe just jumping on the bandwagon)
Amanah, a supposedly āmoderateā Islamic party, bring ups in Parliament
the question of atheism amongst the faithful. I vented in my usual way
of how people do not really have a secular alternative in the
opposition. The one good thing I like about the election season is that the Umno
state attempts to put on a mask of moderation. In attempting to appeal
and reassure the non-Muslims of their rights, the state has overturned
unilateral conversion cases, invest in non-Muslim places of worship and
countless other strategies which are at odds with the weltanschauung of
your average Islamic bureaucrat.
We are living at a time when PAS, which used to be the sworn enemy of
Umno, is snuggling up to the hegemon because the former fears a loss of
Malay/Muslim support. The state religion has become more than just a
tool of suppression/repression but has undergone a transformation where
disparate groups eager to draw out concessions from a weakened ruling
party use it. What was fascinating about the exchange
between the fabulous Siti Kassim and Perlis mufti Dr Asri Zainal Abidin
during the Sukaham inquiry on missing persons was the fact the Perlis
mufti discovered that he was āā¦ not in the position to answer that kind
of stupid questionā.
This really meant that he was not in a position publicly to exalt
(for religious reasons, you understand) the disappearance of a person he
had deemed a threat to national security for his supposed religious
beliefs that went against the state-sanctioned Islam of this country.
And at one time, this was the poster boy for religious moderation
amongst opposition supporters. With the dwindling financial assistance from the House of Saud, the
extreme Wahhabi-influenced Islam that the Sunni sect imposes all over
the world is in trouble. PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang, for instance,
belongs to the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS) which
certain Gulf states, including the Kingdom, have placed on terror watch
list.
He is cosy with the Umno grand poobah, who is mired in corruption
scandals, so much so that he has to enact anti-fake news laws to
discourage dissent. Only in Malaysia, a so-called democratic moderate
Muslim country, can a mainstream Muslim political leader, who is part of
a group that certain Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, designate as a
terror group, make the claim that PAS is ready to lead this country to a
new dawn.
This goes back to the reality that majority of Malaysians ā Muslims -
are the community who do have freedom of religion, freedom from
religion or any other kind of ārightsā attached to how they choose to
worship. This, of course, is often overlooked because non-Muslims who
feel the overt force of religious restrictions dominates the discourse.
The fact is that it is Muslims who most often feel the overt force on
the state in their daily lives.
Controlled environment of fear
If you are a non-Muslim in this country you have the choice of going
secular ā in form, if not in substance ā with the DAP and very little
else. If you are Muslim/Malay and join the DAP, you are tarred as a
traitor to your race and religion. However, while in DAP you cannot
voice out your concerns of the way how Islam intrudes into the lives of
Muslims because this would cause ātroubleā for your party.
Meanwhile, you are free to criticise the Islamic practices of the
state when it comes to non-Muslims which in turn gets you lumped with
the āpuak liberalā and the other Muslims who dissent against the
state-sponsored religion. Now thatās tough. Even more so when the DAP
builds a "syariah compliant" hospital and describes it as the "first in
Malaysia".
Forced conversions, unilateral conversions, state security apparatus
personnel involved in terrorist groups and a Muslim polity continuously
encouraged in their belief that the Islam is under threat from other
Muslims all working for the dreaded DAP, is how the state defines Islam
in this country. This is a peaceful country. Whenever there is trouble, the trouble
begins and ends with the twin spectres of race and religion. This is the
question - if you really believe that your religion is superior, then
how can you safeguard the religious freedom of others?
Corollary to this, if you have to rely on the majority who are taught
to believe this, how can you advocate on behalf of those who either do
not want religion in our political spaces or want their religion to be
treated āequallyā as that of the state-sponsored religion? It all boils down to what I said in āHadi Awang is not the problemā
ā āIf you are waffling on your commitment to a secular state, then you
have to make your case for an Islamic state and this is where the
trouble begins and ends. If oppositional Muslim political operatives and
their allies would just stop using religion as the basis of critique
and concentrate on furthering the agenda of the secular state,
oppositional Muslims MPs would not have to worry about attempting to
āout Islamā their rivals because this would not be the grounds on which
they battle for votes.ā
Sure, we can talk about how people practice their religious beliefs
in a controlled environment of fear in this country, but the reality is
that the religion of the state always hangs over the head of religious
people because religious institutions, the state security apparatus and
mainstream Malay/Muslim politics is defined by racial, but more
importantly, religious superiority. Does any political party really believe in freedom of religion in
this country? Can any political party which wants a sizable vote from
the majority who are told/believe in religious superiority actually
advocate such in this country? More importantly, do the people who
support these political parties encourage their representatives to
pursue this line which would ensure that all "Malaysians" have religious
freedom?