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."
Malaysiakini : "This does not mean that MCA is finished, however. You remain the only opposition in town." ā My open letter to MCA
COMMENT | Many readers have been emailing me asking what I thought of Pakatan Harapanās lossin the Semenyihby-election. Two points need to be considered. The first is whether this victory will stem the leakage of Umno into Bersatu.
The second I elaborated in my article about that familiar Malay tune
in Semenyih ā āSo, the real question about playing the Malay tune, in
Semenyih and beyond, is how far right is the Malay Harapan establishment
willing to go to defeat the Umno and PAS union, and how far is the
non-Malay establishment willing to follow the Harapan Malay establishment?ā
MCA secretary-general Chew Mei Funās claim that Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad is using DAP to further his Bumiputera agenda is correct. Malay power brokers have always used their non-Malay coalition members to further their racialist agendas.
This
is part of the 'social contract' that supposedly maintains 'tolerance' ā
an odious word ā amongst the various communities in Malaysia. The
thing that strikes me about Chew's claim is that while social media
still likes to portray MCA as a spent force, there are many diehard
Harapan supporters who grudgingly admit there is some 'truth' in what it
is saying.
I, on the other hand, do not have to grudgingly admit
anything. I think MCA has been highlighting issues that need to be heard
in this do-not-spook-the-Malays era. However, it is not
only Mahathir who has been using DAP to further his Islamic agenda; he
is just the latest. Ever since Pakatan Rakyat, I warned that certain PAS
personalities ā and now Amanah political operatives ā blurring the
lines between Islam and the supposedly secular politics of DAP could
only lead the latter down a very dangerous path.
Not mutually exclusive
In
this country, race and religion are not mutually exclusive. You cannot
court the one without the other. I have never seen the visceral hatred
some Islamists ā from any of the Malay power structures ā have towards
DAP than they ever exhibited towards MCA. Why is that? Because MCA
never attempted to define Islam as some in DAP and their supporters do
when going about this Bangsa Malaysia propaganda.
While MCA has
always been opposed to the policies of PAS, they went through a bad
patch when the late Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat was in charge, because what
he managed to do was play well with others in an attempt to
democratically win federal power. This changed with Abdul Hadi Awang leading PAS and Pakatan falling apart, which resulted in the birth of Amanah.
Just recently, a PAS strategist said that while the party
has had its issues with MCA, they never thought it was hypocritical.
They supported Umno ā especially in the 'Mahafiraun' years when Mahathir
was in power the first time ā and did not hide their āChinese face.ā
'Bangsa Malaysia'
Look,
when Chew talks about DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Engās eagerness to
discard his 'Chinese' image in furtherance of Malay support, this goes
to the heart of the horse manure politics of this new Malaysia.
I was appalled by the finance ministerās statement that he was āMalaysianā
when he was chosen as finance minister. āWhen DAP leader and
newly-appointed finance minister Lim says he considers himself Malaysian
first, it is mendacious and subservient since he sitting at a table
with someone who heads a Malay-only organisation, feebly makes noises
(with his non-Malay partners) about following the constitution (as if
the Federal Constitution is not a compromised document) when confronted
about 'Malay rights,' but most importantly, it is a negation of
non-Malay cultural identity at the expense of Malay realpolitik, which
is the foundation of 'ketuananism'."
But didnāt MCA do the same
thing during the long Umno watch? Yes and no. Yes, they were furthering
the bumiputera agenda of whichever Malay potentate was in power, but no,
they were not raising the toxicity level in the political landscape. They
never attempted to promote any agenda like the Bangsa Malaysia
Kool-Aid, nor did they attempt to redefine Islam as a 'moderate'
religion with the aid of Islamic political and religious operatives.
They
relied on Umno to do that, which was self-defeating, but if we are
talking realpolitik, then it was the only option they had and for a time
they had the support of the majority in the Chinese community.
I cannot blame MCA for this, nor DAP for that matter, because this is after all the malaisesystem:
āNow I am not saying that the non-Malays had no part in making this
system, but as recent events have demonstrated, most of us have very
little intention of destroying the current system. "Replacing
former premier Najib Abdul Razak, in case you did not get the memo, is
not destroying the system. It merely means we are setting the system
back to its default setting.ā
No lessons learned
Here's the thing. Why hasnāt DAP learned the lesson of the downfall of MCA? This
is not a question of inexperience. DAP has led Penang and been a part
of the Selangor government, and within this context, all they have
managed to do is walk in the footsteps of MCA, while attempting to
destroy it once and for all.
Did it ever occur to anyone that the
problem with the Malay community is that there is very little choice
when it comes to the political parties they vote for? Do we want the
same kind of dilemma in the non-Malay communities? I think not.
Ultimately,
if you are a non-Malay mainstream political party, in varying degrees,
you have to service Malay power structures when it comes to the
bumiputera agenda. What you can do is remain staunchly secular
eschewing any kind of agenda of attempting to court Malay votes through
Islam, and loudly advocate for egalitarian policies while supporting
non-religious affirmative action programmes for the Malay community.
You have to do this so long as you are aligned with Malay-only political power structures.