Link graphic for a KJB version Bible Verse that will be automatically updated when we update it from time to time
">


Articles, Opinions & Views: Will Harapan stop dancing to Umno/PAS tune? - Commander S THAYAPARAN (Retired) Royal Malaysian Navy

Photobucket
Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting
 
Fighting Seventh
The Fighting Rangers
On War, Politics
and Burning Issues
Profile
Miscellaneous

American Thinker
American
Newspapers Online

Arab News
Asia News
Asia Times
Assyrian News
BBC News
Breitbart News
British and
International
Newspapers Online

CAMERA
CBS News
City Journal
CNN
Christian Solidarity
International

Daily Caller
Daily Mail
DAP Malaysia
Dawn
Drudge Report
Dutch News
Faith Freedom
Ali Sina

Foreign Affairs
Forward
Fox News
Google News
Guardian
Haaretz
Harakah Daily
English

Herald Malaysia
Hurriyet Turkey
History of Jihad
Independent
Indian Newspapers
Online

Inspire Magazine
IPOH Echo
International
Herald Tribune

Jerusalem Newswire
Jihad Watch
Local-
French News
In English)

London Times
Malaysiakini

Malaysian Insider
Malaysia
Centre for Policy
Initiatives

Free Malaysia Today
Malaysia Chronicle
Malaysia
-Sarawak Report

MEMRI TV
Middle East
Forum

Mission Network
News

MSNBC News
National Review
NEWSMAX
New York Post
New York Times
Nut Graph
Opinion Journal
Right Wing News
Spiegel
Star Online
Straits Times
Sun Malaysia
Sydney
Morning Herald

Telegraph
The Malay Mail
The Rebel Media
The Sun (UK)
Time
Times of India
Town Hall
US News
World Report

USA Today
VBS TV
Washington Post
Washington Times
World Net Daily
World
Watch Monitor

Yahoo News
Ynet News



No Atheists
In A Foxhole

Rudyard Kipling

" ā€œWhen 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

" ā€œWe are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.ā€

ā€œIt is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.ā€
ā€œOld soldiers never die; they just fade away.
ā€œThe soldier, above all other people, prays for peace,
for he must suffer and be the deepest wounds and scars of war.ā€
ā€œMay God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't .ā€
ā€œThe object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.

ā€œNobody ever defended, there is only attack and attack and attack some more.
ā€œIt 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."

Proud To Have
Served With Warriors

Glorious
Malaysian Food
Foreign Bloggers
&
Other Stuff
Gaming

Major D Swami
WITH Lt Col Ivan Lee
Click Here

Lt Col Ivan Lee
you want him with
you in a firefight!!!!

Dying Warrior
xxxxxx
Condors-Infantry
Fighting Vehicles
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Camp
Bujang Senang
Click Here
xxxxxxxx
The A Team
Click Here
xxxxxxxx
Major General
Toh Choon Siang
Click here
Lieutenant General
Stephen Mundaw
Click Here
With His
Dying Breath
Killed in Battle
In Death
Last Thoughts
Before Battle
Whilst There Is
Life, There Is Fight

Not Done In Yet!!

Iban Trackers
XXXXXXXX
Facts On RoP
Hutang Negara
Advertistment
XXXXXXXX
Advertistment
XXXXXXXX
Advertistment
XXXXXXXX
Advertistment
XXXXXXXX
Advertistment
XXXXXXXX
Advertistment
XXXXXXXX
Advertistment
XXXXXXXX
Advertistment
XXXXXXXX
Advertistment
XXXXXXXX
Advertistment
XXXXXXXX
Advertistment
XXXXXXXX
Advertistment
XXXXXXXX
Advertistment
XXXXXXXX
Advertistment
XXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXX
Advertistment
XXXXXXXX
Advertistment
XXXXXXXX
Advertistment
XXXXXXXX
Advertistment
XXXXXXXX
Advertistment
XXXXXXXX
Will Harapan stop dancing to Umno/PAS tune? - Commander S THAYAPARAN (Retired) Royal Malaysian Navy
Wednesday, March 20, 2019
Malaysiakini: ā€œIf the leader is filled with high ambition and if he pursues his aims with audacity and strength of will, he will reach them in spite of all obstacles.ā€ - Carl Von Clausewitz
                                                                  Oh!! My English !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
COMMENT | Setiawangsa MP Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad has got it right in saying Pakatan Harapan should not dance to the Umno/PAS tune. What we have been witness to since Harapan assumed control of the Federal government is this existential fear the coalition will collapse if it does not secure a majority of the Malay vote.
Furthermore, Harapan can never win the game Umno/PAS is playing because balancing expectations in a multi-racial coalition is much more complex than feeding the communal narratives of a race-based partnership.
Instead of attempting to broaden its base, what Harapan political operatives have been doing is attempting not to spook the Malays, secure in the belief that Harapanā€™s non-Malay base will just sit idly. This may not be true for much longer.
While most Harapan supporters (especially non-Malay supporters) would agree with Nik Nazmi, we have to be aware that Harapan is now struggling with an influx of Umno members who are reshaping the coalition from within. In other words, they do not believe in the manifesto, but rather that racial supremacy and party dominance will determine political victory.
There are three obstacles facing reformers in Harapan. The first is Harapan's terrible strategy when it comes to dealing with racial and religious issues. The most recent example is the comment DAP's Teluk Intan MP Nga Kor Ming made about the Umno/PAS alliance turning Malaysia into a Taliban country.
Firstly, the Taliban ideology is not anathema to the mostly conservative Malay base that Bersatu wants to court. Secondly, it gives the far right the opportunity to claim this as another instance of the DAP not respecting Islam. There is no dissonance in these statements because the base that Umno/PAS represents, and which Bersatu and the other Malay power brokers in Harapan want, has no problem believing the DAP is insulting Islam while believing that there is nothing wrong with the Taliban ideology.

Now that Nga (above) has refused to apologise and more or less dared PAS and Umno to protest in the streets, it becomes even more important for Malay political operatives to put up a unified front with the DAP and Nga. If they donā€™t and some of them have distanced themselves from the comment, it will just be another Malay/Muslim protest against a Chinese political operative who kicked out Malay/Muslim political operatives from the Dewan Rakyat.
All this would just be another distraction that would spook the Malay political operatives in Harapan, and which would further jeopardise plans for reform, especially when it comes to race and religion-based policies.
An old Umno friend said that what I wrote about the real issue of the Umno/PAS union was very true: ā€œFederal power will never again rest in the hands of a sole Malay structure. Instead, it will be diffused amongst disparate power groups. What the Umno-PAS union really demonstrates is that Malay power structures cannot do it on their own anymore. This is the most important point of the historic May 9 Harapan win. The federal government and Malay power structures have changed.ā€
The second obstacle is the issue of Bersatu as the Malay anchor of the party. Harapan is in a difficult position. While Nik Nazmi comes from a multi-racial party and the DAP is a multi-racial party, Bersatu wants to demonstrate that it is the sole protector of Malay sacred cows. This presents a problem, especially when it comes to some of the more progressive policies in the Harapan manifesto.
The danger of Umno infusion into Bersatu
The prime minister claimed that the manifesto was something that was thought up because Harapan assumed they would not win. This kind of talk helps the opposition and not proponents within Harapan who believe the policies in the manifesto could save Malaysia.
Add to this, the danger of Umno infusion into Bersatu. When these political operatives jump over to Bersatu, what they are doing is bringing their base and their web of corporate benefactors. People expect certain things when they jump. An Umno member defends race and religion. The people who voted for him or her understands this. So when he or she jumps to Bersatu, the base expects race and religion to be front and centre. For their benefactors, certain considerations must be fulfilled so the eco-system of money and politics does not wither away.
Bersatu political operatives, money men and activists always tell me they do not understand why Bersatu gets such a bad reputation. Before the election, they were going up against former comrades and they knew that playing the race card was what was expected of them. Indeed, one Bersatu strategist agreed that the nature of Bersatuā€™s game was not exactly to win but to win enough for the frogs in Umno to cross over if Harapan took the federal government.
Bersatu, they claim, needs to be upfront about race and religion because it performed poorly in the 14th general election. Umno did relatively well, even though the former prime minister was dragging down the party. So, what can Harapan do? Every time the progressive voices in Harapan speak up, they lose ground because they donā€™t spook the Malay crowd, which has more power and influence than the people fighting for the manifesto.

After the Semenyih by-election loss, PKRā€™s Azmin Ali (above) raised the race flag and said the Malay agenda should be carried out without apology. Was there a time when it was carried out with apology?
This is more than just about race and religion, which brings us to the third obstacle. The system resists efforts to reform. This is about keeping the system intact, instead of changing the system. The bureaucracy does not want to reform for various reasons, and the so-called reformers know this. Maybe you buy Ong Kian Mingā€™s pledge that the ministry will be fully transparent about the issuing of APs. Or maybe, as I discussed in whether Harapan was really interested in controlling Mahathir, this is all about maintaining the status quo:
ā€œNowhere is this game plan more evident than in the recent allegations by Court of Appeal judge Hamid Sultan Abu Backer that the Harapan win rattled senior members of the judiciary (for a whole minute), but then they were ā€œextremely happyā€ when members of the old regime were elevated.
This last obstacle is even more of a hindrance to reform than the race and religion issue, although race and religion do play a part in the bureaucracy's resistance to reform. There is no doubt there are people within the bureaucracy who are sabotaging Harapan's efforts to reform the system.
Do not believe political operatives when they say they need more time. What they need is political will, or rather cojones, to get the reform process started.
posted by Major D Swami (Retired) @ 11:43 AM  
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home
 
ARCHIVES


Previous Post
Indian Soldiers
World War 1
Links To Rangers
Military Related Links


End of a Saracen
East Malaysian
Warriors
Blow Pipe
xxxx
xxxx
Lieutenant Colonel
Zulkapli Abdul Rahman
Click Here
Lieutenant Colonel
Harbhajan Singh
Click Here
Heads from the Land
of the Head Hunters
Heads
20 Harrowing Images
Vietnam War

Creme De La Creme-Click here

Killing Time
Before Deployment

Lt Col Idris Hassan
Royal Malay
Regiment
Click Here

Also Known as
General Half Track

Warriors
Dayak Warrior
Iban Tracker with
British Soldier

Showing the
British Trooper
what a jackfruit is!!

Iban Tracker

A British Trooper training
an Iban Tracker

Iban Tracker

Tracker explaining
to the British Soldier who
knows little about tracking

Iban Tracker
Explaining to the
British Trooper the meaning
of the marks on the leaf

Iban Tracker
Aussie admiring
Tracker's Tattoos

Lest We Forget Major Sabdin Ghani
Click Here
Captain Mohana Chandran
al Velayuthan (200402) SP
Ranger Bajau
ak Ladi PGB
Cpl Osman PGB

Advertistment
XXXXXXXX
Advertistment
XXXXXXXX
Advertistment
XXXXXXXX
Advertistment
XXXXXXXX
Advertistment
XXXXXXXX
Advertistment
XXXXXXXX
Advertistment
XXXXXXXX
Advertistment
XXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXX
Advertistment
XXXXXXXX
Advertistment
XXXXXXXX
Advertistment
XXXXXXXX
Advertistment
Photobucket
XXXXXXXX
Advertistment
XXXXXXXX
Advertistment
XXXXXXXX
Advertistment
XXXXXXXX
Advertistment
XXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXX
Advertistment
XXXXXXXX
Advertistment
XXXXXXXX
Advertistment
XXXXXXXX
Advertistment
XXXXXXXX
Advertistment
XXXXXXXX
Advertistment
XXXXXXXX
Advertistment
XXXXXXXX
Advertistment
XXXXXXXX
Advertistment
XXXXXXXX
Powered by

Free Blogger Templates

BLOGGER

google.com, pub-8423681730090065, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 <bgsound src=""> google.com, pub-8423681730090065, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0