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."
Yes, freedom of speech is also for fascists - Commander S THAYAPARAN (Retired) Royal Malaysian Navy
Saturday, June 01, 2019
Malaysiakini : “I may not agree with you, but I will defend to the death your right to make an ass of yourself.” ― Oscar Wilde
COMMENT | Syahredzan Johan’s piece asking
if free speech is also for fascists (it is) is a welcome contribution
to the free speech discourse in this country. As someone who has been
targeted by the far-right (and by certain segments of the “moderate
centre” of this country) for things I have written, the issue of free
speech is something I take very seriously.
I note that Syahredzan
had to add the qualifier, “this writer is not advocating absolute
freedoms” as a means to preempt straw men that those against free speech
like to use on people they disagree with. I am sure there are
proponents of absolute freedom of speech but in most countries, the
fight has always been to limit the state from intruding into our public
and private spaces using laws designed to promote political agendas at
the expense of legitimate dissent.
The fact that repulsive speech
is also part of the speech that free speech advocates have to protect
does not mean that laws that limit speech – libel, slander, incitement,
etc- should be abandoned but they should always be open to scrutiny.
However, I suspect Syahredzan knows this already.
In the Malaysian
context, concluding that free speech is also for fascists is not a
Herculean endeavour. Racial supremacy, religious supremacy, policies
that benefit a specific race, educational institutions for a specific
race but most importantly, mainstream political narratives embraced by
Malays and non-Malays are all fascist in nature. Hence asking if free
speech is meant for fascists is meaningless.
What Helmi Effendy said,
when you really think about it, is not something which is anathema when
it comes to the mainstream political discourse in this country. Malay
political operatives are always accusing each other of being race
traitors. Malay political operatives are always claiming that the Malay
polity will lose their power to non-Malays. What Helmi wrote is merely
taking this position to its logical extreme. Honestly, people have
either overtly or subtly implied what Helmi said in social media
outlets.
My views
on hate laws are a matter of public record. There are enough laws in
this country to curtail certain kinds of speech without resorting to the
kind of measures that only serve the political establishment. I
broadly agree with Syahredzan but as a people, we need to dig a little
bit deeper. Syahredzan gets to the heart of the matter in two paragraphs
which expose the problematic nature of attempts to curb free speech in
this country.
The first – “It is also clear that in advocating
extrajudicial killings, Helmi has stepped beyond the boundaries of free
speech. Even the most ardent advocate of freedom of speech and
expression will agree that free speech stops when you call for injury or
death onto others.”
Really? So if I advocate death for apostates,
then I have “stepped beyond the borders of free speech”? Is this
example only applicable if the state does not sanction the execution of
apostates since we are talking about “extrajudicial killings”? Or is
calling for the death of apostates never a good example of free speech
even if its utterance is done by people who place their religious
beliefs above the laws of the state (if the state does not execute
people for apostasy)?
As
far as incitement goes, I am sure many people think that Helmi is
guilty of this. In his Facebook posts, Helmi fantasied of a virulent
kind of far-right political body who would save the Malay polity and
murder those of his Malay/Muslim brethren whom Helmi considered race
traitors. Do people really find this shocking?
What do you think a
criminal enterprise like Islamic State (IS) does on a regular basis?
Look, we have a mainstream political dogma that claims that the Malay
community will become slaves in their lands. We have the political
establishment that warns that the Malays are divided and susceptible to
manipulation by non-Malay political factions which are detrimental to
the well-being of the Malay community.
Any rational person would
consider such speech “incitement”. Any rational person would be offended
by such speech since such speech is ahistorical and grounded in
fabrications that are unfortunately part of the mainstream racial
narratives of this country. At this point, "incitement" is merely a
politically correct expression for not having to deal with the
fundamental issues facing this country.
Is Helmi as dangerous as
he thinks he is? Who knows? In writing about how young people are
radicalised in this country, I spoke to security personnel who told me
that what they found difficult to navigate was the extreme speech of
racial and religious groups and the mainstream political dogma of this
country.
Where do you draw the line? Sure, political patronage and
the deep-level interference is part of the problem but we have to
acknowledge that what passes as mainstream political discourse is
extreme in this country and would be considered unacceptable in most
"developed" countries.
Of course,
our state security apparatus is functional enough to detect the
elements that would bring harm to the citizens of this country but even
they admit that it is difficult to disrupt the radicalisation process
when the political apparatus encourages narratives that make it easy for
young people to reject the system as not radical enough or embrace an
ideology because they believe the system has let them down.
Which
brings me to the second problematic paragraph in Syahredzan piece –
“But what about situations where it is less straightforward? What about
those spreading extreme right-wing narratives, or what is known as
‘fascist’ ideology? How do we deal with such expressions?”
Again,
how does one tell the difference between mainstream political ideology
and “far-right” ideology? Syahredzan uses Isma (Malaysian Muslim
Solidarity) as a convenient whipping boy but how exactly is the ideology
of Isma different from the mainstream political ideology of Pakatan
Harapan when it comes to racial and religious policy in this country?
The faces of Fascists in Malaysia
Syahredzan
is right that we need to confront such extreme ideas but what does this
mean exactly? Helmi fantasied that an extreme right-wing organisation
was needed to battle the “extreme left-wing" in this country. That is
his problem right there. There is no “extreme left” in this country.
What Helmi is raging against is actually the moderate centre which
Harapan is attempting to be.
The only way to confront speech and
ideas like these are is to propagate speech and ideas which are a direct
opposite to what people like Helmi and the far-right are advocating.
This goes merely beyond words but must also translate to policy.
You
do not need to limit free speech to do that. What you need is the
political will to carry out policies which would demonstrate the falsity
of the ideas propagated by the far-right.