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."
Malaysiakini : "The graduate also supported the actions of the Nazi regime and the holocaust, which claimed the lives of six million Jews." – Universiti Malaysia Sabah graduate.
COMMENT
| While I reject the revisionist interpretation of Chin Peng’s legacy –
some people have the audacity to call security service personnel who
fought the Communist Party of Malaya as “collaborators” – I see no
rational argument for the state security apparatus to “investigate”
those who brought his ashes back.
Some folks have said that if we
accept Islamic State (IS) returnees, why not Chin Peng’s ashes? This is
problematic for various reasons and misses the point. Chin Peng’s ashes
have nothing to do with the danger these IS returnees bring. A better
comparison would be how Malaysia deals with different Malaysian
legacies.
Now,
I am not going into the historical minutiae of the value of – better or
worse – Chin Peng to nation-building but what I want people to
understand is the way how Malay political hegemons use legacies to
control the narrative.
Chin Peng’s legacy is useful to demonise
the Chinese community and further the bogus “communist narrative” as how
the Indian community is saddled with the “LTTE narrative”. Chin Peng’s
ashes became a convenient talking point for not only Pakatan Harapan but
also agents of the fascist state to attack the non-Malay power
structures.
The
legacy is important. By denying Chin Peng’s ashes to return, the state
not only denies the sub-altern history of this country but also those
hands which shaped nation-building. The complex non-Malay narrative is
simplified for political purposes to justify racists policies and
non-Malay power structures have to play along.
Nowhere is this
more evident in the burial of Islamic terrorists who have caused death
and misery overseas but who are buried peacefully in this country. A
good example would be the religious extremist Azahari Husin.
In
2005, Azahari, who was known locally as the “Demolition Man”, was killed
by Indonesian security forces and his body brought back for a
traditional Muslim burial in his Malacca hometown. Azahari was an
extremely efficient terrorist and he managed to leave in his wake murder
and devastation that had security forces in the region on his trail for
some time before finally managing to kill him in his hideout.
As
usual, colleagues of this former UTM lecturer had no idea of the
dangerous individual in their midst. All they saw, or what he wanted
them to see, was a benign lecturer who was incapable of the mass murders
through bomb-making that security forces have pinned on him.
As reported in Aljazeera: “Azahari
will always have friends here. We shouldn't be asked to believe what is
written about him in the newspapers," a man, who identified himself
only as Yusri, said.
The fact
that many Muslims use the Palestinian issue as a convenient cover for
their anti-Semitism is well documented. Just like how they accuse
non-Malays of being communist or LTTE sympathisers, the idea is to mark a
segment of the Malaysian community as outsiders.
This young punk
has probably read racist Western anti-Semitic narratives by the
“alt-right” – can we just call them racist nut jobs – not realising that
he would probably be on their hit list if they ever came into power. It
never ceases to amaze me how local agitators use the literature of
Western bigots and racists in their propaganda. It's extremely lazy if
you ask me.
When the Najib regime allowed Israel to participate in
a UN event in this country, it was PKR and Amanah that went on
anti-semitic rants. They wanted to know if Malaysia is having an
“affair” with Israel.
The cherry on the horse manure cake was when
Amanah’s Raja Kamarul Bahrin Shah said, "Or is (Prime Minister) Najib
(Abdul Razak) so eager to follow in the footsteps of the Saudi Arabian
government which reportedly has close ties to Israel?”
Really,
Saudi Arabia? The country which has since conceded that it has
intentionally supported radical Muslim groups all around the world is
now the whipping boy for Islamists wanting to outdo each in domestic
politics? Isn't it strange how Amanah and PAS sound so much alike?
That’s
the problem with the mainstream Islamic narrative in this country. On
the one hand, you have the religious bureaucracy funded by our tax
ringgit using the Palestinian issue to further anti-Jewish narratives
and, on the other, we have the prime minister of this country who
lectures Israel for being an apartheid state when domestic policies are
based on racial imperatives.
Does anyone really think that this
“communist" and LTTE narratives are not going to have a blowback? Does
anyone really think that a Nazi-saluting student, who supports the Nazi
atrocities during the Shoah, is merely an aberration which does not have
a lasting impact on this country?
The state security apparatus
recently foiled lone wolf attacks by religious fanatics who were using
the death of fireman Adib as justification for mass murder, how long do
you think that foreign operators would influence local extremists to go
after communities demonised by the politicians and hounded by state
security apparatus?
Just recently, the home minister said that
regional intelligence services were aware that Southeast Asia had become
the new theatre of operations for terror groups. Anyone who reads my
columns would know that I have been pointing this out for years, citing
trends in open-sourced articles, published intelligence reports from
think tanks which, more often than not, acts as proxies for intelligence
cartels and interviews with sources from regional intelligence
services.
Keep in mind that this is a country where a mainstream preacher like Perlis mufti Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin (photo, above) had said he was looking for a candidate like Saddam Hussin to unite the Malay/Muslim polity.
And,
of course, the prime minister warned we may get a Hitler (if we choose
wrongly) even though he disputes the numbers murdered in the Shoah.