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."
Similarities between Najib and Marcos By Andrew Sia
Thursday, May 12, 2022
Malaysiakini : In their haste to run, they left behind artworks, designer clothes and Imeldaās infamous 1,200 pairs of shoes. It was an obscene amount of wealth for a country where 60 percent of Filipinos lived in poverty.
How
about Najib and his wife, Rosmah Mansor? After their fall from power in
2018, police raided their properties and seized 12,000 pieces of
jewellery, 284 handbags, 423 watches, 234 sunglasses and cash in 26
currencies - all worth up to RM1.1 billion (the Bijan bags alone were worth an average of RM1.6 million each!).
Former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak and wife, Rosmah Mansor
And yet, half of Malaysians earn less than RM2,062 per month. How could they ever support a couple clearly living beyond their means?
2. Social media rebranding
The
jewellery and shoes were just small potatoes for Ferdinand and Imelda.
In total, they are estimated to have plundered US$10 billion from the
Filipino people. So how could they now elect his son (Ferdinand junior,
better known as āBongbongā) as president?
Did he kneel down and beg forgiveness from the public for his fatherās sins? Not at all.
Instead,
according to the BBC, for the past 10 years, he and his team have been
pushing out a carefully crafted social media campaign to ārebrand the
old Marcos era, not as the period of martial law with its terrible human
rights abuses, corruption and near-economic collapse, but as a golden
age of crime-free prosperity.ā
The BBC report said that hundreds of ādeceptively-edited videosā
were posted on YouTube and Facebook and these have āpersuaded millions
of Filipinos that the vilification of the Marcoses after their downfall
was unfair, that the stories of unrivalled greed were untrue.ā
What about Najib? Well, he also launched a clever social media campaign and rebranded himself
as āMalu Apa Bosskuā. And his people keep insisting that the corruption
charges against him (and Umnoās infamous ācourt clusterā) are unfounded
and āpolitically motivatedā. Even worse, the judge who found Najib
guilty of corruption is now facing āpressureā.
Indeed,
Najib shamelessly twisted Lim Kit Siangās warning about the recent
Philippines election and claimed the DAP man was actually praising his
premiership as a āzaman keemasanā (golden age) of prosperity!
Bongbong played similar word games
when he launched his presidential campaign, declaring, āIf my father
was allowed to pursue his plans, I believe that we would be like
Singapore now.ā
3. Our wealth is legit!
No, we didnāt steal, claimed the junior Marcos in a 2015 interview. Instead, he claimed that his father discovered the fabled āYamashita treasureā - a haul of gold supposedly buried by retreating Japanese troops in 1945.
This
ālegendā has been pushed by some Facebook pages linked to the Marcos
family, claiming they will āshareā their wealth with Filipinos if they
return to power. Some voters actually believe this.
In 2015, when
stories were going around about Najibās lavish travel and shopping
sprees, his office tried to claim that this was partly funded by his
ālegacy family assets.ā Fortunately, Najibās four brothers retorted
that such claims were an insult to their father, Abdul Razak Hussein,
who was known for his honesty and thriftiness with government funds.
4. Why people believe
We
may ask why Filipinos or Malaysians choose to believe such twisted
social media stories. Is it just because they live, eat and sleep with
Facebook and are too lazy to investigate further?
As in Malaysia, race and language also play a part in the Philippines. Bongbongās support doubled when he made an alliance
with outgoing President Rodrigo Duterteās daughter, bringing in support
from the central and southern Philippines, which is more Cebuano rather
than the Tagalog of the north.
Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr., son of late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, delivers a speech during a campaign rally
But
the most important factor is the widespread public disappointment with
the failure of various Filipino leaders after 1986 to really change the
lives of poorer Filipinos, thus allowing Bongbong to successfully
portray himself as āthe candidate for changeā.
For
example, Corazon Aquino, who became president after Marcos senior fled
the country, came from a wealthy landowning family herself. Filipino
lawmakers in Congress came from similar backgrounds, and they all failed to do
serious land reform to fix the countryās biggest problem ā 20 percent
of the population owned 80 percent of the land, and most of the poor
were landless labourers.
In Malaysia, one factor driving the
āmeltdown of Pakatan Harapanā was the pulling back of aid to the poor,
especially Malay fishermen, rubber tappers and urban low-cost flat
dwellers, thus leading to disillusionment with the new government, as
Parti Sosialis Malaysia chairperson Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj explained.
Some
Harapan leaders were too eager to rush towards āmeritocracyā and
ābusiness-friendly policiesā. Others felt the ālazy Malayā had been
āspoiledā by subsidies. They forgot that Harapan had only obtained 25 to
30 percent of the Malay vote in 2018, added Jeyakumar.
The result
was that Umno and PAS successfully portrayed Harapan as being
āanti-Malayā and leaders in Bersatu began to panic and wobble. And of
course, this also allowed Najib to rebrand himself as the ātrue
protectorā of the Malays.
The majority of fed-up Filipinos,
including the middle class, have repeatedly said in surveys that they
would support āa strong leaderā, who does not have to bother with
elections, to āfixā their countryās mess. In other words, they want a
good-hearted dictator. Or a magician.
In Malaysia, many expected a
miracle, an instant "heaven on earth", after Harapan won in 2018.
Sadly, both Malays and non-Malays ended up disappointed and now some
feel thereās āno pointā in voting. Perhaps this is exactly what will
allow Najib and gang to return to power.
So, there we have it, the
chilling similarities between Malaysia and the Philippines, between
Najib and the Marcos family. Will we learn the right lessons from them?
