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."
Vilifying Bersih will not put food on table - Commander S THAYAPARAN (Retired) Royal Malaysian Navy
Monday, June 27, 2022
Malaysiakini : Other black marks include Umno Youth rioting and disrupting the Apcet II civil society gathering, Zulkifli Noordin and cohorts threatening violence against the Bar Council regarding a religious forum, and, of course, who could forget the Low Yat riots.
The riot in Low Yat Plaza in 2015
Who can forget when Umno Youth threatened to burn down PKRās headquarters because they wanted PKR to withdraw from the Bersih 2 protests, or when Umno Youth threatened to burn down the DAP headquarters?
Or how about when Jaringan Melayu Malaysia president Azwanddin Hamzah threatened to attack a Klang police station?
"My
warning to them, immediately arrest the developer, arrest the lawyers.
If not, ladies and gentlemen, we will attack the Klang police station,"
Azwanddin had said.
What Bersih has been about
Riots are about violence. Whenever right-wing supremacists hold gatherings and threaten violence, they are coddled by the state.
Remember
the infamous cow head protest? This was surely a black mark on the
nation's history made blacker because then home minister Hishammuddin
Hussein sat down with the protesters and claimed they were not to be
blamed.
āAll they wanted to do was to voice their unhappiness and
the unwillingness of the state government to consider their request,ā
Hishammuddin said.
Funny,
this is exactly what every Bersih has been about. People voiced their
discontent towards the state and with Bersih protests, no animal heads
were used.
Demonstrations can lead to violence and most often it
is the agent of the state that disrupts peaceful protests and brings
violence to the demonstrations.
At its best, what Bersih does is
remind Malaysians that we are all in this together. This of course is
what hegemonic regimes fear the most.
This is why anyone calling
for violence at a Bersih rally should be vilified like I publicly did
here when some folks actually thought that it was a good idea to storm
Dataran Merdeka.
Reckoning is coming
I wrote
in 2012 that Bersih was indeed our answer to the Rio carnival. It was
our carnival of people of different races and creeds marching together
under a common banner for the betterment of all, instead of slavish
devotees to political parties which make compromises on our behalf which
usually benefits only them.
It was a multiracial, multireligious
street party which is what this type of regime fears the most. They fear
people of all races and religions coming under a common cause, and even
worse, a non-partisan cause of their own free will.
It is not
only important that people do not publicly voice their dissent, it is
vitally important that diverse groups of people do not come together to
voice their dissent.
The
reason for this is simple. It dispels the illusion that racial and
religious preoccupations divide us when what really divides us are the
instruments of the states, including compromised and unjust laws and
policy decisions.
The dangerous idea of the Bersih rallies is that
each time it is held, more diversity is introduced into our public
spaces. The dangerous idea is that large groups of people of different
races, and political and racial ideologies are congregating with a
specific goal of demonstrating their discontent against the government
of the day.
All Malaysians do is engage in rhetoric and mostly
online. When they stop and engage in action, change is possible. What
the huge number of people gathering and demanding reform does is that it
reminds the powers that be that people are holding them accountable.
But this is not really about Bersih.
Why
is it that the hegemonic forces in control of this country are afraid
of people protesting over price hikes? Itās because this is about the
most primal of issues.
This affects people who have very little,
to begin with. This affects people who for years were told that they
were looked after by virtue of their race and their religious beliefs.
A
reckoning is coming, brought upon by incompetent management, decades of
corruption and civil spaces being conceded to religious extremists and
racial supremacists. All this privilege means nothing when the food on
your table grows scarcer.
So, what do you do? You vilify public protest and scapegoat Bersih.
