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."
The Umno purge and big Malaysian stink - Commander S THAYAPARAN (Retired) Royal Malaysian Navy
Monday, January 30, 2023
Malaysiakini : No doubt they would be feted by power brokers or wannabe power
brokers to assume positions that their benefactors think appropriate -
until they can be reintroduced to the mainstream political process. Some
will, of course, use their ejection from Umno as some sort of badge of
honour while others will lay low, being silent partners to more vocal
political personalities.
Those who were kicked out did so because
they were loyal to people other than the current big cheese. Put it this
way, if you are an Umno operative, the choices are to curry favour with
Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and Pakatan Harapan through Umno or get
cosy with Peritakan Nasional (PN) through Umno.
Political analyst Wong Chin Huat wrote a good solid piece
about this night of the long knives - and the most cogent point for me
at least was this one: āTechnically, even if BN walks out, the coalition
government still has 118 seats. But that would mean all three
Malay-Muslim nationalist parties ā PAS (43), Bersatu (31) and Umno (26) ā
are in the opposition, politically undermining the coalition
governmentās communal legitimacy.ā
I am a tad sceptical about this
point, not that I think Wong is wrong, but rather I think the communal
legitimacy is more about satisfying the Malay establishment, which
includes the ākorporatā (corporate) interests.
I think for the average Malay rakyat who voted PN and no doubt whose
vote is weighted unfairly, communal legitimacy means bupkis, especially
since they understand that the system, no matter who is in charge, is
favoured towards them.
In fact, Umno is like MCA in the sense that
there is a fig leaf and if the Chinese community figured that out no
doubt the much better informed ā informed in the ways of ketuanism (supremacy), that is ā have realised that Umno is a lame duck.
Besides,
the dialectic has pivoted from the centre-right to the far-right
Islamic since Umno was at its peak. The decades of institutionalised
Islamism have created a generation of young voters who are more inclined
to believe that an Islamist party is the way to go, especially since
the narrative of greedy pharaohs and plutocrats is embedded in the
state-sponsored religiosity which Umno never paid attention to,
believing the anti-Chinese propaganda would serve them well.
With
numerous transgressions against the royal households, PAS has made it
clear that they believe that they and they alone are the keepers of the
faith, and PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang has made it clear what he
thinks of saudara Anwarās Malaysia Madani.
Partyoverstrongman
Political analyst Bridget Welsh also raised good points
when it comes to the ouster of Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi's
refuseniks: āUmnoās leadership has yet to realise that the era of
āstrongmanā leadership is over; these tactics showcase weakness.ā
This
is a good point because as long as the Malay voting polity is
fractured, disparate Malay groups have to band together to form power.
Again, this is not the fear of the average rakyat but rather the fear of
the Malay establishment because Malay voters have demonstrated that
they could care less ā now ā about strongmen but rather about parties
that they think best represent their racial and religious interests.
PN
voters do not see the corruption or possible corruption that occurred
when PN was in power but they know that Umno is corrupt because everyone
said so, before the election. Both PN and Harapan were committed to
this narrative with Harapan believing that nobody took PN seriously.
PN supporters (or at least those I have been in communication with)
see Umno hooking up with Anwar and Harapan as merely the devious
machinations of corrupt power structures and race traitors because DAP
is in the government.
The idea of a strongman leading this group no longer resonates because all these ālangkahsā
(manoeuvres) have proven that a government could be brought down as
long as there is an alternative to run to. For Bersatu it was PN and for
now, the Zahid refuseniks may return the favour. But who knows?
Green wave
In 2018 I wrote a piece titled āPASā foreboding green tsunamiā,
where I wrote: āPAS has remained true to its principles, and in
numerous articles that mainstream English speakers canāt be bothered to
read told their supporters that winning the federal government at the
expense of their Islamic values is not something which PAS desires.
āWhat
they want is a Malay/Muslim tsunami which legitimately leads them to
federal power or to create coalitions with like-minded political
hegemons which sees their power-sharing, which does include them
betraying their Islamic values.ā
The
mistake I made then was I severely underestimated the religious
narratives of the vast religious bureaucracy and the extent of the long
game PAS was playing. This is a point that PAS propagandists always like
to remind me of whenever they helpfully point me to articles and
propaganda pieces that their warlocks create.
In that piece, I
used the term "honourable" to describe the struggle of the grassroots
and I see it now in the sincerity of PAS' foot soldiers who believe that
Islam is the only salvation for Malaysia, even though they understand
the corruption, either material or spiritual, of their leaders. This is
the terrain which we need to pay attention to.
This is why I did
not even mention the names of those ousted from Umno. They are not
important. Ultimately what they will do is merely hasten the fall of a
moderate (and I use the word conservatively) centre as Welsh accurately
points out āāSome may leave Umno and join other parties, while others
may sit and plot. There are many inside Umno that still oppose the
leadership.ā
You see, those in the peninsula who legitimately want
a theocracy do not see it as a betrayal of the Constitution or a
rejection of multiculturalism. They see it as the inevitable end of a
journey to paradise.
Now of course the political operatives who
lead them do not see it that way. They see it as a means to assume
control of the gravy train. The lessons of theocratic states are not the
eventually failed statehood but rather those in power dressed in the
religious drag were just as corrupt or even more so than those these
religionists deposed.
The lesson is that religionists more often
than not used either violent revolution or legitimate democratic
processes to assume power, then in both situations perverted existing
systems to suit the needs of the leadership. And their supporters did
not care. Why?
As Hadi said in an opinion piece
titled āRule of Law: Where is Allah?ā - āIf the one leading is a
Muslim, even if he were cruel, at least (others) can become cattle
herders.
āBut if the one who leads is a non-Muslim, even if he
were the kindest, (others) can work however they wish (but) without any
limits of what is āhalalā and āharamā they will still end up in hell.ā