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."
This is about the system, not Najib By Commander S THAYAPARAN (Retired) Royal Malaysian Navy
Monday, April 10, 2023
Malaysiakini : When the opposition assumed control of certain states, it sent
shivers down the back of the Malay political establishment because it
demonstrated that change was inevitable.
Najib Abdul Razak is not
the first kleptocrat in this country. He is just the first Big Cheese
who was caught. And the only reason why he was caught was because he
lost an election and the machinery of government was controlled by the
winners.
I know people donāt want to read this but it's true. The
very same people who enabled Najib when he was in power, were also part
of the crowd who brought him down.
People fail to understand that
Tommy Thomasā book was an indictment of the system, a system of which he
was a part. The winners were not interested in reforming the system.
Indeed, while Pakatan Harapan was imploding because of the
machinations of the old maverick and with the collusion of the Malay
establishment, we were told that all of these were the figment of the
imagination of the press.
Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and his deputy Ahmad Zahid Hamidi
I
read all these people who are talking about the independence of the
judiciary and their sole criteria seem to be if Najib walks or not.
An
independent judiciary in a functional democracy is so much more than
that. From lower courts to the highest echelons of the bench, nothing
has escaped the corrosive effects of Umno rule or felt the ameliorating
reform promised by Harapan.
The prime minister who led the
government during Najibās fall from grace is now accused (and rightly
so) by the present prime minister of being, well, a kleptocrat.
The
old maverick may be chagrined at this accusation but remember, Najib
did not build the kleptocracy, he merely inherited it. All of this is
part of the ketuanan system.
Now the winners have a different agenda. Mariam actually made the prima facie case for some sort of conspiracy to free Najib.
Remember, with the ketuanan
system, all these actors are interchangeable. Everyone, especially in
Umno, has skeletons in their closets neatly arranged between their
expensive Italian suits.
But also keep in mind that this is the
dying system. What we are dealing with now is something much more
different. It is a system which the establishment has very little
control over. And this is what the progenitors of the ketuanan system are reckoning with now.
The theocratic state in waiting understands that they have no need
for prime ministers in the sense of someone leading the country. All
they need is a figurehead.
New theocratic model
When
we talk about Anwar, Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and Najib and especially Dr
Mahathir Mohamad, what we are talking about are the dying embers of the
old ketuanan system. The new theocratic model is different.
Former prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin
When
Muhyiddin Yassin was kicked out by Harapan and Ismail Sabri Yaakob was
kicked out by Umno, these legacy coalitions did a huge favour for the
theocratic state in waiting.
It became evident that you really did
not need a strong man-type leader, but rather, various power brokers
who could overturn the democratic will of the people.
The ketuanan
system has become the theocratic foundation of this country. Perikatan
Nasional (PN), because of electoral legerdemain has become the
realisation of theocratic dreams of fellow Islamic travellers within the
bureaucracy.
They do not care about democracy. They do not care
about the royal institution and they are as obsessed about controlling
the non-Muslims in this country as they are controlling the majority
Malay polity.
PASā propaganda is far more sophisticated than
Umnoās and Harapanās and displays a keen understanding of how Malay
society works. If anything, PAS has evolved - not ideologically - when
it comes to courting the Malay vote, having learnt much from its
partners since becoming mainstream.
Do you know who benefits from
Najib walking free? The theocratic state. Why? Because it demonstrates
that everyone from the political apparatus to the royal institution is
corrupt.
PN has already demonstrated what it thinks of the royal institution and Anwar saying that the royal institution has the sole discretion
for Najibās pardon is a boon for Islamists who believe that it is they
who should have total control of the country and not democratic
institutions or royal institutions.
As I said in my last piece,
what the old guard hopes to do is leverage the bureaucracy and
strengthen entitlement programmes, as a means to connect with the
struggling majority polity.
Remember
all this āunityā comes with a price. Does anyone really think that
Zahid and Umno are doing this for the betterment of the country? What
they want is to set a precedent.
For Umno members working within
and without the party, hooking up with PN if this unity government falls
is business as usual, but of course, what they fail to realise is that
they will not be part of a right-wing government but rather a theocracy,
which eventually consumes them.
If the strategy behind freeing
Najib is the coalescing of power and influence which would benefit this
unity government, this is an extremely risky strategy.
Young
people, especially from the Malay community, are disenchanted with
mainstream politics. They view PN as a workable alternative to the
power-sharing formula which, in decades of propagandising, has taught
them is to their expense.
The reality is that the theocratic state
in waiting has slain more Malay sacred cows in their quest for
political hegemony and the fact that we do not have a government which
is a strong, secular alternative makes the situation even more
precarious.
Ultimately, what all this indicates for Malaysia is that the ketuanan system, new or old, is merely a suicide pact.
