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."
Madani govt should explain what rights non-Muslims have By Commander S THAYAPARAN (Retired) Royal Malaysian Navy
Thursday, May 18, 2023
Malaysiakini : Former attorney-general Abdul Gani Patail, at the time, while
declining to press charges, claimed that the act was one of sheer
ignorance.
Non-Muslims are constantly told not to hurt the sensitivities of Muslims in this country.
And
this is why non-Muslims cannot use certain words, cannot construct
their places of worship in the manner they choose, cannot proselytise
and lately cannot hold fellowship with Muslims in certain states because
apparently, this would confuse their Muslim brethren.
Yet, we are
told we live in a country of equals. We live in a country of equals
where a young non-Muslim/Malay kid cannot dream of becoming the prime
minister because this would spook the Malays.
We live in a country of equals where Malay special privileges
supersede the basic rights of access to education and affordable housing
in this country.
And nobody cares about our sensitivities. Even
the parties we vote for are subjected to speech meant to incite hatred
and violence.
Remember when the Pahang mufti declared
in 2016: “Not DAP only. Whoever is ‘kafir’ (infidel) and against Islam”
and therefore an enemy of Islam [the implication being] who can be
killed.
Here is a state mufti advocating the murder of non-Muslims
and the state security apparatus remained silent. How exactly is this
different from the threats of Islamic State?
Non-Muslims over the decades have coped with these restrictions and have thrived.
For
the most part non-Muslim communities, although having to struggle, have
overcome (for the most part) the systemic dysfunction against them.
And
this has been used against the non-Muslim communities. Our success in
the face of systemic discrimination has been weaponised against us.
If
we are successful, this is at the expense of the majority of Malays. If
we stand up for our rights which necessarily means everyone’s rights,
we are warned not to spook the Malays.
Meanwhile, the political apparatus of this country has peddled
political bromides in the form of state-sanctioned propaganda like
Keluarga Malaysia and Malaysia Madani.
Religion trumps bread-and-butter issues
Non-Malay
power structures have dispensed the Bangsa Malaysia kool-aid. When
Pakatan Harapan Malay/Muslim political operatives claim an issue like
unilateral conversion plays well with their base, they are probably more
right than wrong.
It really does not matter if political pundits
bray about bread-and-butter issues; the reality is that for a majority
of Muslims, their religion trumps the bread-and-butter issues that
connect us all as citizens of this country, regardless of race or
religion.
People don’t support PAS because of their brilliant
economic or social programmes; they support PAS because they believe
they are the keepers of the faith.
Similarly,
those who supported Umno on the basis of race and religion did so
because they believed that religion was better when it came to
entitlement programmes.
Take the “Allah” controversy for instance.
I know some people will get angry when I write this but compared to
other issues like unilateral conversion for instance, this ranks rather
low on my list of what rights do I have to give up as a non-Muslim in
this country.
This is the truly sickening part of all of this. We
as non-Muslims have to prioritise our rights and consider which rights
are expendable to maintain the peace. Why? Well, the state security
apparatus which enforces rights is certainly not on our side. The
political apparatus, even those we vote for, is not on our side.
Then, of course, the Islamophobia card is played. Islamophobia is something religious extremists use when attempting to deflect.
There
is no such thing as “Islamophobia”. Of course, there are racists,
bigots and other cretins who disparage Muslims and Islam around the
world.
Unfortunately, the world is filled with racists and bigoted
people who disparage all sorts of people, their religions and cultures.
This is not solely a Muslim issue.
What is solely a Muslim issue
is this idea that any criticisms of Islam are an attack on Muslims or
that acknowledging empirical evidence of the way how “Islamic” states
operate is anathema to freedoms and rights enjoyed in the progressive
world is verboten in "civilised" society.
Whenever someone makes
the claim that people do not understand their religion, it most often
means that their religion has a lot to answer for.
All religions
have commonalities. Those positive commonalities make it possible for
people of diverse religious faiths to play well with others.
So
what can we non-Muslims do? Absolutely nothing. We have neither
political actors with the requisite political will nor the voting polity
to ensure that our rights are protected.
What
we need to do in this new phase before this house of cards collapse is
for the government to spell out the rights of non-Muslims.
Why? Because this saves time and energy and we do not have to go through this horse manure every time issues like this crop up.
This
way, political operatives do not have to make feeble excuses as to why
certain rights are prioritised and even then chucked by the wayside to
ensure that the Malays are not spooked.
Tell us what words we
cannot use. Tell us who can enter our places of worship. In fact, list
out the sensitivities so we non-Muslims are clear that our presence is
tolerated insofar as we observe these legal provisions.
So what
this Madani government should do is spell out what rights non-Muslims
have. Also include how, if Muslim provocateurs make statements against
non-Muslims, nothing will happen to him or her.
In fact, codify
these laws so we won’t have all these political operatives and concerned
citizens wasting their time making police reports.
People just do
not get it. Sooner or later, religious imperatives will trump
democratic norms. Why? Because religious charlatans understand that
their religious con bears fruit.