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 lost cause of needs-based affirmative action By Commander S THAYAPARAN (Retired) Royal Malaysian Navy
Thursday, August 10, 2023
Malaysiakini : Back in 2019, when Anwar was busy attempting to āaccelerateā needs-based affirmative action, Setiawangsa MP Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad wrote a piece titled āThe need for needs-based affirmative actionā.
This
is where he countered the āshrill rhetoricā of the Malay Economic
Action Council (MEAC), arguing that āā¦. needs-based approach is the best
way to make positive reforms and renew the New Economic Policy (NEP)
that they rightly argue Anwar should seek to doā.
He also wrote:
āWhat Anwar is proposing will ā properly executed and with the support
of all stakeholders ā uplift all of the B40s as well as reduce the gap
between, as well as within, the different ethnic groups.
āIndeed,
maintaining affirmative action on an indiscriminately racial basis will
probably hurt the less well-off in the bumiputera community. After all,
resources given to the bumiputera elite in the name of āmaintaining the
NEPā will be denied to their M40 and B40 of the counterparts, who need
them more.ā
That is a righteous argument to make but you want to
know which is the more politically effective argument to make. That is
the one MEAC was making which was if "Anwar deviates from the
expectation (of alleviating bumiputera poverty), the backlash will
surely be swift and severe."
A
telling point the president of the MEAC made was this one - "Race-blind
affirmative action may be sufficient to improve the wellbeing of those
at the bottom of the economic ladder but such an approach will be much
less effective to narrow the economic gap at the top between
ethnicities."
Needs-based affirmative action is the existential threat to āketuananismā
because as a Malay PSM activist put it to me recently, the mixing of
poor people from all races and the solidarity borne out of mutual
struggle would be devastating to the mainstream racial and religious
politics of this country.
Blame the Malay political elites
Perhaps the
best example I can think of is the way how the American political system
was rocked because young people of different races started to mix.
And
when did this happen? Well, during the American war in Vietnam, where
because of the draft poor white farm boys from the bible belt started
mixing with poor black and brown boys from the inner cities.
So
profound was this experience that the current culture wars and
race-baiting in the political mainstream are a reaction to the kind of
movements borne from the mindsets of returning veterans from Vietnam.
Why
are the Malays lagging behind? Donāt blame the non-Malays, blame the
Malay political elites. This is also why right-wing hegemonists fear
class narratives because they know that once people figure out their
game, their positions become untenable.
Another thing that Anwar
did very well in that exchange with this young student, was that he used
the āsuccess in spite of systemic discriminationā of the non-Malay
community against her.
The fact that non-Malays have to struggle
to get their children educated in the private education sphere is
something that reinforces not only feelings of independence but also
feelings of resentment towards the majority.
Keep in mind that all this is part of the āketuananā ideology, to constantly have these grievances bubbling under the surface of conviviality between the different ethnic groups.
Non-Malays
should understand that needs-based affirmative action is a lost cause.
So-called reformist or progressive mainstream Malay leaders will whisper
sweet nothings into the ears of gullible non-Malays, but the system is
predicated on ensuring racial and religious superiority.
Malay
and non-Malay political operatives do not want to risk their grip on
power, because it is one thing to talk about needs-based policies, and
another to implement it. Political operatives know this.
They get
away with this because they know that the Harapan base will be pragmatic
and not demand needs-based policies because they do not want the
ascension of whatever far-right coalition, which is somewhat hilarious
seeing how things are playing out in Harapan now, that seeks to topple a
supposedly multi-racial alliance.
Nobody wants to give up their
special privileges, especially when those privileges sustain families
and communities through the vagaries of a changing economic and
geopolitical landscape.
Hence, if the government is giving you an
education, housing and other subsidies by virtue of race, and another
group comes along demanding a more egalitarian system to ensure that
everyone gets a taste of the pie, you would of course reject such
demands.
The fact is, non-Malay politicians, whether the old guard
or the new, are never going to talk about taking away the special
privileges of the Malays.
They are never going to talk about
making our public taxpayer-funded public universities more inclusive,
they are never going to talk about the subsidies given to only Malays
should be taken away. That is the way the system has been built.
Of
course, there are ways that the government can help non-Malays which
does not involve dismantling the race-based affirmative action system
but as the old maverick reminds us: "We still have to give them, but
what we gave to them was very small (compared to what the Malays got).
But we could not say it then, because then the Chinese would be angry.ā
I
admire this young Indian woman for speaking up even if it's for a lost
cause. By now, readers should realise that I am a big proponent of lost
causes.