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."
I thought former prime
minister Najib Abdul Razak took the trophy for foreign trips when he was
prime minister but Anwar may have well outdone him - which is a bad
thing in this case.
Former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak
According
to Wikipedia, he made a trip each to Brunei, Thailand, Philippines,
Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, United States, United Arab Emirates, and Egypt;
two trips each to Indonesia, China, Saudi Arabia, Republic of TĆ¼rkiye;
and three trips to Singapore.
That makes a grand total of 20 trips
in less than a year. If each trip requires four days of planning, time
taken, organisational effort, and others by various departments, some 80
days of available time for reform have been wasted.
Assuming a
five-day workweek or 260 workdays a year, thatās a colossal waste of 30
percent of available time that could and should have been put to better
use by focusing on problems at home.
Keep out of international limelight
Anwar
should resist the temptation to try and hog the international limelight
to enhance public opinion in Malaysia. As a small, inconsequential
country on the international stage, it is much easier to keep our heads
down and focus on our own work. That also keeps one below the line of
fire.
Anwar (left) meeting Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi last month
Foreign policy must be moderate and rational, and condemn all parties who do wrong equally no matter their background.
If
this is not possible, it is better to hold our peace - we are but a
minor actor on the world stage and should not be delusional over the
role we can play. No amount of talk and posturing will affect public
opinion - actions will always speak louder than words.
Remember charity begins at home
We
need to take care of ourselves before we try to take care of others. We
need to put our disordered house back into order and that takes a lot
of work and effort.
The ringgit is free-falling, the national debt is rising inexorably, and revenues are lagging even in times of economic growth!
We
can ill afford to have our efforts diffused over spending too much time
on things that donāt concern us. We need to ruthlessly prioritise to
best utilise our limited resources for our own benefit. There is so much
to be done. We are at crisis levels now.
Be wary of what you say,focus on doing
You
are the prime minister now, Anwar. You should measure your words
carefully and not send mixed messages to different audiences.
Refuse
impromptu press conferences where careless words may be proclaimed.
Instead, call proper, considered press briefings to inform people of
your plans and their progress.
Anwar presiding over a conversion ceremony
Donāt
do things which are not on your programme such as converting people
from other religions to become Muslims when you visit a mosque. Send the
same message of unity, development and progress to all people equally.
You play politics when you are the underling; when you are the boss, you do things and instruct others to do the right things.
Push back Umno
Realise
that Umno is a lost cause and you are in bed with them for convenience -
yours, and importantly theirs too. They will not bring you votes - 2022
was their worst election year ever, winning a mere 26 seats. They need
you more than you need them.
Therefore, push them back with great
vigour and force. Go for the things which you promised your electorate. A
deputy prime minister who faces corruption and other charges does not
look good.
Anwar and Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi (left)
Donāt
make it worse by seeming to pander to him, and worse than that, to that
convicted felon who is responsible for stealing billions from the
country.
Pardon me, but no pardons please. Truly let the law take
its course. Do not take that meandering, treacherous path down to infamy
by associating with the corrupt, the tainted and the rotten.
That
is the sure route to being toppled, if not now, four years from now
when the next elections come. If there is anyone who people rejected
unequivocally in the last elections, it was Umno - donāt make the
mistake of supporting them - you will be tarred with the same brush and
worse.
Implement manifesto promises
Do we
even have to tell you this? Harapan got the largest number of seats on
the back of their manifesto promises. Do not make the same mistake of
2018 and dishonour these promises for the cost will be dire. The
remaining points deal with some of the key manifesto promises.
Really do something about corruption
Combating corruption was one of the key manifesto promises. Anwar has correctly identified corruption as the problem facing the government and country but has done precious little about that.
One
of the key things will be to cut loose the MACC from government
interference and give them the teeth and the resources to really
investigate without fear or favour.
Protest against MACC chief commissioner Azam Baki in January 2022
While
there has been talk about the Government Procurement Act to tighten
procurement and cut avenues for corruption, it still seems to be stuck.
After
almost a year of being in power, this is totally unacceptable. There is
time to make 20 foreign visits but no time to fight corruption!
Separateattorney-general,public prosecutor
This
is a long-standing promise by Harapan dating back to 2018. Then-prime
minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad predictably put it on the back burner. Itās
difficult to understand why Anwar, a victim of this, does not want to
separate the two positions.
The basic rationale which still stands
is that the attorney-general is an adviser to the government and
therefore any prosecution he undertakes of political opponents to the
government is tainted.
Lack of prosecution too may be similarly
coloured. The challenge is to make the public prosecutor totally
independent of the government and therefore someone who is able to
prosecute (or not) fairly without fear or favour. Anwar, of all people,
should no longer delay this.
PM term limits,fixed Parliament term, political funding law
These
manifesto measures are all for good governance. A PM who lingers long
can do much harm (re: Mahathir) while fixing Parliament terms gets rid
of the current abominable practice of shortening parliamentary terms by
holding early elections for political purposes. They can be costly,
disruptive and unfair.
Together with a political funding law, the
barebones of which are already there, they will create a political
framework which is more resilient and less open to manipulation by
crooks and charlatans who regularly partake in politics.
Another
measure which should be introduced to improve governance is to establish
an ombudsman system to deal with complaints against the government.
All these are non-controversial measures that should have been implemented a long time ago.
Repeal draconian laws, enact Freedom of Information laws
Legions
of good, innocent people, including our PM, have been incarcerated,
abused, tortured, beaten up and have had other nasty things (some have
been murdered) done to them through the use of draconian laws such as
the infamous Internal Security Act (ISA) - now succeeded by the equally
repressive Security Offences (Special Measures) Act (Sosma) and
Prevention of Terrorism Act (Pota).
Photos of Anwar with a black eye after his arrest in 1998
Others
include the Sedition Act, the Official Secrets Act, archaic sections of
the Penal Code, provisions of the Communications and Multimedia Act,
the Printing Presses and Publications Act, etc.
Instead of these,
there should be a federal Freedom of Information Act, which enables
citizens to obtain information that should rightly be in the public
domain.
There is more that Anwar can do, of course. But if he did
just these 10 things in the one year he has been in power, his position
would now be far more secure and all Malaysians would have a much better
opinion of him.
Now people are puzzled why this man who was
deeply associated with the word reformasi is so afraid to reform when he
has a two-thirds majority in Parliament to make all these changes,
counting those who said they will support him although they are in
opposition.
In fact, most changes simply need a simple majority and political will - thatās all.
If
any political party, including Umno, Bersatu and PAS dare not support
these changes, they stand a real risk of losing their popular base
because they have no solid reason to oppose these measures at all.
So
Anwar, what say you? Why so slow? Surely you have not lost your courage
and idealistic zeal. Perhaps you have been distracted by other things,
perhaps you have been ill-advised, or you have not had the time to stop
and think.
But itās not too late. If you hunker down on the job
and make these 10 things your priority and achieve them within a year,
while at the same time paying attention to and doing something for the
resuscitation of the economy, you will not only earn the support of the
entire nation but its eternal gratitude.
Surely thatās better than
going down in history as the person who talked much but did little or
nothing when he eventually got to the top. Thatās not the Anwar you want
to be remembered as.
