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."
MCA-DAP spat exposes the 'Big Con' By Commander S THAYAPARAN (Retired) Royal Malaysian Navy
Thursday, January 11, 2024
Malaysiakini : What is important for the non-Malay polity to understand, is that the
MCAās power-sharing model was a big failure in terms of acting as a
moderating force for politics in this country and that DAPās Malaysian
Malaysia is a con game that the party continues to narcotise the base
with.
This last bit is made worse by the reality that the DAP is
currently attempting to emulate the BN-era power-sharing model, which a
significant percentage of the Malay voting public has chosen to reject.
DAP
International Affairs deputy secretary Kasthuri Pattoās contention that
the party continues its Malaysian Malaysia agenda is complete horse
manure because neither she nor the DAP can point to policy decisions or
policy agendas that support this idea.
Kasthuri Patto
Nobody
in this unity government supports the ideas of Malaysian Malaysia and,
as such, any use of it is merely for propagandistic purposes.
Bangsa Malaysia or Malaysian Malaysia is the lie non-Malays and
progressive Malays tell each other in the face of the systemic
dysfunction of the country and the extremist forces that threaten any
form of moderation that non-Malay participation in government has always
hoped to achieve.
Merepolitical theatre
What
really destroyed the MCA was not the propaganda of the DAP but the
acceptance by a large voting demographic of the Chinese community that
no representation in the government is better than MCA representation.
We
have to understand the political theatre that fights like these between
non-Malay power brokers is a distraction for the non-Malay base because
what it covers up is that non-Malay participation in the fields of
economic, educational, and social spaces is always under threat from the
ketuanan system.
Iāll give you a very good example. Remember that
spat between Lim Guan Eng and the MCA about funding for Tunku Abdul
Rahman University College in 2019? Instead of building on the success of
non-Malay participation even though it was started by the MCA, what the
DAP did was attempt to use the university as a pawn in the one-upmanship political game.
What people forget is that the extreme forces in this country have always held mala fide intentions to any non-Malay enterprise that would make it easier for the non-Malays to participate in this country.
Remember what the old maverick said in 2012 when then-prime minister Najib Abdul Razak decreed that the government would recognise certificates from TARUC?
āIf
last time we could only get a government job by having a diploma from
public universities, now we have to accept a diploma (certificate) from
TARUC.
āThis is all because of votes. All these have occurred because of the stupidity of the Malays.ā
Thatās
it, isnāt it? Political racial theatre keeps us entertained while real
policies that the progressives claim to want to disappear beneath a
cloud of smoke of the spectacle of Chinese leadership slugging it out.
Going for each othersā throats
MCA
knows what it is and this does not mean running dogs for the
establishment (itās more complicated than that), while DAP is the only
party which represents, or says it does, the progressive agenda for this
country.
This idea that minorities have to tear each other apart
in service of the Malay power structures is what keeps people
distracted.
If the fight between MCA and DAP was solely based on policy or whatever corruption scandal du jour, it would not be a bad thing. Competition in the marketplace of ideas and propaganda is a good thing.
However,
both always bring it back to whose voice is more important because they
have the vote of the Chinese community although some effort is made to
hide this under the multicultural banner.
When it comes to racial
politics, minorities squabbling for the political interests of
majoritarian stakeholders is painful to watch.
Malays from either
side of the political divide at least sometimes can meet halfway on
those politically-designed issues of race and religion. Throw in culture
and you have Malay power structures at war, but not tearing each
otherās eyes out like how the non-Malay component parties do in the
service of gaining political power for their Malay overlords.
Senior Malay politicians during the Malay Dignity Congress in 2019
Non-Malay
power brokers are in a losing game when it comes to any kind of
egalitarian reform. Remember in 2009 when Najib came into power, he did
it with a reformist agenda, but then it went by the wayside.
After
he took the country's top job in 2009, Najib cast himself as a
moderniser who would roll back the privileges that have deterred
investment and alienated minority Chinese and ethnic Indians. He has
also pledged to base government assistance more strongly on needs than
on race.
Earlier, I said what destroyed the MCA was the fact that a
large section of the Chinese community would rather have no
participation than MCA participation in the government.
It is only
a matter of time before a segment of the non-Malay polity believes that
it is better to have no representation in government because of what
these two parties are offering.
The political terrain is only going to get hotter for non-Malay political operatives.
