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."
Only one person can rejuvenate PKR By Commander S THAYAPARAN (Retired) Royal Malaysian Navy
Thursday, January 04, 2024
Malaysiakini : These days, the prime minister is doing everything in his power to
demonstrate he is not the progressive Muslim leader his opponents make
him out to be.
Not only has he vastly increased the funding for
the religious bureaucracy, but he is also contemplating giving them more
power, the same with the syariah legal system.
Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim publicly presiding over a religious conversion ceremony at a mosque in Klang, Selangor.
His
government refuses to offer a religious alternative to the far-right
religious policies of PN, all while the non-Malay political operatives
in PKR make squeaking noises about moderation.
Once a progressive party
He
talks of the reform agenda as something the Malays fear, instead of
what made him popular in the first place, and yes, even among a section
of Malays who yearned for change.
Anwar as the leader of PKR is
attempting to demonstrate that he is nothing like what he and PKR
claimed they were before, which was a progressive party with an
egalitarian agenda within the confines of the Constitution.
And
believe me, Anwar knew how to thread the needle when on the hustings
back in the day, and said that needs-based affirmative action would
still help the Malays most because they were the majority.
Then, of course, there is the dissonance when it comes to policy.
Take corruption for instance. While the Madani regime attempts to take
the scalps of mainstream establishment personalities, they run into the
problem of justifying the existence of a deputy prime minister in the
Madani government.
It also paints the DAP, and by proxy the
Chinese community, as enabling corruption as long as it serves the unity
government, and makes it look like political persecution when the state
rightly goes after personalities who for decades were allegedly
involved in some sort of pecuniary malfeasances.
Now, of course,
all that is thrown out the window. With Umno political operatives
aligned with party president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi ever willing to play the
attack dog when it comes to ketuanan issues, the only thing
DAP can do is keep their mouths shut in case they invite the racial and
religious propaganda attacks by not only PN but from the unity
government.
Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi
The Malay uber alles
elites in this country want the Malays to remain stagnant while they
plunder the country in the name of race and religion. Remember when
Harapan came to power with Dr Mahathir Mohamad at the helm? The
establishment, especially the judiciary it was said, breathed a sigh of relief because they knew cosa nostra would resume.
Race and religion in politics
Why
are the Malays lagging behind? Don’t blame the non-Malays, blame the
Malay political elites. This is also why right-wing hegemonists fear
class narratives because they know once people figure out their game,
their positions become untenable.
The Madani state should not take
the bait but, instead, remind the Malays that PAS president Abdul Hadi
Awang uses religion and race to keep them down while enjoying the
excesses of political power and privilege.
There are enough
examples of the excesses of PN states to demonstrate the hypocrisy of PN
when it comes to a whole range of issues.
This type of class/race
narrative is the kind of populism that brought Anwar and PKR into power
in the first place but was abandoned after political operatives tasted
power and the goal became to retain power.
Nobody is saying that a political party cannot use religion. The question is how do you use religion?
And
I’m not talking about feel-good rhetoric about how religions are equal
and everyone’s the same but rather policies that actually help rural
communities instead of restricting them transmitted by a reformed
religious bureaucracy.
I am talking about using religions as a
means to transmit ideas of good governance by building better schools
which in turn equips young people to deal with the vagaries of changing
geopolitical and environmental landscapes.
Sure, PKR may cling on
to power in various states with its bickering allies but the reality is,
if by now PKR has not got a grip on what it is and what it hopes to
achieve, how can party members remind the prime minister of what he
needs to do?
Madani may very well be the death knell of the party.
