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."
Kok implied that it was Umno
who gave the stand-down orders whingeing - āWhat could we do? We could
not enter the villages; we were chased out. They didnāt want our
presence to be too obvious and we adhered (to the request). This was a
sign of respect to our partners,ā in the context of the criticism by an
Umno veteran.
DAP vice-chairperson Teresa Kok
Does
anyone else see the absurdity in this statement? Firstly, you are a
coalition partner in a federal government. If you are chased out of
villages, what are the federal police and election apparatus doing about
such electoral intimidation?
Secondly, how much influence does
Umno have when it comes to a PKR by-election, which enables them to give
orders to the DAP, with PKR saying nothing?
Kok went on with the
same talking points about how the DAP is a multicultural party and the
propaganda that is used against them has hampered their forays into the
rural Malay heartland.
Look, the DAP has had decades to cultivate a
rural base but the reality is that they concentrated on getting the
urban and semi-urban non-Malay, specifically Chinese votes.
DAP
was more than happy to leave the Malay vote to various Malay-centric
parties, which is why they now have to deal with Madaniās ādonāt spook
the Malay mantraā, and who can forget that the justification for hooking
up with Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
As DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang reminded us,
the basis for hooking up with Mahathir was the rural Malay vote and of
course, Bersatu was different from the Malay-based Umno.
And then
there is the dilemma with Umno Youth chief Dr Muhamad Akmal Saleh, which
is meant as a distraction. Kok said - āHowever when we get into
loggerheads with Umno and Umno Youth like before, the Malays see us as
being rude and racist.ā
Familiar malarkey
First
of all, the Malays have moved on from Umno and the only people who seem
interested in what they have to say are the denizens of Madaniville.
DAP chairperson Lim Guan Eng has no problem talking about the scurrilous attacks by MCA on the police and the home minister but as usual, DAP likes taking on soft targets.
DAP chairperson Lim Guan Eng
But
then again we have seen all this malarkey before. Remember in that
not-so-great debate between Guan Eng and then-MCA president Choi Soi
Lek, where the former said - āIt is discrimination when Umno tells the Malays they cannot progress without Umno. (I say) We can all progress together.ā
Well,
is anyone in DAP telling this to UMNO now or is DAP still beating a
dead horse with MCA? Wait, donāt answer that. Apparently DAP still
thinks it is better not to confront someone like Akmal because the
Malays will think it is rude even though a majority of them have shifted
their allegiance to Perikatan Nasional/PAS.
So it is better for
these Malays to think of DAP as whipping boys rather than a political
party that opposes a theocratic state because God knows, nobody wants to
spook the Malays.
Years of demonising MCA as a ārunning dogā for
the establishment should have been a lesson for DAP, but now they are
slowly learning the cost of doing business with Malay power structures
on a federal level.
Not rocking the boat
When
some non-Malay Pakatan Harapan partisans tell people who demand reform
not to rock the Harapan boat - much like how Lim told non-Malays that
they do not need to ābegā - it is exactly the same position MCA was when
it was balancing expectations in the BN coalition.
DAP never gave MCA the benefit of this excuse, and neither should anyone who believes in any kind of institutional reform.
These
days, the people are left wondering if DAP will cave when it comes to
important policy issues because, with the creation of this coalition
government, all they seem interested in doing is justifying the policies
of the government, even if it goes against their campaign manifesto or
more damning, their so-called principles.
We
are always told that if not this then we have to accept the āGreen
Waveā. I say why make the āGreen Waveāsā job easier? Why lay the
foundation in terms of policy and governmental procedure (or lack of it)
for the āGreen Waveā?
The question is, if DAP is being asked to
keep a low profile in certain elections to not spook the Malays, what
else are they asked to keep a low profile on? Exactly how does keeping a
low profile help the DAP base?
I know it may help the political
elites, their proxies and hangers-on but how exactly does it help the
non-Malays who make up the DAP base?
All this should not surprise
us. Remember what DAP big cheese Anthony Loke said - āSo I wish to put
on record, as I said just now, on November 22, before Anwar Ibrahim went
to Istana Negara, I told him, as long as you can be prime minister, DAP
is willing to sacrifice anything, that is my commitment to Anwar.ā
