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."
If past election results are anything to go by, Anwar has yet to make any headway with the Malays.
Ever since he came to power in November 2022, he has tried to woo the Malays with many concessions.
Incredibly,
he shares the unshakeable belief that the non-Malays are dependent on
him and will never betray him because they say, āWho else is there
besides Anwar?ā
Anwar
has bent over backwards to appease the Malays but they still reject
him. At the same time, the non-Malays have also continued to bend over
backwards to āsupportā Anwar, and yet, he continues to disappoint them.
This is political sado-masochism at work. Sadly, the victim in this power frenzy is the rakyat.
Decades-long rivalry
Those who know the history of Umno and PAS will realise that these three men, Mahathir, Anwar, and Hadi, go a long way.
In the late 1970s, PASā domination was on the rise, especially in Mahathirās home state of Kedah.
Divisional Umno heads warned Mahathir about PASā rising threat and urged him to act.
As
Umno deputy chief and deputy prime minister, Mahathir feared that Umno
would lose Malay votes to PAS, which was buoyed by the global Islamic
revival spearheaded by the Iranian revolution of 1979 and the overthrow
of the Iranian monarchy.
Meanwhile, PAS had also accused Umno of not being Islamic enough.
PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang
Mahathir
was displeased with the distraction as he was a man in a hurry to
develop and modernise Malaysia. On top of the Islamic agenda, Mahathir
had another local issue.
Student protests to
highlight the plight of poor farmers and their starving families were an
annoying distraction. Mahathir needed to focus on his vision.
Thus,
he killed two birds with one stone by inviting the charismatic student
leader and co-founder of the Malaysian Islamic Youth Movement (ABIM),
Anwar, to join his government.
As a member of the
establishment, Anwar could no longer lead the student demonstrations,
and with his Islamic credentials, he was a valuable asset to Umno.
Anwar would convince the shallow electorate that Umno was indeed as Islamic as PAS.
He
rolled out policies like the dress code for students and civil
servants, the Bahasa Melayu/Bahasa Bako and the sidelining of non-Malays
in the civil service. Many Malays were duped and the rest is history.
Complacency instead of Reformasi
The
failed bromance of Anwar and Mahathir in the late 1990s and Anwarās
criticism of Mahathirās response to the Asian Financial Crisis was
followed by his sacking and subsequent arrest at the height of the
Reformasi movement.
However, Reformasi
had given ordinary Malaysians much hope for a new type of governance
after the dark years of the Mahathir era. Malaysians liked Anwarās bold
moves for reform and anti-corruption. They vowed to end Umno-Baru rule.
After GE15 and the hastily cobbled coalition government, Malaysians soon became jaded. The promised reforms remain unfulfilled.
Of
course, Malaysians are prepared to give Anwar a chance. It is not as if
he did not have enough preparation time. Didnāt he have a 24-year
apprenticeship?
However, ever since becoming prime minister, there has been poor communication between the top and the grassroots.
With the defeat at Sungai Bakap, Anwarās ministers and his daughter Nurul Izzah have come out with weasel words like āself-reflectionā, āwe will listen moreā, ābahlolā, and ātrust usā.
Havenāt
Malaysians been speaking out about Madaniās failure to listen to the
rakyat all this while? Did it need Sungai Bakap to tell them āWe told
you so?ā
A complacent Anwar probably thought he could
depend on non-Malay votes to win. He was wrong because in Sungai Bakap,
they wanted to punish him and so they stayed at home.
Perikatan Nasionalās Abidin Ismail (centre) celebrates his win in the Sungai Bakap by-election
A
complacent Anwar probably thought he could cultivate the Malay vote
with various concessions towards them but this strategy failed and, to
make matters worse, he alienated the non-Malays, his core support base.
A
complacent Anwar may claim that the country has benefited from
increased foreign investments but how does this translate to the
ordinary man in the rural and semi-rural areas, whose lives are
shattered by the cost of living crisis?
Disillusionment sets in
Increasing
numbers of middle-class families are also struggling with price
increases in food, fuel and energy, the deteriorating education of their
children, increasing polarisation in the community and the rise in
religious extremism.
They are dissatisfied with the Madani administration.
One
disillusioned PKR supporter said, āAnwar spends more time on Hamas and
he willingly gave them RM100 million. Back home, his own people are
suffering.
āThen, on his return, heās preoccupied
with enabling house arrest for the convicted felon, Najib Abdul Razak.
He has no time for the rakyat.ā