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."
KJ gets free speech defence but what about comedian? By Commander S THAYAPARAN (Retired) Royal Malaysian Navy
Monday, February 03, 2025
Malaysiakini : One of the individuals who made a police report against Harith said
- “That is an insolent act and police should take stern action. Harith
opened up the space for this issue to be ridiculed, and that is
blatantly rude.”
Nowhere did Harith make fun of the religion of the state nor did he invite anyone to make fun of the religion of the state.
Indeed,
what Harith was doing is satirising the rhetoric and diktats of
religious operatives and here is the important part (see quote in
Derbyshire) “any governmental body” that claims to be the gatekeepers of
the religion of the state. And keep in mind he did not do this
explicitly.
The intent behind Harith’s comedy was the reality that
his faith could not be compromised simply because religious operatives
and the state informed the rakyat that it could.
If anything, Harith’s comedy was exemplifying the better angels of his faith.
If Harith was not insulting his faith and not inviting others to do the same, what has this got to do with religion?
Religious gatekeepers
Well,
Harith’s comedy was insulting to the gatekeepers of the religion of the
state. It was insulting to the religious classes and those who
supported them. It was insulting to the idea that faith is not an
individual expression of belief but rather state-sanctioned mandates.
And
of course, nobody in the political class is going to come to Harith’s
defence for obvious reasons - even though the comedian has been the
poster child for a New Malaysia and progressive politics for decades,
and even though at various times in his career he has peddled
state-sponsored apologia and propaganda.
Non-Muslim
political operatives are afraid they would be accused of being
anti-religion of the state and Muslim political operatives would be
afraid of being termed “liberals”.
Those people who fear
“liberalism”, however, they define it, in reality, fear the loss of
power when empowered societies choose alternatives.
So yes,
liberalism is a threat to any kind of religion the state preaches. Mind
you the religious class may actually win in a “fair” democratic contest
because that is one of the perils of democracy.
Beyond institutional safeguards, democracy is a risky endeavour, but I would take it to anything a theocracy has to offer.
Remember Sisters in Islam?
Keep
in mind that in this country if you go against the religious
establishment, you are deemed a “liberal”. After having lost at the
Court of Appeal, Sisters in Islam is appealing to the Federal Court.
Keep in mind how the fatwa
defined deviancy when it came to SIS – “SIS Forum, individuals,
organisations and institutions adopting ideologies of liberalism and
pluralism are deviant and against the teaching of Islam.”
Then,
there are independent preachers like Wan Ji Wan Hussin who gained infamy
for being sentenced for insulting the Selangor sultan, but was always
considered a “deviant” especially when he criticised how the religious
bureaucracy in this country operated.
Wan Ji Wan Hussin
He triggers
the religious class when he says something like: “I don't agree that
only Islam can be propagated. The Federal Constitution states that, but I
don't agree with it from the viewpoint of religion. Let the law
practitioners debate if it’s from the law’s point of view.
“But as
someone who studied religion, that statement is wrong. Non-Muslims
should be given the right to give their views, as opposed to only the
Muslims being able can do so. Maybe that's why people have accused me of
being ‘liberal’.”
Remember the always-interesting, late Kassim Ahmad.
To his admirers, the persecution of this public intellectual
demonstrated the fear the state had of what he wrote and said, and this
made him the poster child for the kind of Islam they believed was
“acceptable” in a multiracial and multi-religious country like Malaysia.
The late Kassim Ahmad
To
his detractors, he was a purveyor of falsity that threatened Muslim
solidarity and he was a puppet of the liberal West whose writings and
speeches would cause the collapse of Malay/Muslim political and
religious hegemony.
But Kassim was a devout Muslim who believed
that his faith was hijacked by interpreters who had agendas of their own
that were not compatible with his interpretation of what would lead to a
liberated world.
And do not for one second believe that all these individuals or organisations are or were the liberal vanguard of this country.
They have advocated or dissented against causes which most "Western indoctrinated liberals" would be offended by.
What
they are or were, are voices who dissented in their own ways against
the religious class and the orthodoxy of the state. All of them were and
are practising Muslims.
But what is most damaging about this, is
the fact that the political and religious class would rather people
believe that Harith somehow invited people to offend the religion of the
state or had offended it rather than acknowledge that Harith was
satirising the diktats of a religious governmental body or the religious
class which should be open to debate and not immune to criticism or
satire in a democratic country.