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."
Rafizi is one of those politicians who can articulate the problems faced by the Malay community.
In a roundtable discussion in 2017, he said: “We don’t understand that Malay voters need more than just talk. Telling people that Najib is going to bring us down is not enough.
“Why do we lack credibility? We have been out of touch, to the point of being condescending.
“We just have to convince the people enough that we can do a better job. We must honestly accept failings and offer solutions that may be controversial.”
Former natural resources and environmental sustainability minister Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad, another Bersama operative who left PKR, understood that appealing to the Malay far-right is not a viable strategy.
“At the end of the day, we can’t outflank Perikatan Nasional in terms of playing the Malay or Islam card, because we know that is their comparative advantage in a way.”
This right here is what is needed in the discourse when it comes to the majority community. The non-Malay discourse is far more messy.
Tacit approval from non-Malays
From reportage, Lee described Bersama’s target audience as people who think critically, are less easily swayed by fear, and are open to more political choices. Good luck in finding them in Selangor.
Keep in mind that for decades, non-Malays voted for BN and demonised the opposition using pragmatism as a rallying cry instead of institutional reform.
And to be fair, for decades, the non-Malays prospered while their Malay/Muslim brethren were short-changed by the Malay uber alles party they voted for.
This manufactured various racial flashpoints which the mainstream Malay political apparatus profits from.
While a segment of the Malay polity may scoff at Madani, many Madani partisans still believe that it is a safer alternative than what the opposition is peddling.
Folks may say they are against corruption but still vote for politicians who turned a blind eye to the corporate mafia scandal, the Sabah scandal, closed the book on Teoh Beng Hock, shrugged at the destruction of so-called illegal temples and turned their backs on the reform agenda.
The Madani political class is well aware that although non-Malays rant and rave on social media, the reality is that when it comes to the ballot box, they will vote for his establishment proxies because they believe that, as flawed as Harapan is, there is no alternative.
Could Bersama be that alternative? The better question is: will the progressive voters, regardless of race and religion, place their bets on Bersama when it comes to the green wave?
The urban areas, for instance, are rife with political and corporate corruption, which determines a kind of bureaucratic mafia controlled by ruling regimes, which is ultimately destroying this country.
Yet urban voters, especially non-Malays, are willing to throw in their lot with legacy parties for various reasons.
Making excuses for Harapan is the issue
Do not get me wrong. I will be more than happy if Bersama breaks the monopoly in urban and semi-urban areas because power and policies flow down from these areas.
The online harassment of third-party candidates and the demeaning of so-called mosquito parties and outliers speaking against the doublespeak of mainstream legacy parties is a testament that the non-Malays have shot themselves in the foot when it comes to viable alternatives.
Non-Malays are always asking for solutions. The problem is that they don’t really want solutions because, as a reform coalition (Harapan), they had the solutions. They just never held the people they voted for accountable.
They always made excuses. Everything from “pragmatism”, “the green wave”, to “this is a unity government” whenever Harapan spat in their faces.
I am no economic wonk, but anecdotally speaking, academics and fiscal policy experts I know have been impressed by Bersama’s shadow budget, especially how seriously it takes the short, but more importantly, long-term fiscal policies that may help this country.
As one former economic personality said, she has never really seen such an “audacious” but narratively unsexy long-term fiscally responsible budget before.
What stands in Bersama’s way are instincts of communal interests, self-righteous hypocrisy, cowardice and partisan self-preservation.
These are not baser animal instincts but rather all too human instincts.
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