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."
Malaysiakini : Fahmi is accused of going against the spirit of that talk and that pledge to defend freedom of speech by his calling for police action against the PN candidate in the Padang Serai by-election on Dec 7.
Azman Nasrudin had denounced
the Harapan-BN federal government as an āadulterousā (kerajaan zina)
one in a campaign pronouncement which drew the ire of Harapan.
Azman would later soften the impact of his statement by admitting he may have gone overboard.
But that attempt at damage control came a little too late as Fahmi had already called for police action against Azman.
It is not that the police have sprung into action against Azman, but
when Fahmi expatiated on his call for police action, he adverted to the
blessings the Harapan-BN unity government had supposedly obtained from
the Rulersā Conference.
Fahmiās reference to the royal institution
imbued his call for police action with a frisson that hoisted it out of
a āno blast areaā into a volatile zone.
PKR communications chief Fahmi Fadzil
It
was no surprise then that a PN official, Dr Afif Bahardin, responded by
calling out Fahmi for hypocrisy, saying that there were no
transgressive elements in Azmanās description which Afif held as falling
within the ambit of freedom of speech.
This burgeoning
controversy over what freedom of speech allows and what it doesnāt
occurs simultaneously with Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahimās threat of legal action against a PN member of parliament.
Hassan
Saad, PAS MP for Baling, is alleged to have claimed that there was an
āIsraeli linkā to Anwarās appointment as prime minister.
A video of a woman who says that Hassan told her of this āIsraeli linkā has gone viral.
Anwarās
lawyers have demanded from Hassan the whole range of restitutions
afforded by libel law ā retraction, apology and damages.
Meanwhile, Hassan denied any knowledge of the video.
āHeresy, yes, Insurrection, noā
The cases of
Fahmiās call for police action against Azman and Anwarās resort to legal
action against Hassan have drawn attention to the issue of what is
allowed by freedom of speech and what is not.
Police reports are being contemplated against PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang for calling DAP āIslamophobicā in one of his more recent public pronouncements.
The
issue of freedom of speech is one of those instances in the progress of
human thought and institutions where clarity is better achieved through
knowing what is not allowed than what is allowed.
For example,
you cannot cry āFireā in a crowded theatre even if you are motivated to
call attention to the inadequate state of its fire-preventing
arrangements.
The progress of the freedom of speech concept is understood to protect heretical opinions, but not insurrectionary ones.
The
distinction between the two sets of opinions is that a heretical
opinion may be the direct opposite of what is merely taken to be the
customary or popular one; whereas an insurrectionary opinion would be to
say someone or some entity is anti-something that is regarded by the
vast majority of the people as sacrosanct.
PAS Leader Abdul Hadi Awang
One
would think the application of the āHeresy, yes, Insurrection, noā
distinguishing yardstick would judge Azmanās remark that the Harapan-BN
government is adulterous as permissible; while Hadi Awangās description
of DAP as Islamophobic could be assessed as insurrectionary.
The
one has merely the potential to rile people to high dudgeon, at the
most; whereas the other has the potential to rouse people to hatred.
It is a fraught distinction but it must be drawn for the advancement of democratic societies.
