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."
What the pundits are forgetting in the 'green wave' mania By Terence Netto
Friday, December 09, 2022
Malaysiakini : But one general election later – GE11 in March 2004 – BN, under
the newly minted prime ministership of Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, reduced
PAS to seven seats in Parliament, losing the 20 seats it had gained in
its extraordinary performance in GE10.
Voters’ preference not set
The
lesson taught by comparative Malay/Muslim voter behaviour in GE10 and
GE11 was that resentment at a phenomenon or a personality does not last
long. They are pliable to personnel and attitudinal change.
A
change in leadership, from Mahathir to Abdullah in the instance cited
above, or a shift in policy or attitude, as may be inferred from the
initial initiatives of current Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, can affect
Malay voter allegiance in a major way.
Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim
From this standpoint, it can be argued that Malay/Muslim voter
behaviour in the next general election (GE16) will be influenced by the
outcome of investigations, newly commenced, into how the Perikatan
Nasional government under Muhyiddin Yassin had allegedly spent the RM600
billion in Covid-19 outlays in the period of the pandemic.
Muhyiddin
has held that there was nothing illicit about the way the money was
spent while PM Anwar has contended that procedures for the disbursements
were not adhered to.
In fact, you do not need a
crystal ball to say this far away from the next general election that
corruption – and how the ruling Pakatan Harapan government deals with it
– will have a huge sway on not only Malay/Muslim voter allegiance but
also on non-Malay preference.
Making compromises
Of course, this assumes the Harapan government will continue to stay in power until GE16.
Well,
the anti-hopping law has made this assumption a little easier to
entertain, but much will depend on how Anwar manages the problem posed
by the presence of the problematic Ahmad Zahid Hamidi in government.
Zahid,
the Umno president, is on to a rhetorical tack that is beginning to
question identity politics and the racial and religious basis on which
it is constructed.
Improbable as it seems, the
collaboration between Harapan and Umno-BN would work if Zahid continues
to hold forth as he has recently done.
This only demonstrates that the ideas of Harapan – the ones on
multi-racialism – have infiltrated their new-found collaborators more
than the past disputants realise.
This is the virtue
of democratic politics, the compromising spirit it induces in its
practitioners, that they are led to look at past anathemas and enmities
as no longer serviceable.
This is what the writer Proudhon meant when he talked about the “fecundity of the unexpected”.
This is the various system of alternatives, within which political constructs work themselves out.
The
greatest of human gifts may be the talent for improvisation, the
ability to evaluate a situation and then devise some new way of dealing
with it. Without that gift, history would be nothing more than a tedious
and, at times, brutal repetition.
Harapan, aided and abetted by a motley cast of unsavoury characters, must improvise and make its tenure in Putrajaya work.
