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."
Anwar's Malay Gordian knot - Commander S THAYAPARAN (Retired) Royal Malaysian Navy
Monday, March 06, 2023
Malaysiakini : The rest of the Malay uber alles crowd never had this dilemma, much
less the Gordian knot, because everything they did was supposedly for
race and religion when the reality was that they were stuffing their
mouths from the gravy train.
Because we have a virulent racial and
religious opposition, it does not matter what Anwar does for the Malays
because the opposition will tear into him even if his policies benefit
the majority or mitigate the damage these extremists do.
The
Gordian knot means pandering to racial and religious dogma even though
policies which would actually recalibrate this nation away from the path
it is heading would benefit the majority.
It also means
disenfranchising the people who voted for Pakatan Harapan or asking them
to sublimate their expectations, even when it comes to policies and
agendas which would do more harm than good. All for the unequal Malay
vote that the old maverick is deathly afraid this unity government would
rectify.
Can this unity government work with the opposition? Keep in mind that working with the opposition is a new paradigm.
The
Malay uber alles establishment never bothered to work with the
opposition and the so-called middle ground base of Malay voters could
not be bothered.
Now, of course with the DAP in government, no
matter how subservient and silent or how hard-working and honest, this
does not matter to the people who would vote in a religious extremist
coalition. Their very presence is a cause for alarm. Can you imagine
that?
Honestly, everything this unity government does is for the
Malays. Right now opposition states are getting major flood relief money
and yes, this is the right thing to do.
Economic policies are
predicated on the disenfranchised and middle class of the Malay
community. Subsidies and various entitlement programmes have been beefed
up because they benefit the majority polity.
So when it comes to
giving cash to politicians to supposedly help the community, what we are
really talking about is, giving money to political operatives.
Let
us be clear, the federal government, this unity government is already
bending over backwards for people in states that Harapan or Umno did not
carry.
Indeed voters who voted for Perikatan Nasional are more
than happy that the religious and fascist agenda of PN be applied to all
and would most probably think that it is haram to provide equal allocation for infidel opposition leaders if their leaders were in the government.
So, when it comes to equal allocations, I have to say I agree with Nazri Abdul Aziz who said this:
“If the government gives RM1 million, they will still get RM1 million,
but we must ensure how they spend it would not give them any political
advantage, to the extent that we do not know where the money allocated
goes.
“Because we have to be careful, they might use the money for political purposes.”
Former Umno MP Nazri Abdul Aziz is now Ambassador to the United States
So
yes, fund the opposition but make sure transparency is the name of the
game. And yes, Nazri is also right when he said that this way, the
federal government can draw the opposition into a discussion.
But
the opposition does not want to have a discussion. Discussion is
anathema to their way of doing things. What does the opposition do? At
every turn, they attempt to destabilise the government.
Mainstream political dogma
Mind
you if they were doing it on policy grounds and they were pointing out
flaws in the policy implementation, then this would be fair game.
However,
what the opposition is doing is ratcheting up racial and religious
anxieties. What they are doing is demonising non-Malay/non-Muslim
communities and they are doing this with mainstream political dogma,
which nobody, certainly not the Malay components of Harapan, wants to
engage with directly.
Indeed, what PN does not want people who
voted for them to understand, is that this unity government was
sanctioned by the establishment because they understood that the racial
and religious agenda of PN was not only detrimental to the country but
also to institutions that for so long Umno propagandists pummeled into
the heads of the majority polity, needed to be defended at all costs.
Let
me be very clear, there is nothing that Anwar can do which would
satisfy this opposition. An opposition led by PAS president Abdul Hadi
Awang, who believes that the non-Muslims in this country should be the pak turut.
Now
of course Hadi is aligning with Dr Mahathir Mohamad who is equally
disdainful publically of the Malay race and the architect of this
Gordian knot.
Former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad
Keep
in mind that when he was heading Harapan, the old maverick and his
allies claimed he was needed to woo the unequal rural votes.
All
this is a matter of public record. Add to that his Malay-based party –
Bersatu – was even touted as better than Umno because as reported
in the press, “Lim (Kit Siang) contended that Bersatu was still more
Malaysian than Umno, as the former wants Malays to unite and work with
other citizens, while the latter wants Malaysians to remain Malays,
Chinese and Indians and is even trying to polarise the next elections as
a battle between the Malays and Chinese.”
Mahathir has publicly admitted
that the Malays are complacent and that the Chinese are discriminated
against in this country. Do not worry, nobody pays much attention to the
Indians.
"What else (can I do)... I have tried to be an example,
tried to teach, scolded, cried and even prayed. "(But) I have failed. I
have failed to achieve the most important thing - how to change the
Malays.
"The Chinese in Malaysia have no special rights, they
experience discrimination. But they are more successful than us,"
Mahathir had said.
Forget about the middle ground. What the people
should be asking is this: Is there a certain percentage of Malay voters
who can cut through PN propaganda and realise that what Anwar is doing
for the Malays is better and maybe more transparent than what these
Malay uber alles political operatives say they do but fail miserably at?
That is the realpolitik of it. This is not the middle ground. This is not about egalitarian policies or progressive ideals.
This
is about a certain section of the Malay community who believe in racial
and religious superiority but who have not totally bought into the idea
that they would be better off under PN for economic reasons.
Keep in mind that Anwar also was part of tying this Gordian knot.
And how does one solve the problem of a Gordian knot?
There is no Malay political operative who has the cajones to carry out that solution.
