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."
Dr M's ideas continue to define this country By Commander S THAYAPARAN (Retired) Royal Malaysian Navy
Thursday, January 25, 2024
Malaysiakini : Mahathir was also adept at corralling non-Malay support for his odious ideas.
For
decades, he made it seem that the choice of BN was the lesser of two
evils, leveraging non-Malay anxiety to nurture an economic, political
and social elite Malay class and creating a Malay middle class who were
for the most part narcotised by religious and racial propaganda.
He
can rightfully take credit for creating the Malay middle class and he
can take credit for creating āMalayā citizens whose geographical
location and religious leaning made it easier for them to assimilate
into the Umno body politics.
Of course, these days he demurs but reality and history say otherwise.
When Mahathir came into power again with Pakatan Harapan, the same old games were being played.
We
now know that poor Lim Guan Eng did not really have much say, like most
of the MCA did back in the day and it was all about giving the majority
community more than the minority communities and enabling Chinese
plutocrats.
"We still have to give them, but what we gave to them
was very small (compared to what the Malays got). But we could not say
it then, because then the Chinese would be angry.ā He said in an interview with Malaysiakini.
He also told Malaysiakini that the āā¦DAP leaders also accepted a new government policy that was slanted towards helping the Malays.ā
Lim Guan Eng
Mahathir's ideas of power-sharing - the first ingredient spook the
non-Malays and the second ingredient makes them pliable to Malay
supremacy to maintain political power as defined by the non-existent
social contract, which is still in play today.
Why do you think
the DAP is as quiet as a church mouse? Not only have they got to contend
with the remnants of Umno clinging to power, but they also have to
ensure that Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim is not the progressive Malay
leader that Perikatan Nasional characterises him as.
āDAPās pledge to Anwarā
Remember
the words of DAP secretary-general Anthony Loke - āSo I wish to put on
record, as I said just now, on Nov 22, before Anwar went to Istana
Negara, I told Anwar, as long as you can be prime minister, DAP is
willing to sacrifice anything, that is my commitment to Anwar.ā
See
that right there? Those are the magic phrases of the old maverickās
sick idea and what is happening today? The non-Malays are so afraid of
the āGreen Waveā that the Madani government is left unchecked to carry
out policies that enable the ideas of PAS.
This is exactly what
happened during Mahathirās long watch. He allowed the Islamic
bureaucracy to come into its own, establishing a state interpretation of
religion which further eroded the secular and democratic norms of this
country.
This is not to say that all of Mahathir's ideas were
necessarily bad for the country even if they were self-serving. When
Mahathir went up against the royal institution back in the day, he used
the instruments of the state to make his case.
As reported by the Independent - āIn the meantime, the government is waging all-out war on the rulers.
āCivil
servants have been told to seek the prime minister's permission before
seeing the king, state governments are under orders to refuse business
favours to their rulers.
āFor the past month, page two of the government-controlled New Straits Times
has been devoted to the sultansā excesses - how Sultan Ismail Petra of
Kelantan, for example, imported 30 duty-free luxury cars rather than the
seven allowed and how he got away from Customs officials in a
Lamborghini Diablo on the pretext of test-driving it.
āThe RM200
million cost of maintaining the rulers has been lavishly detailed,
including the hospital wards kept for their exclusive use, and the RM9.3
million spent on new cutlery and bedspreads for the king, which the
newspaper said could have built two hospitals or 46 rural clinics, or 46
primary schools.
āReligious teachers have been encouraged to comment on the un-Islamic behaviour of the supposed guardians of Islam.ā
And yet these days, we actually have people who think that it is the job of the royalty to constrain political power.
You
can bet your last ringgit that the political class will latch on to
this as a means to stifle dissent and legitimate criticism, which is
exactly the kind of ideas Mahathir promulgated back in the day when it
came to manipulating the royalty.
Former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak
Keep
in mind the political and economic malfeasances going on during the
trial of Najib Abdul Razak which were either ignored or underreported.
Why,
because a large component of Mahathir's policy ideas and political
manoeuvrings are based on bread and circuses. Distract the population
while we pick a pocket or two.
The same thing is happening now. We
have an AG who has come under severe criticism for the way how he and
his department are handling cases but all this is forgotten because Daim
Zainuddin and Mahathir are in his crosshairs.
Mahathir knows that
the only way his ideas would ever be repudiated is by the reform and
dismantling of the system he created. He knows that this will probably
never happen.
It is cold comfort that it is his ideas and the system he created which are now being used against him.
