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."
K'tan syariah code ruling inflames anti-democratic forces By Commander S THAYAPARAN (Retired) Royal Malaysian Navy
Monday, February 12, 2024
Malaysiakini : In other words, sullying the historic day for rational Malaysians and
attempting to placate PAS because they are afraid of the possible
electoral blowback.
As Zaid said, everyone swears to uphold the
Constitution but the reality is that successive governments have
attempted to whittle away at constitutional safeguards when it comes to
the religion of the state.
The religious far right led by PAS is attempting to paint this as some sort of calamitous day for Islam in this country.
Former prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin, for instance, has spread fake news
about how offences under Islamic law have disappeared from the Penal
Code in an attempt to reframe the Federal Court's decision as being soft
on crimes deemed unIslamic.
The fact that these laws still exist demonstrates the lies Perikatan Nasional would use to subvert the Constitution.
Not just a Muslim issue
PAS
has been attempting to subvert the Constitution for decades. And if you
think that this is solely a Muslim issue you would be wrong.
Remember when the Kedah menteri besar unilaterally decided to stop gambling in Kedah and limit the sale of alcohol?
He said: "I am a Muslim and cannot gamble. Later in the hereafter, I
will be asked what I did on this issue, and if I did not do anything, I
will be punished (kena tibai). While I have the power, I should use it.”
Having power and using it. This is what PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang means by “powerful Islam”.
The
power to impose religious dogma on all, believers and non-believers
alike. This is why the constitutional sound reasoning of the Federal
Court offends their religious sensibilities.
This is what PN would
do when it comes into power but more importantly why they are
pressuring the Madani regime to enable their theocratic agenda.
Zaid
made a very good point when he said: "That’s when they started passing
criminal laws at the state assemblies under their control.
"Laws that they considered to be Islamic, even though such laws, in most cases, were already in place in the Penal Code."
Ex-minister Zaid Ibrahim
Why
do you think fellow travellers in the religious bureaucracy and
religious political operatives attempt to do something like this?
Two
reasons. First, it undermines or relegates to oblivion civil and
criminal law. The menteri besar’s unilateral move to ban gambling was
challenged in the civil court. If syariah law was used, there would be
no avenue to dissent against these types of legislation or the hurdles
would be insurmountable.
This leads us to the second point, it makes it easier to impose such laws on everyone including non-Muslims.
This is the reasoning of someone like the Kedah menteri besar in defending his trespass into non-Muslim economic activity.
As reported in the press, he said that problems resulting from gambling affect Malays, Chinese, Indians and Siamese people. Therefore, his policy was not aimed at any one ethnic or religious group.
"I
want the people of Kedah to live in harmony. Any negative elements
should not be allowed to grow. It will be stopped under my watch. Any
doors that lead to problems must be closed," he said.
Call for constitutional amendments
Theocratic
states do not want to share power. They want the religious
establishment to be the sole source of power and legitimacy in the
state.
The legacy institutions of power in this country understand
that they are vulnerable to the political and religious malfeasance of
religious political parties.
This is why these religious
desperados are attempting to pressure the Madani regime into making
constitutional amendments, which would be detrimental to democracy, to
ensure the sanctity of syariah law in this country.
This is why
they are attempting to drag the rulers into this mess. They are
attempting to make this an issue where Muslims are not free to practise
their religion as they see fit but the reality is that what these
religious extremists want is to ensure that there are no constitutional
constraints on their religious diktats.
PAS secretary-general Takiyuddin Hassan said, "So, we are defending the syariah, and the Malay rulers' institution."
This
is a complete bunkum. We know what PAS really thinks of the rulers and
their position of Islamic authority in this country, right?
Hadi openly defied the sultan of Terengganu when he said that there was no room in mosques for political speeches.
PAS ulama openly defied and encouraged other religious bodies to defy the sultan of Selangor when it came to the Bon Odori festival.
But
now of course all these political operatives are attempting to use the
royal institution as a shield against their treacherous behaviour
towards the Constitution.
What they are attempting to do is use
the royal institution to gaslight the public into believing that the
Constitution is being used to usurp the position of Islam in this
country.
To stop Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, PN and PAS are
willing to slay sacred cows of Malay-Muslim institutions because as I
have argued before, these are the agendas of the deep Islamic state and
the religious industrial complex.
This is not about whether you
support the royal institution or not. This is about how these defenders
of race and religion have no respect for the institutions they claim to
champion.
“Black Friday” reminds these religious desperados that
it is not the religion of the state or the royal institutions which are
being threatened but their theocratic agenda.
The two courageous Muslim women who brought this legal action, which I would like to remind everyone was done through a harmonious channel, are now receiving death threats.
It
remains to be seen if the Madani state will enable the religious
desperados’ unconstitutional and anti-democratic agenda and outright
lies giving legitimacy to these threats.
Unfortunately for
rational Malaysians, Zaid reminds us that the lure of syariah
implementation once elected is a winning strategy.
