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."
In 2018, the Harapan
political apparatus was so giddy it won the 14th general election that
DAP’s Liew Chin Tong wrote a piece about the rise of Bangsa Malaysia.
Liew wrote: “For instance, I may be Chinese culturally but politically I participate in public life as a Malaysian, not as a Chinese.”
Really? Forget that the personal is political, but what does political life really mean?
Political
life in the Malaysian context is defined by constitutional provisions
that are manipulated by Malay power structures to maintain racial and
religious hegemony at the expense of minorities.
To claim that one
participates in political life as a Malaysian is absurd when the
majority ethnic group in this country participates in politics as
Malays.
Never mind the lunacy of such a claim when DAP made it
very clear that the reason why they joined forces with Bersatu’s Dr
Mahathir Mohamad was because they needed the “rural Malay” vote to save Malaysia.
What differentiates Bangsa Malaysia from the far-right ideologies of PAS and Umno?
Racial supremacy is the mainstream
What
binds us as a society, the rules of engagement if you will, are the
policies, rules, and ideas that we subscribe to as a collective, even
though we may subscribe to individual or community ideas of culture that
include religion.
Racial supremacy has been normalised in
Malaysia’s political and social domains, and claiming to be anti-racist
and democratic puts you in the crosshairs of the state security
apparatus because you hurt the sensitivities of a certain community or
are going against the Constitution of this country.
Ketuanism
(racial supremacy) is mainstream and has never really been challenged
by any Malay leader, which makes any form of non-Malay dissent to this
idea a transgression against societal norms and even seditious in
nature.
So,
as Malaysians, we either accept concepts like the social contract,
ketuanism, and Malay rights, which trump all other democratic
considerations, or as a voting block we choose to redefine the
traditional political concepts for a more inclusive Malaysia.
Now, the question is, are there any Malay political leaders who would advocate for the latter?
No real alternative
The problem is that there is no alternative to the racial and religious narratives offered by PAS/Umno.
People
who vote for PAS and Umno know exactly what they are voting for and
what these political parties will deliver, unlike some feckless Harapan
supporters always demanding solutions that their political operatives
claim to have but never fulfil.
Let us revisit Anwar’s “don’t spook the Malays”
statement when he first made it. He said: “It gives a very negative
perception. The Malays are worried, the government has only been formed
so if we demand that they surrender, it is too soon.
“What is
important now, for me, is to instil a strong confidence that we will
defend the rights of all people without sacrificing bumiputera interests
as enshrined in the Federal Constitution.”
Buying time is an
acceptable political strategy and yes, the Malay establishment’s
“Langkah Sheraton” brought down the deck of cards, but what is really
killing PKR when it comes to the Malay political game is that it is not
offering anything new to the Malay polity. There is no alternative to
the ideologies of PAS and Umno.
Right now, the Madani regime is
enabling Umno by allowing the fallen party to control the religious and
racial narrative of this unity government.
Anwar,
meanwhile, is using the Palestinian tragedy to burnish his religious
credentials and seems to have no problem alienating his non-Malay base.
Various
religious amendments are also on the table, which would strengthen the
country’s religious apparatus and redefine political and religious power
in this country.
PAS has demonstrated that it is willing to slay
Malay sacred cows. PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang has thumbed his nose
at a royal decree banning preaching politics in mosques and various
Perikatan Nasional power brokers at various times have made it clear
that the religious agenda trumps any form of royal constraint.
Democratic governance, backed by secular principles
The
Madani regime, meanwhile, has used the 3R (race, religion, royalty) ban
to curb controversial discourse because it does not want to make its
stand known, which gives folks like Hadi another avenue to demonstrate
how the Madani regime is persecuting religious and political leaders.
Hadi
said in Parliament: “If we advise the government, they may take many
actions - evict us from the Dewan Rakyat, ban our entry, and even
involve the police in investigations.”
Harapan supporters were
gleeful in mocking Hadi but what they should be considering is why the
Madani state did not come out and outright repudiate Hadi’s hate speech
by aligning with the progressive targets of Hadi.
But it goes
further than this. Even PKR’s Hassan had lamented that the 3R ban is
masking the systemic dysfunction when it comes to the kind of crony
capitalists orbiting Anwar.
Pasir Gudang MP Hassan Abdul Karim
“These people seem to enjoy immunity and cannot be touched due to the 3R ban,” Hassan reportedly said.
The
solution is not Bangsa Malaysia but rather the political will to create
a system of governance based on democratic and secular principles which
protect all our rights regardless of religion, ethnicity, and political
allegiance, which is an alternative to what the Malay-based political
parties are offering.
However, the Madani regime is content with
the political alchemy of hooking up with dubious personalities and
parties, using the instruments of the state to persecute convenient
targets, and expanding entitlement programmes for the majority polity.
All this is done with compliant non-Malay power brokers. This may very well work for Madani.
So the question then becomes, does Anwar even need a Bangsa Malaysia?
