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."
The futility of the non-Malay vote By Commander S THAYAPARAN (Retired) Royal Malaysian Navy
Monday, November 04, 2024
Malaysiakini : Whichever way one chooses to look at the “Green Wave”, what we are
observing is the diminishing political power of non-Malays in this
country.
Keep
in mind that when I say political power, I do not mean power over
policy but rather power that constrains the excesses of the religious
and racial state.
Protecting rights of non-Malays
Increasingly when non-Malays vote, they vote because they want their communities to be left alone.
The
first principle of democracy is merely a crude framework in which
citizens govern and interact with each other in a mostly fair and
egalitarian manner.
The purpose of a maturing democracy is to build on that. This is the exact opposite of what a theocratic state is.
Every
time a non-Malay votes, it is in the expectation that who they vote for
would constrain the religious and racial excesses of mainstream Malay
politics.
This involves issues from closing down non-Muslim businesses to unilateral conversions.
We are really not talking about deep policy issues but merely baseline democratic issues of self-preservation.
This is probably why non-Malays latch onto any Muslim personality who makes the right noises to issues they consider sacred.
This is why the non-Malay vote is considered secure in the Pakatan Harapan coalition.
Non-Malay
power structures do not deal with their Malay counterparts as equals.
DAP, for instance, had to eat barrels of manure to ensure that whatever
they said or did was not used by PN as evidence they were controlling
the unity government.
Former attorney-general Tommy Thomas
said at the launch of Joe Samad’s book - “The obsession with race and
religion is a huge deleterious obstacle to unifying Malaysia as a united
people.”
This is unintentionally misleading because Malay and
non-Malay power brokers both use race and religion as a means to
galvanise support from their respective communities, all the while
gaslighting minorities that the meaningless social contract is a
legitimate political compromise.
It is difficult to make the
argument that Malaysia is anything but an ethnocracy like Israel when
race-based political parties determine policy and the supposedly
moderate centre-based parties cater to these racial political parties.
Just a figurehead
If
you thought it was bad when Dr Mahathir Mohamad was in power, it is
even worse now that Anwar has decided that whatever forms of political
alchemy he can create with any Malay uber alles parties or personalities
is worth the derision of his non-Malay base.
PM Anwar Ibrahim
Take the whole DAP vice-chairperson Teresa Kok and Umno Youth chief Dr Muhamad Akmal Saleh issue over halal certification.
And there was not one word
of condemnation from the prime minister of the way a sitting minister -
Nga Kor Ming - was verbally abused by a member of his coalition and
harassed by the state security apparatus for merely speaking up on
behalf of everyone.
The theocratic state-in-waiting understands
they have no need for prime ministers in the sense of someone leading
the country. All they need is a figurehead.
Who is unity govt serving?
This
unity government, because of political compromise, has become the
realisation of theocratic dreams of fellow Islamic travellers within the
bureaucracy.
They do not care about democracy, they do not care
about the royal institution, and they are as obsessed about controlling
the non-Muslims in this country as they are controlling the majority
Malay polity.
For Malay-Muslim power brokers, hooking up with this
unity government serves both personal and racial agendas and if this
unity government falls, it is business as usual with PN.
But of
course, what they fail to realise is they will not be part of a
right-wing government but rather a theocracy, which eventually consumes
them. This is what non-Muslims need to remember when it comes to
Malay-Muslim solidarity. This is why this unity government is a
dangerous concept for Malaysian politics.
It is a testing ground
for racial and religious policies, even though this government is
technically one without a majority mandate.
When PAS, for
instance, gains federal power, PAS will lead the effort to
disenfranchise the non-Malay vote even more and perhaps make the
non-Malay vote meaningless. This is the plan and PAS has been very open
about it.
Just three years ago, before the general election, then-PAS central committee member Khairuddin Aman Razali said: “There are long-term (needs) that require us to win the next general election with a two-thirds majority.
“(Upon achieving this) the electoral boundaries need to be changed to benefit Muslims.
“We also need to increase the number of parliamentary seats in Malay-majority areas.”
Becoming ‘pak turut’
By
making the non-Malay vote irrelevant, what they are doing is making
non-Malay political power inconsequential - this is the very definition
of “pak turut” (yes man).
This is why PN is enjoying the
antics of someone like Akmal. He is a constant reminder to non-Malays
that their political power is meaningless. Their role within this unity
government is to be the “pak turut”.
And best of all, we
have a reformist prime minister who will not say or do anything to curb
the excess of Umno but, more importantly, attempts to introduce
religious and racial policies which aid the PN folk more than it does
the Harapan base.
So, what are non-Malays left with? Either they vote to feebly stop the inevitable, or they do not vote and embrace it.
