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."
So we have two stages here. The
first is one, where the state encourages citizens to snitch on the
“other” by using race or religion as a galvanising issue.
The
second stage is when the state encourages citizens to snitch on each
other. This happens when the state religious apparatus encourages the
faithful to report “deviant” teachings or lifestyles.
Can you
imagine if there was a Facebook page where people documented behaviour
which was deemed haram by the religious state? Can you imagine a
Facebook page where adherents of the religion of the state had their
pictures taken and what they were engaging in, to encourage sanction
from the state?
Imagine if non-Muslims set up a Facebook group
like this. What do you think would be the reaction of the state and
ordinary Muslims?
Already the Malay language social media and
mainstream press are a toxic environment where people are named and
shamed for various reasons.
Moral policing for moral purity
Indeed
the religious bureaucracy, both at the state and federal level,
actively encourages snitching as a form of religious piety.
The idea is that moral policing of the community symbolises the moral purity of said community.
What religious groupthink does - and it does this everywhere - is to make a clear distinction between “us” and “them”.
What
these types of snitching behaviour encourage is that the majority
community understands that there will always be deviants who threaten
the foundational aspects of the religion.
This kind of thinking is
not only reinforced by the state but is actively encouraged as a form
of communal protection from the inclusion of ideas and concepts that
would alter the community.
For decades, the Islamic bureaucracy -
through its various tributaries - has moulded a young voting polity to
despise democratic traditions and norms, with the belief that doing so
makes you a better Muslim.
So in other words snitching on your
fellow citizens makes you a more pious person. The demonisation of
Muslims who do not follow this groupthink is the underlying cause of
tension within the Malay community, even more so than the cultural war
with the non-Muslim communities.
The
emotional justifications for these kinds of acts using social media as
an alternate reality to justify socially destructive behaviour have been
perfected by US President Donald Trump supporters here in Malaysia and
in the US.
This kind of groupthink is the ultimate endgame for fascist governments/political parties.
As Andrew Sewer wrote in his percipient, Atlantic
article: “…Trump supporters, whose community is built by rejoicing in
the anguish of those they see as unlike them, who have found in their
shared cruelty an answer to the loneliness and atomisation of modern
life.”
While Madani claims it wants social cohesion, the ultimate
goal or “victory” as the prime minister so casually announced, is a
polity not only beholden to the state but which thinks it is powerful in
its own right. They are not.
The Russians have a perfect term to describe such people, “useful idiots”.
