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."
Will speaking Malay unite us? By Commander S THAYAPARAN (Retired) Royal Malaysian Navy
Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Malaysiakini : āChildren who grow up more comfortable in English may lose touch with
the values and cultural nuances embedded in the Malay language,ā the
academic reportedly said.
What values and nuances are embedded in
the Malay language? More importantly, what values of the English
language, if there are any, are at odds with the values of the Malay
language?
I can understand how some folk would be afraid of the
kind of ideas children would be exposed to if they understand English,
and how this would undermine the social order imposed by the ruling
elites.
Azizah cautioned that children proficient in English would become āincreasingly alienated from the Malay language and cultureā.
The
associate professor encouraged parents to support their children to
āthink in the languageā. Would non-Malay parents also have to remind
their children that there are some words they cannot use?
Remember in 2023 when an immigration officer berated a woman for supposedly not speaking in Bahasa Malaysia when renewing her passport?
In response, Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail urged all not to view it from one perspective, saying that it is a citizenās duty to have command of the language while living in this country.
āIf
you can't (understand the national language), it can lead to suspicion,
for example - are you really a citizen since you can't even speak the
language?ā he asked.
Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail
All of this seems rather strange. The fact is that language has never been a unifying factor.
Divided Malays
The
foundational principle of Malay uber alles politics is that the Malays
are divided. Everyone from former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad to
various politicians has always claimed that the reason why the Malay
race is in trouble is because they are not united.
Every
Malay politician wants to unite the Malays against what they perceive
and propagandise as communities, ideas and threats to their race.
This
has been the guiding principle post May 1969. And yet the Malays are
not unified or at least broken up into various feudalistic pacts and
political conveniences, even though they all speak the same language -
regional patois aside - and supposedly share the same values embedded in
the language.
The upper echelons of civil service are dominated
by people who determinedly expose their offspring to English-medium
educational establishments and live lives far removed from the hoi
polloi whom they defend race, religion and language for, yet there is
disunity in the community.
Thinking in Malay
Malays
who have been accused of betraying their race, culture and religion,
because of the ideas and discussions they sought to generate, were all
thinking in Malay.
Malays who do not subscribe to ideas of racial and religious supremacy were thinking in Malay.
Malays
who questioned the 3Rs (race, religion and royalty) and found
themselves under investigation from the state or facing sedition charges
were thinking in Malay.
Mind you, these people are a minority, or
at least it seems this way because of the way the state and religious
authorities attempt to maintain strict control over how the majority
thinks and speaks.
PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang earlier this year lamented that the Malay language was being sidelined in favour of English.
āWhat
is happening today is chaotic, in the shops in the city, the capital,
all kinds of languages are spoken, (the use of) the Malay language is
sometimes only āhalusā (minimal), while English is prominent (even though the English people are no longer around),ā he said.
PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang
Preacher Zakir Naik also spoke in English during his talk āQuran and Modern Science - compatible or incompatible?ā at the Perlis Sunnah Convention in January.
Now
I do not know why Zakir, who is from India, spoke in English and not
Malay. If people bemoan the lack of BM usage, surely at such a
prestigious event with a world-renowned speaker, there should have been
some effort to promote the national language.
After all, English
speakers are accused of not understanding Malay sensitivities, but then
how does someone like Zakir, a non-Malaysian, who speaks at these events
attended predominantly by Malay language speakers, manage to convey his
ideas about the religion of the state without offending anyone?
English medium in school learning
In 2002, when the old maverick decided it was time for Maths and Science to be taught in English across schools in different stages, the opposition was throwing up roadblocks.
So
politically opportunistic were the protestations that Hadi, who was
then the Terengganu menteri besar, issued a statement expressing āfull
supportā for Dong Jiao Zong and the Kuala Lumpur Selangor Chinese
Assembly Hall āin their effort to uphold the use of the mother tongue in
the teaching of Science and Maths in Chinese primary schoolsā.
What
binds groups of people are ideas, and while a common language makes it
easier to transmit those ideas, the reality is that adherence to
something like the Rukun Negara and especially its preamble has far
greater utilitarian value than anything a hegemonic adherence to
language can achieve.
I will let English novelist George Orwell
have the last word - āBut if thought corrupts language, language can
also corrupt thought.ā
