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."
Zamri (above, left)
and Tamim have been arrested and questioned by the state security
apparatus before. For whatever reason, both have demonstrated a brazen
attitude to the prospect of being sanctioned by Madani.
Zamri has since claimed
he did not flee and was willing to meet the inspector-general of police
(IGP), which further makes the Royal Malaysia Police look like a bunch
of “Keystone cops” who are incompetent.
The fact that Zamri
believes that he can meet the IGP to settle this issue and throws
accusations at other prominent personalities reacting to his religious
extremism points to how compromised the state security apparatus is when
it comes to issues like these.
Unequal power
To
understand this kind of thinking, all we have to do is observe the
rhetoric of independent preacher Firdaus Wong, who has encouraged minors
to disobey their parents if they want to convert, and nothing has
happened to him.
He said this about the police, when another
agitator was targeted: “Once the operation begins, they will haul
everyone in. Trust me.”
This is the kind of confidence which is
shaped by the knowledge that the state is sympathetic to your cause and
the experience of never being sanctioned by the state.
Keep in
mind that Zamri reuploaded a video after the state removed it, and no
action was taken against him, which is further evidence that when it
comes to insulting minorities and their religion, there will always be
insufficient evidence for the state to act.
The police, quick to
act against perceived insults to the religion of the state, remain
lackadaisical when it comes to insults against other religions.
What we are dealing with here are people who aim to sow discontent in the Indian Malaysian community.
The
problem with the religious discourse in this country is not that people
are going about insulting each other’s religion, but rather the state
has the power to sanction people for trespassing on religious and racial
issues.
This power is often applied unequally, with the
state-sanctioned religion and its adherents getting off scot-free, when
the same does not apply to other religions.
To understand this, I refer you to what Perlis mufti Asri Zainul Abidin hopes for, as reported in the press.
“Asri
also voiced his hope that Khalid will consider ‘justice for Muslims’,
professionalism, the background of the issues involving Zamri and Tamim,
as well as the ‘identity’ of the nation.”
Perlis mufti Asri Zainul Abidin
The
mufti also hoped that any ruling government would safeguard “the
nation’s identity, particularly in matters concerning religion and the
Muslim community”.
All this basically means is that people should be treated differently depending on their religion. It is as simple as that.
If
you think it is seditious of me to claim that religious operatives are,
for whatever reasons, being shielded by the state, which includes the
vast religious bureaucracy, hold your horses.
Listen to what the Perlis mufti said about the reasons Global Ikhwan Services and Business Holdings (GISBH) was allowed to operate without state intervention for a long time.
“They
may not have picked up this case for certain reasons... some were
unwilling to take the risk, and others may have viewed it as
insignificant.
“Perhaps some of the group’s (GISBH) beliefs are linked to certain individuals involved, or it may be due to other reasons.”
Law and order
Zamri
said he did not flee, and IGP Khalid Ismail said, "Based on
intelligence obtained by the police, both suspects have been found to
have fled to Thailand.”
Seriously? We are told to believe that the
state security apparatus was investigating two suspects in a criminal
case, and the police did not have eyes on them?
Think about it
this way. Let us say that the police are investigating a terrorist plot,
it would only be logical if the police had eyes on the suspects 24/7,
right? This is tradecraft 101. What intelligence is the IGP talking
about?
IGP Khalid Ismail
The
same kind of intelligence that the police in Kelantan had when they
raided a Health Ministry-sponsored event in the state, which they
claimed was a gay party? So what game is the IGP playing?
Look,
I’m not knocking on the police. Believe it or not, from personal
experience and a history serving the state security apparatus, I know
for a fact that there are police officers who believe that folk like
Zamri et all pose a threat to national security.
These are not
progressive types by any measure but rather good old-fashioned law and
order types who believe that the security of the realm is far more
important than any kind of religious ideology.
The fact is,
neither Zamri nor Tamim was lying low. Both were using social media for
publicity and to agitate against the Indian community.
Zamri was
allegedly attacked, and Tamim had caused a firestorm on social media;
hence, it was not as if these two criminal masterminds were evading the
state.
Indeed, as former Selangor MIC chairperson Awtar Singh, who
was involved in a war of words with another agitator, the aptly
misnamed Cikgu Chandra (S Chandrasegaran), observed, police personnel
were outside the house of this “teacher” when his property was damaged
because of his toxic views.
So, if the state security can do all of this, we are to believe that they did not have eyes on these two?
Forces at work
So,
what do we know? We know that Zamri was deeply connected with the
religious state. We know that both have been investigated at various
times and let off by the state.
We know that both were smug and displayed a level of hubris when it came to state investigations into their words and actions.
We
have to understand the forces at work here. We have a popular mufti,
Asri, who has a well-known animus towards India and who contextualises
all conflicts as religious ones.
We have a known Zakir Naik
acolyte, Zamri, who is on a crusade to destroy allegedly illegal temples
with a supposed nativist activist, Tamim.
The question is not if
these two extremists have fled the country, but rather, will the Madani
state persecute these two offenders, or will they kowtow to the
religious extremists in this country?
