Articles, Opinions & Views: PSM leaders, farmer charged while Nicky Liow gets his photo with PM By Commander S THAYAPARAN (Retired) Royal Malaysian Navy
Fighting Seventh
The Fighting Rangers On War, Politics and Burning Issues
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."
PSM leaders, farmer charged while Nicky Liow gets his photo with PM By Commander S THAYAPARAN (Retired) Royal Malaysian Navy
Monday, August 03, 2026
Malaysiakini : Why? Because this is the only way they can. Because they do not have
the leverage or the clout that compromised mainstream political parties
have.
PSM chairperson Dr Michael Jeyakumar Devaraj
All of this is not new. PSM has been doing this for some time now. Referring to the words
of the retired PSM chief Nasir Hashim - āI was the chairperson of the
Support Committee of Urban Pioneers. At that time we had more than 50
villagers in our committee. They were mostly Malays, except for one
estate.
āWe did not allow the authorities and developers to label
them as squatters, for squatters have no rights in court. So we called
them urban pioneers because for three generations they developed the
land with a promise of permanent housing.
āWe created havoc, and since then, they have been given compensation and alternate housing.ā
PSM deputy chairperson S Arutchelvan wondered
what PKR deputy president Nurul Izzah Anwar, who is the prime
ministerās daughter and was once shocked by the stateās harassment of
these folks, will do now.
We voted for this
Does
it really matter? I mean, here we have PSM essentially fighting for not
only the rights of the disenfranchised but also for the issue of food
security for this country, while the prime minister gets his picture
taken with a member of the plutocrat class.
Liow, who was granted a
DNAA on his 26 money laundering charges involving RM36 million, getting
his picture taken with Anwar is strange, of course.
I mean, if the prime minister were ignorant of who this person was, it would be even more queer.
Nicky Liow
Also,
as far as optics go, a politician would normally attempt to gain some
coverage by taking pictures with folks who were on the receiving end of
injustice by the system. But here in Madani, everything is backwards.
Rational
Malaysians have to wonder why Liow would wander into a Madani shindig
after all the state has alleged about his activities and is embraced by
the political class.
This
is the kind of chutzpah that is only cultivated in Malaysia. This is
about a system that a majority of Malaysians vote for and then complain
and engage in culture wars over, which buries the class conflicts
embedded in the system.
While mainstream political coalitions are
busy finding easily identifiable āenemiesā, PSM identifies systemic
deficiencies and misguided policies that essentially encourage the
working-class to vote against their long-term interests.
The sight
of Jeyakumar, PSM committee member R Karthiges, its Perak Youth member P
Kesavan, and a farmer identified as Ho Pon Tien being carted away by
police in Tambun during an eviction of farmers and then released is a reminder of Harapanās failure.
Kanthan farmers being evicted during a police operation in Tambun, October 2023
The
progressive forces in this country, which were supposed to bring hope
to a certain section of the public, have completely failed the people
who voted for them.
Liow et all getting their acquittals and DNAA
shines a spotlight on the nexus between class, political power, and
alleged criminality.
Indifference
It says a
lot about the shamelessness of political operatives in who they choose
to be seen with, not to mention gives a fig leaf of respectability to
those who would ordinarily be shunned by the right-thinking citizens.
What
happened in Tambun, the prime ministerās own parliamentary constituency
- the scuffles, the bloodied face, and the arrests - are, in reality,
the culmination of bureaucratic and political indifference and not some
sort of performance theatre.
It is disheartening to read about
huge crowds collecting money and food for people who are suffering
injustice in another part of the world while looking at the photos of
hardworking people who are toiling the land for our benefit but are
marginalised by the supposedly reform-minded forces in this country.
These
families have a history of doing the hard, often thankless jobs of
working on farms and, let us be honest, far from the democratic and
societal norms that privilege a certain class of urban people.
What
PSM was doing was not only shining a spotlight on the systemās
inequalities but also highlighting an integral part of Malaysian life,
far from the bourgeois politics of the urban enclaves.
The prime
minister knows exactly how to play the class card. Attempting to raise
populist sentiment, he once called out the fat cat Malay plutocrat
class, who claimed to have the best interests of the Malay polity at
heart but in reality merely exploited them.
Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim
Anwar also said the quiet part out loud
when he said, āI want to tell the leaders with the titles of āTunā and
āTan Sriā who are rich - if you really want to save Malays, give them
half of your billions in profits tomorrow.ā
It is talk like this
which frightens the more intelligent members of the religious extremist
coalition going up against this coalition government.
If you look
at Malay operatives from PSM, their class struggle rhetoric often
highlights the socialistic underpinnings of their religion. That is why
the state strictly controls religious narratives.
Ultimately, the
existence of PSM and its failure to gain traction with the voting polity
is an indictment not of the system but of a segment of the voting
polity agitating for reform but content with the current paradigm.
