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 hudud card: MCA's big chill by Commander (Rtd) S THAYAPARAN, formerly of the Royal Malaysian Navy
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
"...in the hands of politicians, grand designs achieve nothing but
new forms of the old misery..." - John le Carré (Tinker, Tailor,
Soldier, Spy)
COMMENT At
this late stage in the game you can't blame Donald Lim for
distinguishing between serving the people of Selangor if BN wins (the
"people" being an afterthought) and continuing to defend the interest of
the Chinese (the main priority). He and his Umno minders realise
that the MCA is akin to the wounded soldier whose better off left on
the battlefield (for the advancement of higher objectives) but who is
being dragged along by his comrades out of charity and perhaps a fair
bit of contempt. Honour and brotherhood having fled the war zone a long
time ago, if they were ever present.
MCA's
hollow pledge to prevent Selangor from being turned into an Islamic
paradise is the final card in a losing streak that would no doubt see
the DAP reigning supreme as far as the Chinese vote is concerned in the
next general election. Where DAP used to be a counterbalance to
MCA with Chinese dealings with Umno, it would seem that the Chinese are
making their stand (perhaps the most important one) by abandoning MCA
for DAP after decades of playing nice and getting diminishing returns on
their racial expectations.
MCA did a piss poor job in its role
as a moderating presence in the ruling coalition as far as impeding the
creeping process of Islamisation, or more accurately Arabisation, that
has afflicted this country. And as far as the counter balance
theory goes, all the DAP managed to achieve is the strengthening of the
perception that the non-Malays, specifically the Chinese, were
opportunistic ‘pendatangs' who would shift allegiances when it suited
them. Racial politics is a bitch.
Playing the hudud card is just
sealing its fate when it comes to a sizeable section of the Chinese
electorate disgusted at the running dog antics of this corrupt party
infested with plutocrats or at least patronised by those who aspire to
that class. If
anything, the constant barrage of anti-Chinese sentiment directed by
Umno at the DAP has radicalised the Chinese community and the MCA is
seen as collaborators working with the enemy to subjugate a community
which is only fighting for its rights. While the MCA constantly
harps on the hudud issue, Pakatan Rakyat has been for the most part
disciplined in its response to these provocations.
The fact that
most Chinese Pakatan supporters are more than willing to put this issue
on the backburner while on the march to Putrajaya (much to the delight
of the moderates in PAS) and PAS itself with the ascension of the
Edrogans, is playing well with others, is an indication that whatever
racial or religious compromises coming out of Pakatan (tenuous as it may
be) is a workable alternative to the ‘my way or the highway' dogma of
BN. The Islamic peril campaign
While Umno continues to bait PAS on its Islamic credentials and
claiming the real power behind PAS is the DAP mandarins, the MCA
continues on its fear mongering Islamic peril campaign. Don't BN
strategists realise the cockamamieness of this attack plan? On the one
hand, you have one party in your alliance claiming that their opponent
is not religious enough and on the other, you have another party from
the same alliance warning that that same opponent is too religious. I
understand they are speaking to two different audiences but doesn't BN
realise that these two different audiences are on the same page because
they have a common goal?
And doesn't the MCA realise that every
time Umno demonises the Chinese community (and Umno propaganda organs
generally attack the Chinese community and when they do attack the DAP,
they don't have the finesse to make such attacks without tarring the
whole Chinese community), it is just further evidence that the MCA can
only stand by while the Chinese community and their interests are
attacked by Umno even though the real target of all this scapegoating is
the DAP. Of course, historically the Chinese have always been
convenient scapegoats for whatever inferiority that decades of Umnoism
has wrought and the community itself has played its part in this
unfortunate narrative.
Furthermore, haven't the geniuses in MCA
caught on to the fact that Umno's continued onslaught on PAS' Islamic
credentials works for the political benefit of the DAP? By
continuously claiming that PAS' Islamic preoccupations are lacking and
they are being controlled by the ‘Chinese' DAP, this shows that at the
very least PAS is not as extreme as Umno and that maybe the DAP is
acting as a moderating influence in the alternative alliance.
And
what does this mean as far as ‘Chinese' interest and the Islamisation
process is concerned? It means that the DAP would do a better job at
slowing down the Islamisation process if they ever came into power with
the rest of their coalition partners. When you have BN-friendly politicians like Hasan Ali (left)
and Zulkifli Nordin stoking racial and religious embers, not to mention
Umno members whose rhetoric does the same and who belong to ultra
right-wing groups like Perkasa, it's difficult to make the claim that
your is the centrist alliance.
Meanwhile, PAS is dropping
candidates like Nasharudin Mat Isa and openly snipping at members who
are perceived as pro-Umno and Muslim hardliners, which nurture the
perception that it is Umno with its cow-head protestors and their ilk
that pose the greater Islamic threat. PAS is shrewdly playing the
game after decades of scrambling around like a bull in a China shop.
Just as how Umno demonises the Chinese community in an attempt to appeal
to the baser instincts of the Malay electorate, PAS uses the DAP as a
safety valve against the more extremist elements in its fold.
What
the moderates can't voice out, the DAP does for them - starting a
dialogue which always ends with compromises and usually means making
Islamic elements palatable to the non-Muslims and vice versa, which is
why all this talk about welfare state and the "time is not right for
hudud" echoes through Pakatan cyberspace.Delusion of MCA
Umno knows of course that the reality is that PAS is not solely made up
of mullahs' intent on establishing a greater caliphate or whatever in
this region. PAS
has always had a plurality of voices, but at this time the moderate
tones are leading the charge to Putrajaya while the hardliners have no
problem making the appropriate noises on the sidelines and occasionally
indulging in the religious excesses they are known for as a reminder
they are will always be the religious party du jour.
After all,
when it comes to the big religious questions and bigotries, more often
than not PAS and Umno are on the same religious page. The tension
which occasionally flares up between the alternate alliance pact
members over whatever politically-motivated Umno issue, works to the
advantage of the alliance because this as seen as evidence that pact
members are each fighting for their communities ‘rights' in an open
manner instead of the sub rosa (behind closed doors) method that is
perceived as merely Umno's way of hoodwinking or threatening its other
members. As I mentioned in previous pieces
one of the main motivations for kicking BN out is hate. The MCA may
think appropriating Pakatan catchphrases and spinning it as a weapon
against Pakatan (the DAP specifically) is something that would gain them
political mileage.
They could not be more wrong. By mocking the
Chinese community with "Janji Tidak Ditepati" all they are doing is
reminding the community that the only role MCA played all these decades
was that of political eunuchs who enriched themselves while the hard
work of furthering the communities' interest was done on the backs of
diverse economic class which had worked the Umno system and resulted in
the toxic private sector rife with racism and classism of its own. Not to mention that precious ‘right' of vernacular schools and
‘special' positions of the Malays (combined with a whole range of
policies) has been anathema to any kind of social cohesion that this
country desperately needs, which is why those very same ‘interests' that
the MCA is deluded enough to think they are still championing has been
usurped by a rival Chinese party riding the multicultural/racial wave
that has caught the imagination of a certain section of the Malaysian
voting public.
The whole issue of water and electricity which
the MCA has painted as a problem which Pakatan and the DAP have been
unable to resolve has been turned into a question of the roles of the
federal and state government in either encouraging or hampering the will
of the rakyat. The reality is that Umno is viewed as the tyrant
impeding populist sentiment and the MCA playing the role of willing
enforcer, making threats, threats mostly in these politically turbulent
times.
The irony, of course, is that the time will eventually
come when non-Malay race-based parties will lose their utilitarian value
because of the changing demographic and because there is no common
ideological base that Pakatan shares beyond claiming the throne in
Putrajaya, any party which inherits the ‘responsibilities' of the MCA is
doomed to the same fate. Like I said, racial politics is a bitch and
apparently an unforgiving one. Malaysiakini
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