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."
Umno's nation of traitors by Commander (Rtd) S THAYAPARAN, formerly of the Royal Malaysian Navy
Sunday, September 23, 2012
"Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under." - HL Mencken
COMMENT Apparently by writing for Malaysiakini,
I am part of a plot to destabilise the government. Truth be told, Umno
has been doing a good of job of destabilising the institution(s) of
government for the past 55 years. To Umno, anyone who disagrees with
them are traitors. Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim is a traitor
to his race. The DAP are communist traitors to the country. PAS are
traitors to Islam. People who march demanding free and fair elections or
march against state-sponsored racism are traitors to the constitution.
There are only patriots and traitors in 1Malaysia and if you do not
support Umno, you are the latter. Also, you are most probably gay.
Under the vomit-inducing headline of 'Plot to destabilise the government', the New Straits Times (who
I believe are propagators of a plot to destabilise rational thinking)
outlined a chilling scenario of a motley group of new media types (which
includes Malaysiakini) and social activist organisations who
are apparently being funded by a nebulous American entity to destabilise
the government and the implication being, to create chaos ... CHAOS, I
tell you, in Malaysia. You know they are scraping the bottom of
the credibility barrel when they quote Just World president Chandra
Muzaffar who gravely intones that NED (National Endowment for Democracy,
the nebulous American entity in question) is responsible for funding
NGOs in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Syria "in the name of democratic
freedom with the objective of making people rise up against leaders who
were allegedly deemed to be cruel."
The
"allegedly deemed to be cruel" part is funny considering the
well-documented cruelty of the regimes in question by their own citizens
but the howler is when Chandra (right) questions the credibility of NED because it "could threaten global security". This should give you the kind of ideas Chandra's Just World is
promulgating. Of course, we don't have to imagine what kind of ‘just
world' he envisions because we here in Malaysia having been living
through it for the past 55 years.
And of course the usual,
there's that added anti-Semitism when he reminded us that Zionist groups
who maintain good relations with the Jewish government are behind NED -
as if bigots ever made the distinction between Zionism and Jews. I mean
really, the gays and Jews; one could imply that we are slipping into
some kind of ... wait for it ... Nazi state.
Thank God, Kita president Zaid Ibrahim gets the joke with his ‘Any Jews want to donate to my party" tweet.
Same narrative
Meanwhile, I caught vocal independent (sic) MP Zulkifli Noordin
(whenever Zulkifli spouts his nonsense I picture Tweety that Looney
Tunes character rambling on. "I tawt I taw a Pakadan rakical." "I did, I
did see a Pakadan rakical") on TV9 claiming insider knowledge of how
Anwar was training his supporters to "take to the streets" because there
is no possibility of Pakatan ever gaining the Putrajaya crown. Chandra has been peddling this same narrative, which is kind of funny
because even during the height of the reformasi movement (where I was
milling about with my PAS comrades) there was never even the slightest
inclination for the crowds to be violent in any way.
Indeed in
every subsequent protest, the greatest anxiety caused was by the
presence of the police, who everyone - Malay, Indian and Chinese -
viewed as an impediment to free assembly and not facilitators of it.
Even
in that dark day of the Hindraf protest when I felt the true malice of
the state, nobody in the crowds meant to overthrow the government. The
thought never crossed our minds. Whenever we go out to the streets, we
go with the belief that our cause is just, that our means legitimate and
without malice in our hearts.
There is always a genuine sense
of brotherhood amongst the people who march, especially when it is a
racially-diverse crowd. This is not a forced brotherhood; this is not a
manufactured sense of belonging but rather a spontaneous eruption of "we
are all in this together" vibe that no amount of Rukun Tetangga-ing can
indoctrinate. Do we want a change of government? Yes. Do we want it at the cost of blood? Absolutely, not.
By continuing to pursue this narrative, Umno only makes it seem that we
have no other avenue for change, which is certainly not the case. We
want to make our decision known in the ballot box, but it is Umno who is
shy to pull the election trigger. After all, the only people
who have been violent are those who support the dogma of the current
regime. And when we have a home minister who will not guarantee the
safety of the opposition parties in this country, it just reminds us
that the Umno regime is like a cornered animal baring its fangs at those
who it perceives as a threat.
We were traitors
Perkasa information chief Ruslan Kassim may blame the Jews for pitting
Muslims against Christians, but it has always been Umno who has stirred
the racial and religious pot. Some still make the claim that
there is a Christian conspiracy here in Malaysia but the reality is that
for years there has been appeasement for the sake of living with
‘Umno's peace' but all that it has got us is the radical shrinking of
our religious rights.
And now Christians, Hindus, Buddhists (did
I leave out anyone?) are being radicalised by a sense of purpose not
cultivated by the opposition but rather by the unjust treatment of Umno. The
horrifying fact for Umno is that there are Christians, Hindus and
Buddhists in the opposition and all, if not most, of them are very
firmly entrenched in their beliefs but yet they make it work. They
demonstrate that no matter how difficult and contentious it gets, there
is another way besides the Umno way of doing business here in Malaysia.
These
are some of the traitors that Umno would have the world believe are
attempting to destabilise the government and make every Malaysian wear
V-neck T-shirts.
And as I have said before, every country in the
world has elements that would want to violently overthrow their
governments. What Umno has done is ruin the credibility of those
institutions entrusted to weed out and destroy those elements. What Umno
is doing is crying wolf against the very citizens who are doing what
would benefit the country most, exercising their democratic rights. I have been around. I know that there are many so-called organisations
out there, mostly American, who under the guise of democracy promotes
their own agendas. This is a fact.
But even if NED is one of those, what the government needs to do, is prove that an organisation like Malaysiakini is attempting through propaganda to destabilise the government. They could do this by pointing out where Malaysiakini has lied or invented stories that would create mischief and chaos in this country. This is perhaps difficult to do when your own propaganda organs have
admitted to spinning stories and engaging in outright falsehoods just to
"support the government". These fabrications and spinning, which if the
laws of the land were applied fairly, would be considered seditious and
created to sow distrust and hate amongst the citizens of Malaysia.
But in the end, we were traitors. For 55 years, we were traitors to the
principles of democracy. We were traitors to ideas that would have
moved this country beyond what Umno had envisioned for us. But not
anymore. Not any more. Malaysiakini Funds raised to support Seacem, says M'siakini CEO
The
"allegedly deemed to be cruel" part is funny considering the
well-documented cruelty of the regimes in question by their own citizens
but the howler is when Chandra (right) questions the credibility of NED because it "could threaten global security". This should give you the kind of ideas Chandra's Just World is
promulgating. Of course, we don't have to imagine what kind of ‘just
world' he envisions because we here in Malaysia having been living
through it for the past 55 years.
Even
in that dark day of the Hindraf protest when I felt the true malice of
the state, nobody in the crowds meant to overthrow the government. The
thought never crossed our minds. Whenever we go out to the streets, we
go with the belief that our cause is just, that our means legitimate and
without malice in our hearts.
