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 MIC's extremely bitter harvest By Commander (Rtd) S THAYAPARAN, formerly of the Royal Malaysian Navy
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
"......of the 900,000 Indian voters, less than half are with the MIC" - G Palanivel ('Has awkward MIC thrown in the towel?'- The Malay Mail) COMMENT Now,
when former MIC strongman S Samy Vellu has admitted that during his
tenure as party president, in those "closed doors, let's keep it in the
(BN) family consensus building meetings", the MIC had no voice
whatsoever, it is pointless kicking a running dog, so to speak. With the general elections perpetually round the corner, BN (race-based)
component parties have been scrambling to find relevance in the face of
Umno domination and an alternative front which has been very successful
in propagating its multicultural/religious message. While
the MCA has a record of accomplishment to fall back on (even though one
may disagree with the achievements and agendas of said record), the
same cannot be said of the MIC. The political party is testament to the
fact that the Indian community (or at least a sizable disenfranchised
section) is estranged from mainstream politics because the MIC has been
derelict (I would argue criminally so) in its duties.
I could not
be bothered to recite a litany of the MIC's corrosive machinations on
the Indian community. As a long-time pre-Pakatan Rakyat ‘opposition
supporter', I think political parties like the DAP and PSM have done far
more for the Indian community than the MIC ever (and recognising the
state of the Indian community, but sadly, this did not amount to much in
the long run). In this post-2008 tsunami era, Hindraf and
elements within Pakatan have shown that there is an alternative to an
established race-based party, when it comes to the communal expectations
of the Indian community.
Well, let me be clear. So long as
Hindraf (through the Human Rights Party) assumes an anti-establishment
stance, galvanising certain elements within Pakatan, there could be an
alternative to an established race-based party, when it comes to the
communal expectations of the Indian community. MIC and Perkasa
To understand Hindraf's influence in the Indian community and the fear
it raises in this appeaser organisation, all you have to do is listen to
the speeches by MIC president G Palanivel. When he rambles on with
something like this, "We may be vocal at times, but it is really because
we love this country and want it to be the best it can be," he sure as
hell is not talking about the MIC. These "vocal" Indians are
Hindraf and members of the opposition alliance. When has the MIC ever
been vocal about the ‘interests' of the Indian community beyond making
perfunctory squeaks to show that they exist? Moreover, when he
goes on about ‘affirmative action programmes' that has benefitted the
Malay community that could be used for the Indian community, he is
ripping out whole pages from the Hindraf playbook.
Furthermore,
this whole issue of ‘stateless Indians' which should also encompass
‘displaced Indians' has come about only because Hindraf has been
screaming about this for years and the opposition coalition has reacted
in a positive manner. Think about it. Hindraf has been the catalyst for
any movement when it comes to addressing ‘Indian issues' for the
political alliances in this country.This
is where Pakatan and Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim have been very
politically perceptive in dealing with Hindraf. The recent announcement
by Hindraf chief P Waythamoorthy (far left) that Anwar has agreed in principle and will sign Hindraf's five-year blueprint is probably the fatal blow to the MIC.
However the decline of the MIC (and hopefully not in the "rumours of my
demise have been greatly exaggerated" kind of way) has finally drawn a
line in the sand of the simmering class tensions that have existed in
the Indian community for some time. This should not be confused with the
‘caste' tensions that have been a permanent fixture in MIC politics.
The
strategy employed by the MCA and MIC in reclaiming their lost share of
voters and holding up their end of the racial bargain has been markedly
different. Whereas the MCA has either embroiled itself in a shadow play
show of defiance towards Umno, (where Umno remains silent on MCA attacks
on its supremacist ideology or blusters using its outsourced thugs) or
zeroed in on the "Islamic" agenda of PAS, the MIC seems to have reverted
to extreme sycophancy as a means of political survival. A good example of this is MP P Kamalanathan (Hulu Selangor) (right in photo)
who during the course of the hotly contested Hulu Selangor seat
justified the existence of right-wing pressure group Perkasa as a
natural extension of communal politics and that the group was merely
looking after the interests of the Malay community, much like the MIC
was for the Indian community.
Helen Ang, one of the more (if not
the most) insightful observers of the Indian experience in this country,
dissects Kamalanathan's stance in 'Why MIC Hulu Selangor candidate defends Perkasa?' and succinctly ends her piece by alluding to the ‘mandore' underpinnings of the MIC. "Kamal's defence of this ultra-movement is untenable but not unexpected
as after all, this is a candidate who said that he would "take back the
federal seat and deliver it to Prime Minister Najib Razak as gift for
his first year in office? Like a housecat dragging in an offering of a
captured mouse," writes Helen in conclusion. Common DNA
However, what I would argue is that the MIC and Perkasa share common
DNA when it comes to their role in race politics in this country.
Whereas Perkasa reflects its reactionary hostility towards perceived
slights outwards against other communities, the MIC turns it wrath
inwards towards its own community. In other words, the MIC over
the long Umno watch became the Indian communities' own little Perkasa
nightmare in terms of a bullying force whose sole agenda was to keep
everyone in line.
Just as Perkasa's role is to maintain the
hegemony of Umno elites through the devices of race and religion, the
MIC, suppressed internal dissent and any hope of evolutionary change
through the perpetuation of caste politics and a culture of vulgar
cronyism and sycophancy to maintain the rule of a chosen few, who seemed
to revel in their ‘house negro' status within the BN.Both
entities savoured the thug approach to politics. The recent history of
the MIC is replete with far too many examples where brawn was favoured
over rational dialogue. By its own admission, the MIC welcomes
‘reformed' criminals and to say nothing of the well-documented rumours
of the intersection of the criminal underworld and the plums political
positions within the MIC.
As a long-time former MIC politico
tells me, all of this would mean nothing if the Indian community
benefitted from the corruption within the MIC. He goes on to say "the
MIC representing the smallest ethnic group in this country should have
had a fair easier time ... what is the word again ... ‘uplifting' the
community with the ‘goodies' thrown our way. But our masters knew the
greed of their servants, and they knew damn well the money was not going
where it was supposed to go".
This brings us back to the
‘class' reality of a post-MIC era. These days the more I read on
‘Indian' issues, the more it becomes clear that the class divisions
within the Indian community is reflected in the tensions between an
‘Indian' social and political organisations like Hindraf/Human Rights
Party and opposition forces that operate under a multicultural cloak
like Pakatan. MIC's failure is not one of ‘race' but one of
‘class'. This should surprise nobody since the noxious fumes of ‘caste'
has always been embedded in ‘class'. There is much to blame Umno for but
the reality is that the MIC had a systematic agenda of promulgating a
culture of subservience that served not only Umno ends but also more
importantly theirs.
The MIC has no excuse for the horrid state
that a sizeable section of the Indian community find themselves in.
Unlike the MCA, which never allowed its corruption to get in the way of
implementing tangible programmes that would ensure a larger slice of the
economic pie, the MIC allowed corruption to become the raison d'etre of
its existence. The same can be said of Umno, actually. What it
chose to do is define Indian communal expectations in such a way that it
was neither necessary nor political expedient for the Umno machine to
fulfill them. Culture of subservience
This
is why an organisation like Hindraf is anathema to the current
discourse. They neither pay attention to the culture of subservience
that characterised the Indian community nor embrace the ‘multicultural
identity' of oppositional politics. However, what a Hindraf and
Pakatan alliance may create is a new way of recognising and addressing
the problems within the Indian community. A discourse which is cognisant
of race but which (hopefully) ultimate goal is for a class-based
approach. It is also a partnership of equals or at least it is a
partnership that has been achieved after an extremely torturous courting
phase.
What
this possible agreement/alliance between Pakatan and Hindraf
demonstrates is that an Indian-based NGO can negotiate a settlement with
a political party making the necessary compromises (if any) on its own
trems.
And this is important after years of the MIC subservience
culture. Now many would find this discomforting. When you have mocked
Hindraf as a racist organisation, it is difficult to face the racial
reality where compromises need to be made for political survival in an
every vote counts environment.
However, what the Indian community
needs to do is empower itself and the first way to do this is a
rejection of the MIC and to build consensus with parties which could
make their (Hindraf's) aspirations a reality.
Even if this does
not work out, at least for the first time, it would have been something
that was done on the community's own terms and not an agenda set out by
the appeasers in the MIC. Malaysiakini
While
the MCA has a record of accomplishment to fall back on (even though one
may disagree with the achievements and agendas of said record), the
same cannot be said of the MIC. The political party is testament to the
fact that the Indian community (or at least a sizable disenfranchised
section) is estranged from mainstream politics because the MIC has been
derelict (I would argue criminally so) in its duties.
This
is where Pakatan and Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim have been very
politically perceptive in dealing with Hindraf. The recent announcement
by Hindraf chief P Waythamoorthy (far left) that Anwar has 
A good example of this is MP P Kamalanathan (Hulu Selangor) (right in photo)
who during the course of the hotly contested Hulu Selangor seat
justified the existence of right-wing pressure group Perkasa as a
natural extension of communal politics and that the group was merely
looking after the interests of the Malay community, much like the MIC
was for the Indian community.
Both
entities savoured the thug approach to politics. The recent history of
the MIC is replete with far too many examples where brawn was favoured
over rational dialogue. By its own admission, the MIC welcomes
‘reformed' criminals and to say nothing of the well-documented rumours
of the intersection of the criminal underworld and the plums political
positions within the MIC.
What
this possible agreement/alliance between Pakatan and Hindraf
demonstrates is that an Indian-based NGO can negotiate a settlement with
a political party making the necessary compromises (if any) on its own
trems.
