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 war drums herald the future by Commander (Rtd) S THAYAPARAN, formerly of the Royal Malaysian Navy
Sunday, December 02, 2012
"War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength." - George Orwell (1984)
COMMENT
For someone who is gung-ho in parroting Winston Churchill, Khairy
Jamaluddin Abu Bakar has a strange way of emulating the complicated
former British prime minister. For someone mimicking the "never retreat,
never surrender line" his preference of defending his Youth post but
sitting out of the next general election is rather perplexing. Surely,
in this great time of Umno's needs, when Umno is facing ‘Bitter moments
between two possibilities, between two futures, between light and
darkness. This warrior did not falter, did not fear, and so he vowed:
his country will fight at sea, in the air, on the beaches and even on
the streets itself. Even starved and subjugated, his country would never
surrender!' Khairy thinks of himself as one of the few good Umno men
whose fate will be decided at the ballot box.
Indeed, when we
have a Wanita Umno representative sounding the alarms bells of hidden
hands spreading the gay disease and highlighting the Sunni/Shiite
schism, it would seem that minorities would always be the convenient
targets of Umno in lieu of any substantive policy debates. Churchill
claimed the difference between war and politics is that in the latter,
one could be killed many times, and Umno is testament to this truism. I
see so many faces of the corrupt and the immoral, banished for a time
for misdeeds forgotten by the Umno supreme council, making speeches of
war, on a certain section of the electorate who no longer will toe the
Umno line.
I have always been cautious of making Nazi analogies
with Umno, having had the misfortune of actually meeting those who
profess allegiance to those people and ideas that had disposed of the
Weimar Republic. However, this Umno general assembly reeked of the
ideology that sustained the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche
Arbeiterpartei or the National Socialist German Workers' Party.
With Umno Youth information chief Reezal Merican Naina Merican (right)
proclaiming that Umnoputras are the chosen people and God's choice will
always be Umno to rule and liberate this land, what we as
non-Malays/Muslims are left with is the cold comfort that as
'pendatang', Umno and the God they worship will never consider us as
Malaysians. Will it be a stretch to replace Aryan supremacy with Malay
supremacy?
To Umno, we non-Malays are Jewish stand-ins. This is
why there were the constant references at the Umno general assembly to
May 13 and the delusion that the Malays would be reduced to the state of
refugees in their own land. The non-Malays are reduced to a
Jewish stereotype in the hope that this will bolster Malay/Muslim
nationalism. To Umno, we are here to take what rightfully belongs to the
Malays and what rightfully belongs to the Malays belongs to Umno.
If
you have the stomach for it, read up on the speeches of Nazi officials
(Hitler was not the only one) or maybe just the writings of Umno
sympathiser Ridhuan Tee Abdullah. Doing so will offer clarity on how the
'other' is demonised as part of the Umno state's propaganda efforts and
the philosophy that supports the systemic marginalisation of a certain
section of the Malaysian polity. I wonder if the Langley spooks, who
Umno claims are Anwar Ibrahim's handlers, briefed Obama on this when he
met Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak.
The long Umno watch has
been an era of 'Gleichschaltung'. For those unfamiliar with the term, it
is Nazi terminology meaning 'coordination' or "the restructuring of
German society and government into streamlined, centralised hierarchies
of power, with the intention of gaining total control and coordination
of all aspects of society".
Poisoning minds of Malay graduates
What
have we been witness to over the years? To name a few: the Biro Tata
Negara courses that have poisoned the minds of Malay graduates and civil
servants, to bolster the Umno narrative that the Malays community is
under siege; and ‘Operasi Isi Penuh", which saw the civil service
decimated and one ethnic group monopolising the instruments of
government. The natural consequence of these was that anyone
questioning the credibility or efficiency of these institutions would be
construed as attacking the 'Malay' institutions.
Our identity
cards feel more like 'Ariernachweis' - the certificate that identified
one as belonging to the Aryan race - and as Malaysians, we are divided
according to race and religion. 'Operasi Lalang', which aimed to
cripple dissent from opposition forces. Add to this the subversion of
the mainstream media - does anyone remember the time when Utusan Malaysia
was considered a 'leftist' news rag? And the restrictions on freedom of
speech, under the guise of protecting "racial sensitivities".
State
(read Umno) propaganda organs are allowed to inflame racial and
religious sentiment but those who attempt a rational dialogue or defend
themselves against such attacks are deemed as traitors or engaging in
sedition. The ISA and the practitioners of the dark arts (Special
Branch) are reminiscent of the Gestapo and over the years, many were
carted away in the dead of the night in the Black Maria. The
historical distortions in our history books, which are then fed to the
younger generation in the hope that they would believe that Umno was
truly the party chosen by God, and the absence of non-Malay/Muslim
cultures that further estrange the Malay community from the rest of
Malaysian society. The formation of para-security groups such as
Rela (People's Volunteers Corps), which Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak
once described as Umno's "last line of defence".
Outsourced thugs
Of
late, with the rise of Anwar Ibrahim as a credible threat to the Umno
hegemony, the hate mongers of Umno have been on overdrive, linking CIA
and Jewish conspiracies to the ascension of opposition political parties
and special interest groups sympathetic to the aims of these parties.
Outsourced thugs in the guise of right wing groups harass anybody
questioning their (Umno's) misinterpretation of the constitution.
Umno,
which has always been at war with itself, attempts to put on a unified
front. However, a 'Night of the Long Knives' threatens to redefine the
power structures within Umno. The race and religious cards are the only
cards Umno can play.
Let us be honest. With all this talk of
Malay sovereignty being at stake, the real target of Umno is always the
Chinese community. Umno blames the resurgence of PAS under the
multicultural cloak as a devise of the Chinese. It accuses Anwar of
being a Chinese proxy in his attempt to divide the Malay community. The
DAP is vilified as communist agitators, Singaporean lackeys or Christian
zealots threatening the ummah, through (that is right, their proxy)
Anwar Ibrahim.
The other non-Malays who pose no significant
threat and are merely collateral damage in the coming general election. I
suppose what distresses Umno is that the Chinese (or a sizeable
majority of them) have paid attention to Winston Churchill's dictum that
"an appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last"
and have decided not to appease the Umno crocodile any more. What
of the MCA, MIC and all those other satellite political parties
circling around the Umno sun? Well, as appeasers to the Umno machine,
they are the Neville Chamberlains of this tragic tale and May 13 was
their Munich Agreement.
I realise many people may be offended by
this analogy (certainly many of my Jewish friends would find this piece
distasteful, since Umno has done nothing in the league of the Shoah) but
if the honourable gentleman from Rembau wants to indulge in a Churchill
analogy, I see no reason why I cannot explore the same. The
irony is that Khairy's 'Between Two Visions' manifesto is something
worth exploring. An interesting discussion could have been had
concerning the visions of Pakatan Rakyat and Barisan National. Instead,
what Khairy and his ilk have chosen to do is play the same old cards in
the hope that their own record of (mis)rule is forgotten in the ensuring
outrage.
I will end this piece with another Churchill quote one
that I believe Lee Kuan Yew (he will always be Harry to me) would
appreciate: "The best argument against democracy is a five-minute
conversation with the average voter." I suppose Harry could be
forgiven for this because unlike Umno, Harry could mount a credible
defence of his party's record of administering the state, even if many
are ignorant or choose to ignore, the PAP malfeasances. Umno,
unfortunately, cannot do the same. Malaysiakini
With Umno Youth information chief Reezal Merican Naina Merican (right)
proclaiming that Umnoputras are the chosen people and God's choice will
always be Umno to rule and liberate this land, what we as
non-Malays/Muslims are left with is the cold comfort that as
'pendatang', Umno and the God they worship will never consider us as
Malaysians. Will it be a stretch to replace Aryan supremacy with Malay
supremacy?
Umno,
which has always been at war with itself, attempts to put on a unified
front. However, a 'Night of the Long Knives' threatens to redefine the
power structures within Umno. The race and religious cards are the only
cards Umno can play.
