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."
Who needs to listen, when you can vote by Commander (Rtd) S Thayaparan formerly of the Royal Malaysian Navy
Friday, February 08, 2013
‘A house built on greed cannot long endure.' - Edward Abbey (Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast)
COMMENT
You are not one of us. Corollary to that, we decide if you are one of
us. For the past couple of decades, this has been Umno's mantra. A
couple of incidents this past week highlight this proposition.Like most right thinking Malaysians, I watched with dismay the exchange
between law student KS Bavani and that harridan, Sharifah Zohra Jabeen
Syed Shah Miskin. If you ever wonder why it is that BN types like
Sharifah like to remind "us" to leave if we are unhappy with how this
country is run, look no further than the royal commission of inquiry on
immigrants in Sabah.
What is slowly being unearthed in this
commission is that constitutionally-created Malays and rent-a-voters
ensure that Malaysia is well stocked with an electorate where
subservience instead of any genuine sense of belonging is of paramount
importance. Think of it as the Stepford Citizens. PKR deputy president Azmin Ali does not have to be too concerned
of what role Anwar Ibrahim played in the treason that was inflicted on
Malaysians through the Sabah black operations. I was more pissed off
when Anwar sent Azmin to head Sabah PKR for a spell. As an opposition
supporter, I am very aware that if you rifle through Anwar's political
baggage, you will find Umno's dirty linen.
However at this point,
nothing the commission reveals would make any difference. As former
prime minister and the alleged architect of the mischief in Sabah said, a
royal commission will "not do anything at all". These so-called
whistleblowers paint a picture of deliberate racial re-engineering but
as the old manipulator says, "the border between southern Philippines
and then-British North Borneo was not well recognised. "People
used to go back and forth and so these are not foreigners but people who
feel they are in a better position in Sabah and so stayed there for a
long time," said Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
Of course, nobody cares of the stateless Indians and Chinese who have
been here longer than 20 or 30 years, but maybe it is because they do
not speak Malay. It would be interesting to see the percentage of these
newly-minted Malay/Malaysians that fulfill the criteria set down by the
old manipulator.
Blind loyalty
The treachery of Umno runs deep and no amount of digging will provide
any closure or rectify present problems, since Umno has demonstrated no
commitment to the idea of good governance beyond maintaining the facade
that stability means an acquiescence to corruption, that religious and
racial preoccupations shall be controlled by a prejudiced state and that
gratitude in the face of the malfeasances shall be the only acceptable
response.
But I digress.
What Sharifah expected from her
audience as Umno does, is that in order for you to be "one of us" the
only response is a Pavlovian one. We give you free Galaxy Notes (for
instance) and you sublimate whatever human impulse to disagree. What Bavani did, thanks to her self-described PSM education, was to
question the status quo and being a rational person that she seems, she
expected a rational response. What she got was the usual Umno polemics
questioning her loyalty to a system that demands servitude and
gratitude. Now even though I disagree with some points of PSM's
socialist ideology, I think Bavani is a perfect example of a spirited
activist working for the betterment of a country and people she
obviously cares for. This obviously has a lot to do with what PSM is
teaching its young adherents.
However,
can pro-establishment partisans claim the same? What kind of education
is the regime propagating when the most famous public example of
students activism, is the students of Universiti Putra Malaysia engaging
in an orgy of hate
against the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community and
conveniently dragging in oppositional figures as proxies for the Umno
state's war against Pakatan Rakyat. Equal time may demand that
we listen to Sharifah's side of the story but in my opinion the most
important lesson here, is that young people stand up to authority and
question the status quo in a rational manner.
This lesson
extends beyond questioning Umno but also questioning our preferred
political parties. From my interviews with Siput MP Dr D Michael
Jeyakumar, a culture of debate is actively cultivated within PSM.
Members of PSM are encouraged to voice their opinions but more
importantly disagree. Blind unquestioning self-serving loyalty
is the province of Umno-BN but unfortunately, it is something that is
making it presence felt in oppositional politics. Pakatan
partisans should vehemently reject this and although solidarity is
vitally important especially this near to a history-changing election,
opposition supporters should never be cowed by majority voices to
conform to a group think that destroyed Umno-BN a long time ago. We
should honestly confront contrarian opinion and criticisms.
Irrational decisions
However let us get back to the "we decide if you are one of us" proposition that I opened this piece with. The Federal Court's dismissal
of Jeyakumar's case against the federal government for refusal to
disburse funds to opposition members of parliament was disappointing but
not unexpected. Raus Sharif, the president of the Court of
Appeal, stated that the court had no jurisdiction over the matter but
included, "In appropriate cases the court is duty bound to intervene,
especially where the policy or action of the executive is inconsistent
with the constitution and the laws, or in any manner of arbitrary,
irrational, elements of mala fide and abuse of power."
Readers should be aware that as the High Court has observed that Umno
decisions have been "tainted with irrationality" as in the case of Home
Minister Hishammuddin Hussein and his declaration that Bersih was an
"unlawful" organisation. So maybe one day, the Umno policy of not
disbursing funds to opposition MPs would be considered arbitrary,
irrational and contain elements of mala fide and abuse of powers. Of course, these funds come from our taxes and Umno's discretion not to
avail them to opposition MPs is merely Umno spitting on our faces when
we exercise our democratic rights. As always, there is retribution for
not toeing the Umno line.
Moreover,
the only people who are hurting (in this particular case) are the
residents of Sungai Siput who dared kick a BN lackey out. I asked
Jeyakumar (left in photo) how one operates with all the obstacles the federal government put up. "How do we score our political points? By engaging in the areas where
we have a comparative advantage. The PSM is quite adept at organising
communities facing eviction pressure from developers and government. We
have used this experience to organise more than 25 communities in Sungai
Siput to defend their land and/or their houses.
"For the past
five years, my budget has come to about RM220,000 per year. About a
third of that comes from my parliamentary allowance. The remaining
two-third is from friends and relatives who have been very, very
generous. "Our service centre is a one-stop centre for any
problems that people might face - from IC (identity card) to BC (birth
certificate) applications, Socso (Social Security Organisation)
applications, housing loan problems, labour cases, welfare applications,
police abuse, etc.
"This I have been running ever since my 1999
debut in Sungai Siput. So definitely, we have developed a lot of
experience as to how to handle these problems and I have managed to
share this expertise with my full-timers. This is another very concrete
form of help that we can give people."
Culture of corruption
Umno's
game playing when it comes to disbursement of funds to opposition
members of parliament like most Umno policies has consequences that have
a deleterious effect on Malaysian society. The
lack of accountability in the federal administration just breeds
further arrogance and contributes to the culture of corruption that Umno
could not stem even if it had a sincere interest in doing so, as
Jeyakumar says, "But if we do take Putrajaya we have to put constituency
funding on a more stable and accountable base. I believe funds should
be made available to the MPs to do their job. But it has to be properly
accounted for and should be made available to both ruling and opposition
MPs equally."
But more importantly, it spreads a culture of
corruption to the opposition members of parliament who have to seek
funds from other sources to effectively carry out their duties to their
constituents. Here is where big/small business collide politics, which
is the bane of politics everywhere. This is an issue that activist/politicians like Jeyakumar are concerned with.
"An
MP needs funds to run his service centre and pay his staff. He needs
research assistants. If we insist that he raises these funds himself, it
opens the door to business influence. Businessmen will provide these
funds but they would also expect certain favours. Wouldn't it be better
for our role as ‘wakil' rakyat if we could be freed of the need to
cultivate businessmen" he says.
"But where do we go from here?" asks Azly Rahman in his piece 'Lesson from 'listen, listen, listen'written
in prose reminiscent (to me at least) of early cyberpunk pioneers.
Jeyakumar has an answer (I just wish there were more politicians like
him).
"Boot these bunch of clowns out of office!"Malaysiakini
PKR deputy president Azmin Ali does not have to be 
