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."
From Malaysiakini COMMENT Two myths, and the enduring
bewitchment they cast on the body politic, were broken at the last
general election in 2008 which was the 12th election in Malaysia's
electoral history. The two myths are on course for interment by the time all the ballots are counted this Sunday in GE13. Their unceremonious burial is vital for a reset of the terms of
Malaysian democracy, after the insidious harm done to it during the
Mahathir era (1981-2003). The
first myth broken at GE12 is the one about the invincibility of the
Barisan Nasional which, together with its precursor, Alliance, has ruled
the country since independence in 1957. Only the Institutional
Revolutionary Party in Mexico has had a longer run at the helm of a
country in the democratic world - 72 years.
India's Congress
Party, like Umno-BN, a nation-founding entity, and for that reason
enjoyed the special odour of sanctity, lasted only 30 years before the
democratising force of gravity brought it down in 1977, aided and
abetted, no doubt, by the excesses of a particularly autocratic phase in
Indira Gandhi's rule. By contrast, Umno-BN enjoyed a charmed
run, in which its longevity was assured by the initial success of its
social engineering programme and, when that programme careened off the
rails bringing discontent in its trail, by the ideological disarray of
the opposition and the divergent aspirations of a racially and
religiously divided electorate Thus grew BN's myth of
invulnerability such that the most the opposition could aspire for was a
denial of the ruling coalition's two-thirds parliamentary majority, the
equivalent of reaching base camp in a mountaineer's quest to gain a
formidable peak's summit. Houdini-like getaways
BN's
myth of invincibility had long been bolstered by a string of easy
victories at the polls, not a few of them by crushing majorities. This was reinforced by two great escapes, in 1990 and 1999. Both
occasions saw BN teetering on the brink of a two-thirds majority denial
in Parliament but, in the crunch, the coalition carved out Houdini-like
getaways. A cynical stoking of Muslim fears of Christianisation
by then-prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad in the 1990 election was
credited with having averted a denial to BN of its customary two-thirds
majority, with Malay votes frightened away from the opposition.
In
the 1999 election, PAS' obstinate insistence on its Islamic state
agenda drove off the Chinese vote after the Malay one was alienated by
Mahathir's crass treatment of Anwar Ibrahim.
The outcomes in the
1990 and 1999 polls proved that the population's religious-cum-racial
divisions could be exploited to prevent discontent caused by Umno's
misdeeds mounting to government-toppling heights.
So potent was
this myth that even as late as November 2007, when all that year saw the
steady burgeoning of public discontent against the BN, reflected in a
sizeable demonstration in support of polls reform pressure group Bersih
on Nov 10, and in the show of force, 15 days later, by the newfangled
Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf), an Umno-BN leader could confidently
boast that BN, in harness for a half century, could look forward to
another 50 years of unchallenged rule. Among the reasons why its
critics feel that even in the face of severe setbacks to Umno at GE12,
the party is too hidebound to take heed of looming disaster is the
continued presence in its leadership corps of delusional optimists like
Mohd Ali Rustam, the caretaker Malacca chief minister. He is presently
the party's candidate for the Bukit Katil parliamentary seat in Malacca.
Mega ceramah The
second myth that was shredded in GE12 was that large attendances at
opposition public rallies, or ceramah, do not necessarily translate into
votes for them on polling day. This myth has a pedigree
reaching back to the 1964 general election when the People's Action
Party of Lee Kuan Yew drew overflow crowds in Kuala Lumpur and in
Penang. But PAP wound up in that election with only one seat, which was Bangsar in Kuala Lumpur. Further,
when sizeable crowds drawn by PAS and its precursor, Pan Malaysian
Islamic Party (PMIP), in Kelantan and Kedah did not translate into votes
until the election of 1990 enabling PAS to regain control of Kelantan,
scepticism mounted over the value to an opposition party of large
attendances at public rallies. The 1999 general election
campaign witnessed rousing attendances at opposition-organised ceramah,
mainly due to widespread public unease with the way Anwar Ibrahim was
treated by Mahathir. In the final vote, Umno-BN pulled off
another escape from the consequences of its own unpopularity, leaving
the opposition well short of denying the proverbial two-thirds majority
to the incumbent governing class. Thus when PKR's Anwar began in
2007 to campaign for GE12 by touring the country to garner support, and
when large crowds were drawn to hear him, the doubts over whether
attendance would translate into votes were difficult to tamp down.
Unprecedented change
In the 2008 election (GE12), however, the translation took place,
resulting in an unprecedented denial to BN of its traditional two-thirds
majority in Parliament. GE12 saw the breaking of two myths, of BN invincibility and of big ceramah attendances failing to incubate commensurate votes.
Since
Parliament's dissolution on April 3, the Pied Piper of political
reform, Anwar, has drawn mega crowds to his ceramah all over the
country.
In fact, his presence on a list of speakers at stops in
the opposition campaign circuit has been seen to generate one of those
tidal movements from which decisive majorities at the ballot box can be
extrapolated.
This could well mean that the two myths that have
held the Malaysian body politic in its stultifying thrall for decades
are headed for the shredding machine, an outcome that would be a boon
for Malaysian democracy. TERENCE NETTO has been a
journalist for four decades. He likes the occupation because it puts
him in contact with the eminent without being under the necessity to
admire them.
In
the 1999 election, PAS' obstinate insistence on its Islamic state
agenda drove off the Chinese vote after the Malay one was alienated by
Mahathir's crass treatment of Anwar Ibrahim.
Further,
when sizeable crowds drawn by PAS and its precursor, Pan Malaysian
Islamic Party (PMIP), in Kelantan and Kedah did not translate into votes
until the election of 1990 enabling PAS to regain control of Kelantan,
scepticism mounted over the value to an opposition party of large
attendances at public rallies. The 1999 general election
campaign witnessed rousing attendances at opposition-organised ceramah,
mainly due to widespread public unease with the way Anwar Ibrahim was
treated by Mahathir. In the final vote, Umno-BN pulled off
another escape from the consequences of its own unpopularity, leaving
the opposition well short of denying the proverbial two-thirds majority
to the incumbent governing class. Thus when PKR's Anwar began in
2007 to campaign for GE12 by touring the country to garner support, and
when large crowds were drawn to hear him, the doubts over whether
attendance would translate into votes were difficult to tamp down.
Since
Parliament's dissolution on April 3, the Pied Piper of political
reform, Anwar, has drawn mega crowds to his ceramah all over the
country.
