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."
Transformation is a grand word, and it is not one that is so easy to use. The Christians refer to it as being born again in Jesus Christ. The Buddhists seek it through the path of the Noble Truths towards breaking the karmic cycle of samsara, culminating in the realization that there was no cycle in the embrace of nirvana.
For a Muslim, the transformation may be complete in the peaceful submission to God as the Arabic denotation of their faith's name entails, and in the belief in tawhid.
In every case, speaking of transformation is so different from actually reaching a state of transformation.
The first merely requires words to come out of one's mouth in an effort to speak out beautiful and plausible ideas, and the latter something else entirely, but always, inevitably, however many different ways of reaching it exist, entailing a path of experience, reflection, and inner growth.
This invites the question in the title of the video.
Did Nazri Aziz truly experience such a transformation?
It's a complex question, that I'll admit.
To say that someone has transformed implies that we knew what they were like in the first place.
Often in human life, we make surface-level judgements of the people around us.
We assume that we knew what they were like before, and therefore we can speak of how it is that they had changed.
We create imaginary patterns or stories about how they might have transformed over the course of time, constellations of a hundred different possibilities for why it is that they had transformed the way that they did.
Well, I am not so arrogant as to say that I know the inner beating heart of anybody, let alone a seasoned politician with a career longer than my living existence upon the planet across the Mahathir Mohamad, Abdullah Badawi, Najib Razak, Muhyiddin Yassin, Ismail Sabri, and Anwar Ibrahim administrations, but I present here just some arguments or considerations for you to think as we consider how he behaved in the past, what he said in evidential clarity, and how that differs from how he is in the present.
At the end of this process, which I hope you will have enjoyed, then we ask the question:
Does it matter, and how shall it affect us?
If you've reached the end of this description so far, then you've probably watched the entire video.
Thanks for watching!
Now, I throw the ball to you.
Do you think Nazri Aziz has transformed?
Let me know in the comments!
