Not One Step Backwards!

In late July 1942, Joseph Stalin had seen enough of Russia losing land to the German invaders who had launched the blitzkrieg operation called Barbarossa to push the army deeper into Russia. The number one factor behind the advancement of the Germans was due to the retreat and defeatist attitude of the Russian soldiers. Finally on 28 July, he signed the secret order #227. The order was famously known as the "Not One Step Backwards" order. All soldiers who are part of the Stalingrad defense noticed a truncated version of the order signed by Stalin:

It’s time to stop the retreat. Not a single step back! This shall be our slogan from now on.

We need to protect every strongpoint, every meter of Soviet soil stubbornly, till the last droplet of blood, grab every piece of our soil and defend it as long as it is possible. Our Motherland is going through hard times. We have to stop, and then throw back and destroy the enemy, whatever it might cost us. The Germans are not as strong as the panic-mongers say. They are stretching their strength to the limit. To withstand their blow now means to ensure victory in the future.

All those who retreat without order from above, are traitors of the Motherland and will exterminated on sight. To fulfill this order means to defend our country, to save our Motherland, to destroy and overcome the hated enemy.

This is the call of our Motherland!

The order calls for the inclusion of a penal battalion that largely forms of criminals who are serving sentences in prison that being drafted into the military during the war OR those who had judged to have disobeyed military orders. The order is brutal : if you are seen by the immediate commanding officer (commissar) running backwards, you will be shot on the spot. If they managed to advance and survive the barrage after a certain period, there will be mark called ATONED in BLOOD stamped in their military records.

I'm not trying to refer to the Russian history and compare it with Saturday's rally. That will be a talk for someday soon. But the interesting of the title phrase is that there are some ministers of the Bolehland are showing a half-past six and one step backwards attitude. What I mean is that they still have the thinking of the past, those in the 70s or so. We are now in the new millennium whereby there are new things coming up, new technologies that can be used for good use. Unfortunately, there are some people who has the mindset of the past which can be a bad thing if those past principles are used in administering Malaysia.

I can tell you that the newspapers, mainstream media articles by certain minsters do exhibit the attitude being one-step backwards. It's just two days after the November 10 Yellow Wave Rally that is deemed illegal by the government. And now there are many Cabinet Ministers including Abdullah Badawi are criticizing for the rally as being involving the royals in it. I got word from an unknown source that the memorandum was copied 8 times and given to the other rulers of the Malay Rulers council.

Malaysiakini says that the response was pretty weak and unconvincing. Clearly, the ministers are running out of excuses to say about the rally. Seems that they are wavering as they feared that the public, although only 50000 turned against them, demanding a clear resolution and answer from their questions. But they chose to ignore it, thinking it is a farce. But then the challenge has been laid out to them. Whether they like it or not, they will have to answer or risk the King's displeasure, soon.

When I read the observer's view of the Rally in these past few days, I came to realize that what was reported at Al-Jazeera is indeed a non-partisan and accurate account of the truth. But our Dis-Information Minister, the Mamak of Merbok chose to criticize Al-Jazeera as if like being Chuck Austen and accused them of misleading the international community although it was certified true by many witness accounts. However, it is the local community that got mislead by your directive to the mainstream media. You even try to issue an official warning to Al-Jazeera.... for being correct. The interview was broadcast once. The second segment was censored on his orders, that's what Tony told us at the dinner in Bangsar. ZAM's been on the warpath with bloggers. He doesn't even know a single thing about blogging. So...we can say he's one step backwards of the people.

After some time of silence, de facto Law Minister Nazri Aziz, El Balachi started to make noise as to gain publicity. Calling people as short circuit. I remembered BAR president Ambriga Sreenevasan saying that if people rally, it means that there's something is wrong. The cops who sided with the crooked ones are the ones responsible in making the ruckus. If the Law Minister receives criticism and much correction from the other law experts who have better knowledge than him, it means that he isn't fit to run the show of law. You can also say that Nazri circumvented or Nazri is one-step-backwards or whatever.

I got appalled by certain quarters at the past week's UMNO assembly particularly when a young energetic woman by the name of Noraini Ahmad made a repeated statement of the Wee saga and the bloggers. I wonder whether if we, new generation people who tend to know more of information technology and better awareness. Then what about Badaruddin who criticized Karpal? Again, he made another mistake of the Airasia stewardess. Nobody now seems to be bothered of the meticulous dressing but they do wear proper clothing as long as it is for work, for play, for functions, but not because of the religious issue thing. Do you find it outrageous to wear a long dress that covers body parts even though common sense tells you to wear loose and t-shirts if we are to go for physical exercises?

Well, I'll leave it to certain women like Marina and Nuraina (thanks for the past) to handle the women side of the problem.

The bottom line is that these people in those issues that I've highlighted (ministers and politicians) are classic examples of people who have the half-past six mindset and they seem to be taking one-step backwards. Well, the thing is that these people are fitted into our very own penal batallion. If there is combat scenario like in Stalingrad, and these people adopt that kind of mindset and retreat backwords, that means that they can be shot on sight by commissars.

Previous Readings:

1. Rally Aftermath
2. The Yellow Revolution Part II
3. The Yellow Revolution Part I
4. I'll Play Taffer at You!
5. Long on Brutality, Short on Foresight
6. Big Mistake, Kiddo!