The Battle of the Boing (Boyne)

By batsman 

An ancient battle was fought in Ireland a long time ago in which the English roundheads whacked the Catholics. In modern times, this rubbery battle was re-fought every year by a celebratory march of the descendants of the victors through the neighborhoods of the descendants of the vanquished in a cruel rubbing of virtual salt into the virtual wounds. 

So it is that blood continued to be spilled for nearly 800 long years because the wounds refuse to heal.

This practice of the celebratory march in Ireland was only stopped recently and apparently the violence has slowed to a trickle as a result. Hopefully, it will stop altogether in the near future. 

But the story does not end here. Apparently, half a world away, an attempt to revive this practice of celebrating massacres was tried. Maybe it is because we learn so much from the English. Our own devilish satans owe such a great debt to devilish English satans. 

Had they succeeded, the rubbery battle would have bounced all the way from Ireland to Malaysia – boing, boing, boing, boing, boing – making Malaysia which is full of rubber trees its true home! 

Luckily, a combination of factors including sensitive by-elections made the rubbery bounce a dull dud. So it is that the lucky citizens of Malaysia owe a huge debt to elections and to the people giving voice against conspiracies of violence. 

Apparently, the appointed organizers of such copycat celebrations of massacre got instructions to cancel the whole thing at the last minute. So it looks like a conspiracy after all with powerful mysterious figures pulling the strings. It was all set to go – only the timing was lousy. 

So if there is a lesson to be learnt from this sorry episode, it is that people should value elections and value their vote. A second lesson is that people should be courageous enough to give voice against violent conspiracies. 

Having said that, I think people should at the same time not respond to provocation. Had the celebration of massacre gone ahead and people responded badly to such provocation – who knows – 800 years of hatred against each other may yet be our inheritance for learning from the English? 

Perhaps Malaysians are already well aware and my pessimism is uncalled for. After all, Malaysians did not respond badly to provocations such as burning of the churches, vandalism against mosques and Sikh temples, trigger happy cops, etc. Still, it may be expected that as each provocation fails, the conspirators will resort to more and more provocative acts at the same time accusing some ill-defined “others” as extremists. 

I think it is time to stop them before they introduce madness into Malaysia – all because these mysterious figures want to cling to power and enjoy ill-gotten gains. Vote them and their prostitutes and drunkards out please!