Now before you hit me by saying that I don’t know what I am talking about, because PLKN, as what national service in Malaysia is called, is just a giant waste of resources, hear me out.
I agree with you that the old PLKN was a waste of money.
But I also think that World War 3 is going to happen in the very near future.
Ukraine sparked it and Gaza has turned the flame into a wildfire. No matter what Anwar thinks, the problem between the West and the East is only going to be resolved through a conflict. The fires of war is already spreading all across the globe as we speak. It has probably been spreading for the last 2 years. When the fires peak, the war will almost certainly reach our shore. I know all of you reading this know what I am talking about, because I know that most of you see it as I see it. I will bet two ringgit and sixty cents that many of you also think that the world is going to be facing a great war within the next 5 years.
The time is absolutely ripe for us to start preparing for war.
We might be a peaceful people, but expecting that we will escape from the scourge of war just because we don’t want to fight anybody is like expecting the bull not to charge at you just because you are a vegetarian. It is not going to happen.
The South China Sea and the straits of Malacca is going to be a key flashpoint in the coming conflict between east and west. Like it or not, we are going to be in the crossfire.
I am not saying that we should teach our citizens how to kill, but I think it is time for us to prepare ourselves to defend our lives, the lives of our loved ones and our property as well as to teach ourselves how to conduct ourselves during a period of panic, emergency or calamity.
If god forbid, something is to happen in the global geopolitical scene that causes us to be dragged down to war next week, do we know what to do?
If you are living in Subang Jaya, for example, and you see some warlike phenomenon – like a foreign looking tank rolling down Persiaran Kewajipan – do you know what to do? Are you just going to call 999 and expect the police to take care of it?
Don’t you want to know where you should move your family too in case of an eventuality? Wouldn’t you like to know how you can organize with your fellow Subang-ites to protect your property and lives?
If there is a breakdown of the global economy on account of the war, do you know what you can do to sustain yourself ? Do you know how to plant your own food, rear some chicken or harvest rainwater?
I am not saying that we should organise national service in order to kill people. I am just saying that it is better to face an eventuality of war from a state of preparedness, clarity and strength.
The old PLKN might have a vague and abstract objective of promoting national unity, but a new one needs to be formulated to address a war in the near future.
While I agree that the old PLKN was a badly conceived idea, I must insist that we cannot let the trauma of a bad experience prevent us from making the right move in the present.
Nehru Sathiamoorthy was a columnist at FMT, a frequent contributor to the South China Morning Post, MalaysiaNow, Malaysia-Today and Focus Malaysia. By day he is a roving tutor in the Klang Valley, and by night he writes.
TheRealNehruism is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
The User Content (as defined on Newswav Terms of Use) above including the views expressed and media (pictures, videos, citations etc) were submitted & posted by the author. Newswav is solely an aggregation platform that hosts the User Content. If you have any questions about the content, copyright or other issues of the work, please contact Newswav.
