Preface: Yes, yes. Am writing this follow-up to my previous post while nibbling at my foot. Satisfied? Though I would like remind you that it's just a nibble though because some of my sentiments and suspicions were indeed vindicated so read on. Momentous current events: always a good fodder for my own mental diarrhea. Just look at the wordiness!
Well well whaddayaknow. To my pleasant surprise, the Malay(si)ans over Kuala Lumpur has certainly outdone themselves this time around. For the very first time in Bersih rally's history, by and large nothing untoward happened with estimated more than 200,000 attendees decked out in yellow congregate around the environ of Dataran Merdeka steep in festive-like atmosphere complete with impromptu busking, street lecture, literal street art (chalk drawing on asphalt), road side pasar malam and fucking vuvuzelas to cater to burgeoning crowd, all for an astounding 34 hours from 2pm 29 August before wrapping up with a rousing crowd chorus of Negaraku to mark the end of the rally on 12 midnight, 31 August. To that, let's give credit where credit is due:
The highest salutation for the unsung heroes of Bersih 4.0: Public transport operators of Kuala Lumpur (i.e. RapidKL, KTM etc.) and their frontline staffs for effective management of the sudden massive influx of movement of Bersih 4.0 crowd across their network to the various stations closest of ground zero Kuala Lumpur as well as extending service hours and putting a more frequent service moving people in and out of the city over the weekend. Sure they have earned a sudden spike of income on the weekend and their staffs are enjoying overtime bonus but they certainly deserve it for providing a vital service for the public.
Next up on the unsung heroes: the DBKL garbage collectors/cleaners contractors for doing extended hours of their duty, keeping the city street's tidy from rubbish generated by 200,000 strong crowds for the past 34 hours and still dutifully carried out their duty even after the crowd has dispersed.
Now, the police, for not going trigger-happy apeshit for once in the face of massive gathering of people (though the small impromptu Bersih crowd over Malacca would fucking disagree with the notion), choosing instead to remain civil crossing the barricade to rally's side every now and then to negotiate with the organizers and remained vigilant guarding the perimeter the Dataran Merdeka even before the 34 hours sit-in begins as well as dealing with the sporadic provocations by lone saboteurs (namely fire crackers surprise and a drunk man) swiftly. Sure they still have their Federal Reserve Unit on-guard at all time (probably just happened to be around the area just for Merdeka Day celebration), am pleased (and am sure the Bersih 4.0 crowd) it is not the first immediate response they fall on to thus managing to confound their critics (which is essentially everyone in Bersih rally) twisting their pre-conceived unfairly-biased notion towards dem police as well as quashing all those pre-rally hype, threats and panic. Now, can we just be nice to each other, police and public?
Then there is all the Bersih 4.0 volunteers for keeping 200,000+ strong crowd civil and disciplined in particular of not being deliberately provocative against police by breaching Dataran Merdeka barrier (that was the trigger for the chaos in the previous rally, by the way) via erecting own cordon across the police barricade keeping a no man land in between, remaining vigilant as the night falls keep an eye on the crowd camping out in the street as well as keeping the crowd well-nourished with drink stations and fairly occupied with various speeches and activities (thought judging by the amount of InstaTwitFace posts of coverage on the ground, the attendees certainly have no problem entertaining themselves.). Time for a good rest on blue-free Monday.
Last but not least, the crowd themselves for not acting massively idiotic for once, choosing to be fun and civil in particular those who collected rubbish left by the more idiotic attendees thus making the job of our rubbish collectors easier. Maintaining respectful silence during Muslim prayer time while shuushing those blowing fucking vuvuzelas is commendable too. The absence of Anwar, currently in jail, certainly dampened the crowd. Perhaps its a sign that people is moving on to post-Anwar politic,
BUT.
Now that I am done with the pleasantries, here comes: the BILE.
Let's begin by focusing on the other two locations in Malaysia where Bersih 4.0 rally is supposed to take place namely Kuching and Kota Kinabalu. While both rallies garnered modest crowd in proportional relation to their size at the start of the rally, both unfortunately met premature end failing to make the 34 hours mark by a huge margin with Kota Kinabalu's planned procession to city centre met with police barricade and more annoying Kuching, the only Bersih 4.0 rally that managed to secure police and city council approval, were prematurely concluded 10 hours in right in the dead of the morning of 30 August apparently due to safety breach (presence of children among crowd), the lack of audiovisual equipment (apparently the AV sponsor pulled the equipment denying them to be used for the second day) and more distastefully and pointlessly petty, Democratic Action Party (Sarawak), claiming the lack of activities at night, decided to pull out their own AV system at one corner of the Song Kheng Hai Rugby away from the main stage and doing their own politically motivated Najib Turun speech, upstaging the main stage while wearing own designed yellow shirt complete with the Rocket logo, essentially breaking everything that has been agreed to obtain the approval...and they have the cheek to accuse the Bersih 4.0 (Kuching) of being Sarawak4Sarawakian stooges? I have always known that they will be the very element that is against any sort of Sarawakians' national awakening, the very own enemy within all disguised in federal centered political rhetoric. Bully tactic is what is, just because you did mobilized your members to boost up the crowd. Most annoyingly of all, all these needless kerfuffles only provides unsavoury salvos to self-aggrandizing, entitled assholes in Malaya to made further flippant statements about how stupid Sabahan and Sarawakian "willingly" becoming "fixed deposit" laced "lalala where were you when we lasts to the end". I wonder is this the inevitable apathy due to absence of galvanising Streisand effect ala KL's. Sarawak government can silently smirk at how they raised their own liberal profile now effortlessly while waiting for the state election to happen next year.
Speaking of which, the rally at ground zero Kuala Lumpur certainly didn't escape from being infested with politicos. In fact, the focus of Bersih 4.0 Kuala Lumpur is heavily vested on politicos (with occasional token NGO sprinkled on) delivering outright politically motivated speeches complete with jibes and slurs. Instead on stressing on the importance of electoral reform (which is in the official Bersih 4.0 demand), they Bersih 2.0 leaders prefer to capitalize on widespread anger against Najib, crafting and maintaining the Najib MUST GO mantra above all else as if everything will magically improve with him out of the picture. The attendees, all 200,000 of them, just dance along to the tune while camping out on the road, basking in the exhilaration of adrenaline rush doing things they wouldn't have done in daily life especially breaking the law flagrantly with mob support. I bet apart from bloated sense of moral victory, the crowd came to their comfort suburban home, learning next to nothing about the basics of electoral reform apart from wagging their finger against any detractors while chanting gerrymandering as if its new buzzword of the day. Exactly what I anticipated as noted by the 殺雞.narrative I observed.
Then, Tun Mahathir made two whirlwind appearances at Bersih 4.0 ground. Man of the people indeed, wanting to join the people on the ground, declaring he's didn't care about Bersih 4.0 and only wanting Najib to step down. What a master stroke to achieve a public relation coup against sworn, cultivating a false Man of the People image towards gathered crowd. The public reacts by lapping it all up conveniently forgetting Najib WAS Mahathir's blessed protege back when Pak Lah was unfairly embattled by the first Bersih rally and his 20 odd years premiership has done every wrong thing Najib has done, in fact by trailblazing it in the first place. A turn of new leaf or a hypocritical posturing of a vindictive former benevolent tyrant? I choose the latter.
Last but not least, the nagging complaints about the lack of bumiputera/Malay participation in the rally this time (No thanks to PAS not committing their acolytes after the implosion of Pakatan Rakyat), filled instead with overwhelming make-up of urbanites Chinese. Despite constant urging and window-dressing ("Cina jaga ketenterman ketika Muslim bersolat") by the attendees not to see the rally in a racial light, preferring to identify as a Malaysians' rally, there is an urgent need to examine the reasoning behind the reduced turnout among Bumiputera and there is little doubt that is THE angle the loony right-wing press will latch on like fucking hagfishes, disseminating warped reality to their uninformed and deluded core readership.
In the end, what can we expect?
- Incoherent diarrhea of biased headlines awash on pages after pages of loony right-press aka Utusan, BH and NST, completely with totally underestimated number of 25,000 people. There only so much a periscope can capture I guess.
- Najib and his ilks with no shame and compulsion, cheekily staying around as long as he could, plotting for machination to strengthen owns stranglehold as well as extinguishing any dissent within own party as well as out, minimizing any chance of Motion of No Confidence to pass at all. (So Bersih peeps: hound your MP if you ever want the Motion of No Confidence to see the light of day at all).
- Monthly petrol up or down guessing game, Ringgit remain sluggish, wallet tighten, Malaysians continue to whine and moan about the GST/Bad traffic/Toll/street food getting needlessly expensive. Ad nauseam.
Now would you excuse me, I am going off to build a mental pillow fort, my alone space to weather the onslaught of self-congratulatory, faux-motivational, narcissistic InstaTwitFace across social media...including the abuse of THAT SONG from LesMis. Twatwaddles everywhere.
Postscript: And more for something completely different.
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