FRIDAY, MAY 4, 2012
Bersih 3.0: A celebration of political maturity — Sakmongkol AK47
May 04, 2012
MAY 4 — The battle for freedom must be won over and over again.
I am sure there will be a Bersih 4.0 if the legitimate demands of a people craving for political meaning are not met. Why should the Election Commission resist demands to clean the electoral list? Why should the government deny electoral reforms? Why should the Malaysian people be denied the right to insist elections are only for Malaysian people?
Why should we not demand the exclusion of phantom voters and aliens from our electoral list? Admitting Bangladeshis, Myanmars, Nepalis and other illegals and giving them instant MYkads because they can support a fearful government is treasonous!
We are denied because this government fears the judgment of its own people. It has certainly shown it fears its own people. Otherwise what kind of government that has shown it was willing to unleash the repressive instruments on its own people?
I almost fell off the chair when someone uttered the unthinkable — that Bersih 3.0 would serve only to whip up Malay nationalism. Because of Bersih 3.0, Malays will gravitate towards Umno?
A total of 3.7 million of them abandoned Umno in 2008 and the majority will stay there. Once black, they will never go back to the red side. Umno is in the red on so many fronts — good governance, integrity, clear vision, quality leadership, etc, etc, the list never ends. The Umno doctor said it well — Umno is full of crap and half-past six pretenders. So why should the majority of Malays ever want to go back to Umno?
What can Umno offer — another half a century of pillaging and subjecting the nation to ruinous policies? RM1.3 trillion spirited out of this country and almost RM30 billion each year of ill-gotten monies smuggled out of this country?
The Malays who have crossed the Rubicon in ‘08 have tasted a better life after Umno. There’s not only life after Umno, but a better life without Umno.
Will the Malays suddenly drop dead once Umno is evicted from power? If we do, then that is clear proof that Umno has failed to cultivate and produce rugged and robust Malays. If we do, Umno has shown that it has only been able to produce a society of wimps. If we do, it is clear proof that Umno has failed the Malays.
Then there is this Umno leader — they call him the president who’s struggling to inspire us with a clear vision. We don’t want a grand vision, all we wanted was a clear vision. Instead he has only come out with a Campbell’s alphabet soup of strangely arranged letters. Does he inspire confidence? He can only bribe and pay his way through, incapable of inspiring Malays to new heights.
Not true, unless the Umno xenophobic propaganda machine makes out the marchers of Bersih 3.0 as non-Malays wanting to overthrow a Malay regime. Here is the thing: if the entire population of Malaysia is composed of Malays, there will still be a Bersih-like march and protest. Then it will be a clash between the oppressive ultra-right-wing conservative-cum-feudal clique versus the disenfranchised and marginalised Malay proletariat, tired of the enslaving and exploitative and corrupt regime.
Bersih 3.0 has struck unimaginable terror in the Umno Plutarch and corporate potentates. There is a sense of nervousness, increasingly and dreadfully alarming that has forced corporate chieftains to regularise their business interests. 1MDB buys over Ananda Krishnan’s power-generation business at an astronomical price tag, obviously the price tag has been Umno-nised. The corporate potentate then sells off a sizeable portion of his oil and gas business (Bumi Armada). Other corporate chieftains are doing the same on the quiet side. Big businesses are deserting Umno and the Umno fools are rushing in where angels fear to tread.
We must not fall into the Umno trap of pigeonholing Bersih as a clash between the Malaysian people of different races. It was resoundingly not. Bersih 3.0 was a celebration of political maturity of the Malaysian people of all races. Each are committed as stakeholders to ensure a good nation is passed on to the next generation. — sakmongkol.blogspot.com
* Sakmongkol AK47 is the nom de plume of Datuk Mohd Ariff Sabri Abdul Aziz. He was Pulau Manis assemblyman (2004-2008).
Last modified on Friday, 04 May 2012 16:10
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There have been many comments that the breach of barricade to Dataran Merdeka which marks the beginning of violence in the otherwise peaceful Bersih 3...
riday, 04 May 2012 15:52
Evil on April 28?: Here's the tape proving pre-planned conspiracy of the highest level
Written by Kim Quek- font size
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There have been many comments that the breach of barricade to Dataran Merdeka which marks the beginning of violence in the otherwise peaceful Bersih 3.0 rally was a plot to justify subsequent police brutality. But where is the hard evidence? Some based their opinion on the absence of police guarding the barricade, and some say the police were running away at the time of breach of barricade.
Here it is - all on tape!
I happened to stumble on the following video clip, which in my view, will provide the answer:
At 3:00 minute of the video, titled Bersih 3.0 428_Part 5 Masjid Jamek, a 3-row thick police guards were seen standing behind the plastic and steel barricade, face to face against an agitating crowd obviously more than keen to get into the square.
Then suddenly, all the guarding policemen turned around and ran quickly away from the barricade towards where the water cannon trucks and riot squad were positioned some distance away along the road. That sudden withdrawal of policemen was apparently taken by the spirited crowd as a signal that they could move in.
Within seconds of the policemen leaving the barricade when they were probably about 30 meters away from the fence, the first removal and toppling of the barricade was seen and heard. Following that breach, which took place simultenously at several locations along the fencing line, a sea of people rushed into the hitherto prohibited stretch of Jalan Raja – only to be attacked with water cannon and tear gas by the waiting police force. The rest is history, as this opening shot ushered in the most savage police crackdown on peaceful demonstrators Malaysians have ever seen.
What observations can we draw from these brief seconds of drama before the police onslaught?
The police had been zealously guarding the Dataran Merdeka compound with layers of barricades including razor sharp barbed wire since pre-dawn, indicating their determination to defend the prohibited ground at all costs. Then why the sudden pull back of guards when they were most needed to fend off an emotionally charged crowd eager to move into the square?
The fact that all the guards turned around simultaneously and ran quickly away from the barricades indicates that they had been briefed beforehand, otherwise they would have been puzzled and it would have taken them quite a while to comprehend the sudden command in such a noisy atmosphere where the human voice could hardly be heard.
Who could have made such a monumental decision as the abandoning of the defence of the Dataran ground if not the highest authority?
And why did the police pull back if not for the purpose of inducing the crowd into the snaring police force?
And there are enough snapshots from video clips showing mysterious personnel in black jacket removing the steel barricade and waving the crowd to move over to deduce that the simultaneous acts of police withdrawal and barricade removal were pre-planned to induce the demonstrators into the lair.
To the conspirators, wouldn’t the breach of barricade be the perfect legal justification for a police onslaught?
And wouldn’t police violence beget violence, which would give the ruling power a heyday in showcasing the so-called ‘riotous conduct’ of demonstrators, which the mainstream media promptly did?
And wouldn’t the physical pain suffered by many among the hundreds of thousands of participants be a powerful deterrent against future demonstration?
These surmises are not far-fetched but perhaps right on the dot, judging from the denial syndrome suffered by top police officers and top Umno ministers including Prime Minister. They not only pretend ignorance of widespread unlawful police violence but squarely pin the chaos on leaders of Bersih and opposition parties.
One fatal mistake
However, Umno hardliners have made one fatal mistake. They forget that this is no more the age when Mahathir reigned supreme. This is the age of Internet and i-phones when almost everyone can capture sound and vision anytime anywhere and disseminate them instantly across the planet.
There is no way Umno can hide the brutalities inflicted on its own people. In fact thousands of messages and videos have been circulating non-stop in the Internet and i-phones showing how ordinary Malaysians have suffered in the hands of the country’s cruel rulers since the day of infamy on April 28.
The day of reckoning for Umno will come, sooner than they think.
Kim Quek is the author of banned book The March to Putrajaya
