Cartoons, yellow tees, now ties – what’s next?

Malaysiakini Your Say
 | Jul 15, 11

‘When are they going to learn that Bersih, when it’s in the rakyat’s hearts, cannot be removed from the rakyat by banning yellow ties and T-shirts?’

Police to tighten noose against Bersih neckties, too

DannyLoHH:
 Is there a way to file a class suit against the police and the home minister for their unconstitutional and unlawful outlawing of all things Bersih?

Wearing a Bersih shirt or shirt with the word ‘Bersih’, or even just the Bersih logo should not be illegal as we are a democratic country. Wearing a Bersih shirt does not mean we are a member of the ‘outlaw organisation’ nor does it necessarily mean we’re providing (material) support the organisation.

It merely shows that we are supporting the cause of the organisation, which is calling for free and fair elections. Are the home minister and police declaring that the call for free and fair elections is illegal?

Madhavankuttyk:
 I wear what I wish. You cannot stop me. You will have to charge me, but I will wear it again and again and again.

One brain cell:
 As to be expected, BN won’t go down without trying to do maximum damage to anyone they accuse of being against them. They’re completely out of sync with reality.

In an era when information can spread at almost the speed of light, they’re obsessed with intimidating the public and arresting the notion of freedom itself.

Lone_star:
 Shah Alam police chief ACP Ahmad Zahedi Ayob is one gormless individual. When is he going to learn that Bersih, when it’s in the rakyat’s hearts, cannot be removed from the rakyat by banning ties and T-shirts? His actions can only result in more having ‘Bersih’ hearts.

Fairness for all: Good Lord, the police really amaze me with their stupidity. Instead of going after criminals, they are going after those who wear Bersih neckties. This is going to far. Next, they will say every Malaysian who wants to pee has to get a permit from the police.

As Malaysians we should not tolerate this ridiculous banning of Bersih ties. We should be allowed to wear what we desire. It looks like the government wants to be taught another lesson.

Court upholds ban on Zunar’s cartoon books

Ong Guan Sin:
 Justice Rohaya Yusof made the judgment without actually reading Zunar’s cartoons, and missed out on having a good laugh. She studied solely the minister’s order, like a teacher correcting a student’s composition, correcting his grammar and vocabulary, without evaluating if the student’s story was sound and reasonable.

I am just puzzled – why did the judge refuse to have a good laugh from Zunar’s cartoons? Why?

Lets be fair:
 If she doesn’t support the ban, does she think she’ll lose her job? Are the judges held at ransom?

P Dev Anand Pillai:
 This is another attempt to stifle the Malay mind, which has now began to question and will not accept being stifled, silenced and forced to adhere to the official line anymore.

If pure propaganda and gossip is allowed to be published by Utusan Malaysia, the Umno mouthpiece, then why can’t Zunar publish his books?

Eric Koay:
 What is so sensitive about cartoons? Judge Rohaya Yusuf, do you think Tom and Jerry provoke racial tensions? Get a life.

Cartoons are for laughs… unless what the cartoon depicts are true. Does that mean what Zunar drew about Rosmah Mansor and Altantuya Shaariibuu is true?

Swipenter:
 “The court takes into view the sensitivities surrounding the country,” said the judge. What she actually means is that anything that is even mildly critical of the Umno-led government is offensive to the sensitivities of Umno and, therefore, must be banned and swept under the carpet.

Tan Koon Seng:
 Zunar, I suggest you consider crafting out another edition of a cartoon book, this time entitled ‘1Funny Judiciary’.

Pakman:
 Zunar and Kim Quek have been denied their freedom to air their creative ideas because their ideas and reflections on events in Malaysia do not favour the ruling government.

How can the government improve its image if even creative ideas are stifled and banned? Malaysians have matured. Such a ban is an insult to their intelligence.

Anonymous_3e8f:
 Can Justice Rohaya cite just a single case of violence or disorder as a result of looking at the cartoons by Zunar? I have the cartoons. They really are humorous.

Ferdtan:
 Even judges like Rohaya Yusuf are afraid of cartoons? As kid you must have found demons everywhere – even under your bed.

It looks like you have not grown up – you still fear the cartoonish ‘demons’ that do not physically hurt anyone – but challenge the minds and intellect of the BN figures and their supporters. This judge suffers from ‘cartoonphobia’.

Sabahan:
 Some judgments are so prejudiced and defy logic. I know they have to protect their rice bowl, but not at the expense of appearing silly and prolonging the suffering of the people. Why can’ they be brave like those demonstrators at the recent Bersih 2.0 rally?

Simon Lee 3ed5:
 Many thanks, Zunar, for making us laugh. Your great sense of humour and courage in taking on the corrupt clowns in power making fools of themselves gives the rakyat hope for a better tomorrow. Every stroke of your pen drives fear into the corrupt and despots.

Bender:
 First, they say Bersih 2.0 T-shirts are going to destroy the country. Now, cartoons… I wonder what’s next? Onions? Beansprouts?

                This entry was posted on Friday, 15 July 2011, 10:15 am and is filed under
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Detention of PSM MP mockery of the law

By
K Pragalath

July 15, 201 | Free Malaysia Today

KUALA LUMPUR: Whoever framed the charges under the Emergency Ordinance to detain six Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) activists must be exposed, said DAP advisor Lim Kit Siang.

“Whoever is responsible for concocting the charges must be exposed and the government must also provide a full explanation for the detention,” he said.

“The detention is a mockery of the law,” said Lim after meeting with Sungai Siput MP, Dr D Michael Jeyakumar in Bukit Aman today.

Jeyakumar along with five other activists – PSM deputy president M Saraswathy, central committee members Choo Chon Kai and M Sugumaran, youth chief R Sarathbabu and Sungai Siput branch secretary A Letchumanan were rearrested on July 2 under the EO.

They were initially detained under section 122 of the Penal Code for allegedly waging war against the King late last month.

Lim who is also Ipoh Timur MP also criticised the initial charges under the Penal Code.

“The police and the authorities themselves don’t believe the charges so they dropped it,” said Lim who visited Jeyakumar along with PAS vice president, Salahuddin Ayub and Subang MP R Sivarasa of PKR.

Sivarasa urged the government to protect the country’s image in the international arena.

Sivarasa who is also a lawyer added that it was the first time charges of waging war were used against political activists.

Salahuddin who is also Kubang Kerian MP questioned the rationale of detaining the six under EO as the police continued to question PSM’s role in the Bersih rally.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 15 July 2011, 4:20 pm and is filed under
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Free EO detainees as Bersih rally over, says Pakatan

By
Boo Su-Lyn

July 15, 2011 | The Malaysian Insider

KUALA LUMPUR, July 15 — Pakatan Rakyat (PR) demanded today for the immediate release of the six Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) members held under the Emergency Ordinance 1969 as the Bersih rally was over.

“709 is over. There is no case or justification to hold (Sungai Siput MP Dr Michael) Jeyakumar (Devaraj) or the PSM six,” DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang told reporters today, referring to the July 9 Bersih rally that drew tens of thousands.

Lim’s joint press conference with PAS’s Kubang Kerian MP Salahuddin Ayub and PKR’s Subang MP R. Sivarasa was held after they visited Dr Jeyakumar at the Bukit Aman police headquarters here.

“This has created a very bad image for the country and the prime minister,” said Lim, the Ipoh Timur MP.

Foreign media have excoriated the Najib administration over its handling of the electoral reform rally at Kuala Lumpur, where authorities fired teargas and water cannons after locking down the city.

The police had also launched over 100 arrests in the weeks leading up to the rally and arrested nearly 1,700 demonstrators at the protest itself.

International business newspaper The Wall Street Journal accused the government of creating an atmosphere of “fear and repression”.

Other influential American and British publications that joined the chorus of criticism include the Guardian, television channels (Al-Jazeera), and also top regional newspapers like the Singapore Straits Times and Jakarta Post.

Sivarasa pointed out today that the six PSM members were first arrested under the EO on July 2 for their alleged involvement in the Bersih rally.

The human rights lawyer said that charge was later withdrawn and amended to a “more general” charge of threatening national security.

“These allegations have no basis,” said Sivarasa.

The EO, which allows for detention without trial, was enacted in 1969 as a temporary measure to respond to the May 13 race riots.

Apart from Dr Jeyakumar, the other detainees are PSM deputy chairman M. Saraswathy, central committee members Choo Chon Kai and M. Sugumaran, Sungai Siput branch secretary A. Letchumanan and national Youth chief R. Sarathbabu.

They were arrested in Penang on June 25 along with two dozen other PSM members for allegedly planning to “wage war against the Yang di-Pertuan Agong”, after police found in their possession T-shirts bearing the faces of former communist leaders.

Police later dropped all charges against the six but immediately rearrested them under the EO and charged the remaining 24 with possession of Bersih material and involvement in an illegal organisation.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 15 July 2011, 2:07 pm and is filed under
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From Malaysian Diaspora – “Collection of videos on youtube to show my disappointment”

                This entry was posted on Friday, 15 July 2011, 5:56 pm and is filed under
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Kit Siang says EO detainee Jeyakumar is all right

By
Joseph Sipalan

Jul 15, 11 | MalaysiaKini

Sungai Siput MP Dr D Jeyakumar is holding up well despite having been detained for nearly three weeks now, DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang said today after meeting up with the Parti Sosialis Malaysia activist.

Lim, who with PAS vice-president Salahuddin Ayub and PKR’s Subang Jaya MP R Sivarasa met with Jeyakumar for 20 minutes at the Bukit Aman federal police headquarters earlier today, said he PSM was doing “okay” so far.

“By and large he is okay, despite the wear and tear.
What is most important is the loss of freedom and injustice of this arbitrary detention, and I say this as a former detainee under the ISA,” Lim told a press conference after the visit.

Jeyakumar is one of the PSM 6 detained under the Emergency Ordinance on July 2, on police intelligence claiming interference by foreign powers trying to “harm public order” – which deputy inspector general of police Khalid Abu Bakar said gave them grounds to act to prevent potential violence and criminal activity.

The other PSM members detained are deputy chairperson M Saraswathy, central committee members Choo Chon Kai and M Sukumaran, Sungai Siput branch secretary A Letchumanan and youth leader Sarat Babu.

The six were re-arrested under section 3(1) of the EO, immediately after they were released from seven days of remand at Kepala Batas district police station.

They were initially arrested with 24 others on June 25, while in a bus at the Sungai Dua toll plaza, and investigated under Section 122 of the Penal Code for allegedly waging war against the Yang di-Pertuan Agong.

Lim said that “not even the authorities themselves” believed the grounds for the initial charge, and accused the authorities of acting in “utter bad faith”.

Sivarasa pointed out that the authorities had nothing to justify the detention of the PSM 6 under the EO, let alone the charge of waging war against the King.

He said the only precedent where anyone was found guilty of waging war against the Agong was the infamous al-Maunah case, where the banned movement’s members had actually built up a cache of guns and murdered people.

‘Whole world looking at Malaysia’

As for the charge under the EO, Sivarasa said the police had replaced the earlier charge with a more “general” charge as they knew it would not stick.

“The charge sheet first said they were mobilisers for Bersih, therefore they were prejudicial to public order. That charge sheet was withdrawn and replaced with a more general charge of them being prejudicial to public order.

“The whole world is looking at Malaysia, and they are wondering what kind of police state we have. Jeyakumar is known as the gentle doctor, and we are holding the gentle doctor as if he is a hardened criminal,” Sivarasa said.

Meanwhile, the families and laywers of the PSM 6 spent the later part of the morning visiting them at the various locations around the city where they are being detained.

They are then expected to come together at Bukit Aman, where they intend to present a memorandum to inspector-general of police Ismail Omar at 3pm to demand the immediate release of the six

                This entry was posted on Friday, 15 July 2011, 4:31 pm and is filed under
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Malaysia in the Era of Globalization #73

By
M. Bakri Musa

Chapter 9:  Islam in Malay Life

Shari’a in a Plural Society

The issue of the Islamic state is needlessly consuming the energy of many Malaysians, Muslims and non-Muslims alike.  It is also the platform of the Islamic Party (PAS), its reason for being.  Yet when challenged on the specifics, PAS is sorely unprepared.  Surely after championing the issue for the past half a century, its leaders should have a pretty clear idea of their goals.  If by Islamic state they mean one based on the ideals of justice and morality of the Quran, then all Muslims and many non-Muslims would agree.  But if they want a state based on the Shari’a (Islamic law) in its current form, many Muslims and certainly all non-Muslims would demur.

            The Shari’a took three centuries to formulate and consumed the best intellectual talent of the Muslim world at the time.  Although based on the Qur’an and sunnah (ways of the prophet), the Shari’a remains the creation of mortals and as such, carries all the imperfections implicit in such endeavors.  For Muslims to ascribe to it the reverence and perfection reserved only for the Quran means that we ascribe those very same qualities to the mortals who crafted the Shari’a.

            Shari’a literally means, “the road to the watering hole,” the right or straight path to be followed.  To Muslims, Shari’a refers to the body of Islamic laws that are perceived as being part and parcel of the faith.  It thus assumes the same rightful place as the Quran and sunnah.  To criticize the Shari’a is to criticize the faith itself.  And therein lies the problem.

            There are over 6,000 verses in the Quran; of these less than 600 are concerned with the law.  And most of those cover such matters as prayers and rituals.  Only about 80 verses deal with such traditional legal matters as crime and punishment, contracts, and family law.  Clearly the Quran is not a legal tome but a general guidance on how to build a moral and ethical society.

            It is a magnificent tribute to the intellect of those early Muslim scholars that they were able to fashion out of the Quran and the sunnah a coherent and consistent body of laws that is the Shari’a.  In its time the Shari’a represented a giant leap in intellectual, social, and legal achievements.  Its treatment of women in particular was light years ahead of its time.  The status of women accorded by the Shari’a was of the order of magnitude a thousand times better than the prevailing practices.  Then women were not even recognized as humans.  Whereas women are granted a share of the inheritance in the Shari’a, in the then prevailing culture, women were the inheritance.  They were chattels and properties of their husband, to be passed on or traded accordingly.  The Shari’a represented a grand emancipation of women.  In this regard Islam was centuries ahead of Western civilization.  The codifying of divorces too was truly an inspiration, considering that the concept did not even exist then.  Wives were not divorced then; they were simply discarded, traded, or handed over to their husband’s heir.  The Shari’a’s treatment of criminal justice was similarly light years ahead of the prevailing ethos of “an eye for an eye;” likewise the treatment of slavery and indentured labor.

            While the Shari’a represented a quantum leap in achievement of early Islam, in its present form it is clearly incompatible with many of today’s universally accepted norms, in particular with respect to human rights, criminal justice, public law, gender equality, and hosts of other areas.

            I do not say this lightly seeing that to many Muslims, any criticism of the Shari’a is blasphemous.  But I cannot look at my daughter and tell her that she is worth only half that of my son, as the Shari’a would have it.  I love all my children equally and my inheritance to them should and will reflect that sentiment.  Nor do I find such cruel and inhuman punishments as stoning to death a woman for adultery and the chopping of hands for thievery compatible with an All Compassionate and All Merciful Allah.  Similarly I find the death penalty for apostasy as prescribed by the Shari’a not only abhorrent but also incompatible with the Koranic admonition that there shall be no compulsion in matters of faith.

            As a Muslim I take the Koran to be Allah’s revelation.  Its message is infallible and immutable, and for all mankind at all times.  That is a matter of faith.  Being Allah’s words, the Koran takes precedence over everything else, including the Shari’a and the sunnah.

            That is a heavy statement.  Having said it, a much-needed pause for clarification.  Muslims consider the Koran and the sunnah as co-equal parts of the faith.  One cannot separate the message (the Koran) from the messenger (the prophet – pbuh); they both form an integral part of the faith.  I agree wholeheartedly.  The main issue I have is differentiating between the actual practices and sayings of the prophet (pbuh) and what scholars say they are.  I will revisit this important differentiation a few pages hence.  Meanwhile back to my original discussion.

            Societies change, and so too must the laws.  There is nothing in the Shari’a that mandates we give it the reverence due only to the Quran.  Thus the pertinent question, and one rarely asked, is not whether the Shari’a should be applied to modern society, rather how can we adapt and modify it to meet current needs.  A body of laws that was an enlightened piece of legislation for 7-10th Century Arabia is clearly not suitable for the present.  When the Shari’a was formulated, the Arabian society was just emerging from the Age of Jahiliyah (Ignorance), a period of rampant female infanticide, slavery, and tribalism.  A millennium later, the problems are of a different order.  The challenge today is to enhance the freedom and dignity of humans.  That these freedoms and rights are emphasized by Western civilization is no reason for Muslims not to co-opt and adopt them.

            Today’s Muslims should emulate our illustrious predecessors.  Had ancient Muslims been like their present-day counterparts and considered everything originating outside of Islam as “un-Islamic,” Islam would not have expanded.  Muslims today should be equally receptive to and be welcoming of new ideas and innovations regardless of where they originated.  That Allah chose a Christian to reveal His secret on gravity, a Jew on the nature of the atom, a Confucian on the explosive power of gunpowder, and a Hindu on the concept of zero, is not for us to question.  It is however, for us to appreciate that such wisdom and insights are for the benefit of all.

Next:   Reform in Islam

                This entry was posted on Friday, 15 July 2011, 6:05 pm and is filed under
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“Malaysia Worked For Peaceful Protest”

By
Ahmad Rozian

15 Jul 2011 | Wall Street Journal

Your editorial (“Crackdown 2.0 in Malaysia,” July 12) states that protesters in Kuala Lumpur have suffered “intimidation” and “repression” at the hands of the government in recent weeks. The truth is somewhat different.

Malaysians have a constitutional right to peaceful assembly and throughout the build-up to last weekend’s protest Prime Minister Najib Razak worked to find a solution that would allow Bersih to exercise that right. This included offering the use of a large-capacity stadium where the event could be held safely and without disrupting the lives and businesses of ordinary Malaysians.

Sadly the protest organizers chose to reject this offer, instead calling on supporters to assemble at a much smaller stadium “come what may,” despite the fact that it was unavailable.

Faced with thousands of people attempting to enter an unsuitable venue in a densely populated area, the police were forced to intervene to disperse the crowd, a task that was made more difficult by the presence of a small minority of protesters intent on violence.

It goes without saying that Malaysia’s police officers are expected to maintain the highest standards of professional conduct, and any specific allegations of heavy-handed behavior will be thoroughly investigated. However, to claim that Saturday’s events mean Malaysia is not a “true democracy” is simply wrong. As the strong performance of opposition parties in the last general election demonstrates, the ballot box remains the most powerful force in Malaysian politics.

Ahmad Rozian

Undersecretary of Information

Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Putrajaya, Malaysia

                This entry was posted on Friday, 15 July 2011, 11:23 am and is filed under
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Men in blue pounce on MP in yellow

By
G Vinod

July 15, 2011  | Free Malaysia Today

PETALING JAYA: DAP MP Er Teck Hwa landed in trouble when he wore the banned Bersih 2.0 yellow T-shirt on his way to a memorial service for the late Teoh Beng Hock yesterday.

Relating the incident, the Bakri MP’s aide Liew Choan Chee said some 50 people gathered at Wisma DAP in Muar, Johor, for the service at 8pm.

There was a FRU truck and several policemen stationed nearby.

“We were supposed to march to Er’s service centre which is about 300 yards from the DAP building. When we started walking, several police officers stopped our procession,” said Liew.

He added that a police officer, identified only as Bala, ordered Er to remove the T-shirt and warned the group that it was an illegal gathering.

Refusing, Er then argued his case with the officer who eventually relented when the MP agreed to wear a red T-shirt bearing a Chinese character which meant “Change” on top of the yellow T-shirt.

The procession was then allowed to continue until they reached a road where a patrol car stopped them.

Liew said several police officers then forced Er to remove his Bersih 2.0 T-shirt on the spot.

“Er grew irritated and started shouting at the officers. A commotion ensued, and the police told him to follow them to the Muar district police headquarters,” he added.

The police, Liew said, refused to tell Er whether he was under arrest.

The aide added that his boss then told the police that he would come to the police headquarters in his own car. Er was later released after his statement was recorded.

Commenting on the incident, DAP’s Petaling Jaya Utara MP Tony Pua said the police should concentrate on eradicating crime instead of being overzealous in their clampdown on Bersih 2.0.

Calling it ridiculous, Pua said the country had become a laughing stock among the international community for its fear of yellow.

“Er was arrested despite wearing the Bersih T-shirt under another shirt. So even if someone was wearing a yellow underwear, the police will arrest them,” he added.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 15 July 2011, 2:54 pm and is filed under
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Najib suffers from a “mild stroke” in UK

He calls police action “quite mild”

 By Martin Jalleh

It appears that the Prime Minister has suffered a mild “brain attack” whilst on an official visit to UK.

He experienced sudden trouble speaking or understanding speech, dizziness, lightheadedness loss of “balance or coordination”, “spinning” sensations, and “brain seizures”.

It happened when Najib was telling CNN in an
interview
conducted in London that police action on those who took part in the Bersih 2.0 march on July 9, was “quite mild”.

There was no “undue use of force”. It was of course not as mild as his initial response when he even initially claimed there was “no physical contact between police and protesters”!

On the arrests of more than 1,600 protesters, well, “…(t)hey were released after eight hours and they were treated very well… the demonstrators were dispersed using minimum force.”

Meanwhile, back in Bolehland, a group of brave Bersih marchers handed over a memorandum urging Suhakam (Malaysian Human Rights Commission) to probe the Najib-ordered crackdown.

Four of them recalled their terrifying and traumatic experience of police aggression and assault on that day. One alleged that a policeman threatened to kill him when arresting him.

There have also been countless first-person accounts of having been pounced on, pushed, punched, pinned down and pulverized by the police! They have been confirmed by witnesses.

Pictures and video clips revealed that it was no walk in the park as the PM has suggested. They pointed to the brutal truth that the police action was far from “mild” but mean and menacing!

This was further confirmed in a detailed report by a team of 100 people of the Malaysian Bar Council who openly monitored the rally.

Their conclusion:
“Police used excessive and unnecessary force against Bersih rally participants while arrests were made randomly and arbitrarily.”

Officials from the UN, US and UK have expressed their concern and criticism and castigated the authorities for their heavy and high-handedness and strong-arm tactics..

The influential Guardian called the Malaysian government gormless and said Najib will face global backlash for his “characteristic heavy-handedness” in handling the Bersih rally.

The signed statement by 11 doctors revealing that “police had fired tear gas and chemical-laced water into the compounds of the Tung Shin and Chinese Maternity Hospitals” reduces Najib’s “mild police action” to sheer nonsense! (Please refer to my article on: Liow’s Tongue Lies!)

“It is repulsive that the authorities entrusted with policing the nation and protecting the weak and needy, have shamelessly denied publicly, the occurrence of these incidents in spite of countless photo/video and eyewitness accounts of what was evident to all independent observers,” they said.

During the CNN interview Najib desperately argued:“It will come up to see that we are all for fair and clean elections. And as you know, the last general election, you know, the ruling party lost five states. And we were deprived of two-thirds majority.”

To put it very mildly, dear Najib, if the last elections were truly fair and clean, you probably would not be PM today!

Is the Prime Minister’s visit to the Pope going to be a “mild” one too?

                This entry was posted on Friday, 15 July 2011, 2:28 pm and is filed under
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One event, many ‘truths’

By
Eric Loo

Jul 15, 11 | MalaysiaKini

Being clean is good. Being clean in government is best. So, the people walked the streets of KL for a clean cause. But when the government and its media played dirty on the discontented multitudes who flooded the streets of Jalan Tun Perak, Jalan Petaling and Jalan Pudu on July 9, it makes me very angry. I was there.

Right-wing threats against Bersih, splashed across the mainstream papers and screened on television, had ironically mobilised to the public square the Malays, the Chinese, the Indians and other usually ‘invisible’ minority groups. The people gathered and chanted as one body in front of Menara Maybank. ‘Hidup Bersih! Hidup Rakyat! Hancur Bersih! Hancur Rakyat!’

Local reporters – some looked like they were fresh out of university – and a few older ones from the foreign press scampered for photos and sound bites. Some anticipated bloody violence. None came. Except for the chaotic chase and inevitable scuffles between citizens and riot police in a street protest standoff.

I left Dataran Merdeka as the azan maghrib from Masjid Jamek brought a calming close to a day of strife. The FRU and police rested along Jalan Raja in front of Sultan Abdul Samad Building. As they, the enforcers, dug into their nasi bungkus, I felt like I had been served the entrée but denied the main course – until the next ‘yellow’ mobilisation for a good clean cause.

Then, I wondered how Malaysia had fallen into such a dismal state. It gets worse at this time with the Home Ministry witch-hunting for pro-Bersih writers, bloggers, Chinese newspaper editors, and poring over police video and YouTube clips to nab public servants and students who dared to march on July 9.

What you don’t get to feel and see from the mainstream media version of the Bersih assembly you get it on YouTube. The 12-minute clip is visually compelling with its cinematic narrative dramatised by sombre background music, fade-in white-on-black subheads, gunshots of tear gas, frenzied cries from the people, out-takes of the young and old chased down, punched, kicked, strapped and hauled away by plainclothes police personnel.

The clip titled ‘Truth that cannot be covered’ essentially kills whatever credibility the government and its scribes may have left in the public mind.

Contest for the public mind

Indeed, ‘truth’ is a fluid concept in times like these when citizen-generated clips contest with government-controlled media for the public mind. For context, however, it’s important to recognise that the conditions of reporting a highly charged people’s uprising against autocratic governments are usually laced with dogma, polarised ideologies, and real or imagined fears. One takes sides.

Realities are mediated, reconstructed – and manipulated – to mobilise against or reinforce the existing system of repression, political subordination and power structure. Governments, NGOs and the people see the ‘truth’ from different positions. Thus the excesses of government public relations and the limitations of visual journalism.

The camera is limited to what journalists can see and frame. What we get are snapshots of events at one moment. Only from different media outlets, each seeing and reading events from different moral, ideological and political positions, will you get a near complete picture of the ‘truth’. So far, the circulated ‘truth’ is what the mainstream media choose to provide. One-dimensional.

Mainstream media had narrowly framed Bersih 2.0 as an illegal outfit, a threat to society. The supporters are political agitators, anarchists and ‘un-Malaysian’. Non-mainstream and foreign media had an alternative reading, and rightly so. The government is authoritarian, shortsighted, paranoid and chronically fearful of an emerging people’s ‘yellow’ revolution. Our uniformed police and plainclothes are brutal high-handed thugs.

To get a near complete picture, I put on my journalist hat. I marched with Bersih. I moved with the police and the FRU. I mingled on the fringe with a handful of Patriots at Jalan Bukit Bintang moments after Khairy Jamaluddin, as I heard, pathetically charged the police with his pack of red shirts. They too got their shots of tear gas.

When I marched with Bersih, the police looked like the bad guys. Alongside the FRU – a few genteel demure females in tough riot gear – and navy blue police, the rakyat looked like a very angry volatile mob. The red-shirts. Well, they sounded and acted like pathetic patriots, palming with the police, singing national songs on cue like primary school kids.

You needed to be there to feel the cause, the chaos, and cautious restraints from the rakyat and the police. That was the intention – a peaceful Bersih rally for the sake of generations to come. The walls of fear, however, are so grounded in the Malaysian psyche that many stayed home. But not to an Indian office worker who took the overnight train from Butterworth to KL to march.

Or Pak Din, a 70-something Malay NGO worker I met at a mamak shop at Jalan Ampang. “I’ve broken through the walls of fear,” he said in halting English. “Now, it’s for my sons, nephews and nieces to do the same – for the country’s sake.” Indeed, Pak.

Atrocious coverage

Pak Din these days only reads the news online. His RM1.20, he says, is better spent on a teh tarik. Which makes sense judging from the atrocious coverage in the country’s papers on July 9. ‘Stay Away’ The Star warned on page 1. ‘Defiant’ it screamed the next day – also on page one. The Star’s text and imageries framed Bersih 2.0 (but less so, the Patriots) as an unnecessary inconvenience to local businesses, threats to tourism, security, harmony and so forth. Its weeks of coverage epitomises the general standards of Malaysian mainstream journalism today – abysmal.

The prime minister, however, doesn’t think so. He thinks the world’s media could learn a lesson or two from Malaysia’s journalists. Speaking at the National Press Club-Naza Awards night in Kuala Lumpur on July 4, he said he often told foreigners that stability in Malaysia was due to the media’s responsible reporting of national affairs. What an oxymoron.

A Bernama story, published in The Sun (July 5, p.5) quoted him: “Your (Malaysian journalists) ability to cover sensitive issues in a careful and balanced way shows a huge degree of social responsibility and is a tribute to your professionalism… you ensure that everyone understands the issues that matter …”

That’s taking the people for fools – again. The prime minister and his deputy had other nuggets reported, unthinkingly, by mainstream scribes days before the Bersih 2.0 rally:

Headline: Don’t destroy what has been built, says Najib
(Sarawak Tribune, July 5, p.1 lead story, Bernama)

Quote
: “The illegal rally is not intended to correct the system but is politically motivated to gain power via undemocratic means.” (Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak speaking at the PM’s Department monthly gathering, July 4).

Question that reporter could have asked:
 How is exercising one’s constitutional right to assemble and voice dissent peacefully in a public square ‘undemocratic’?

Quote:
 “We are willing to provide a stadium for them (Bersih 2.0) to rally but why choose to protest in the streets… The government is not against them rallying in a stadium from morning until night.”

Retroactive Question:
 You went back on your words didn’t you, prime minister?

Najib seeks Indian community’s trust and hope
(Sarawak Tribune, July 5, p.2, Bernama)

Quote –
and a few more that spinned the same platitudes:

“When we talk about the future, we must build a vision of it that centers on a sense of hope, of faith, in better times to come. In other words, what we need is ‘nambikei’ (Tamil for faith)… Hope is crucial as it brings lights to corners of despair and gives clarity to thoughts of uncertainty.” (Prime Minister Najib speaking to the Indian community when he opened The Temple of Fine Arts building and Shantanand Auditorium in Brickfields, July 4).

Question:
 Since independence, the Indian community remains among the poorest of the poor in Malaysia. How and when will the government bring them out of their ‘despair’ and ‘uncertainty’ in their children’s future?

Paraphrase (2nd last para): [Najib] said there should be a broader institution that was likewise (with the TFA) dedicated to all themes framing and shaping the Indian community in this country.

Question:
 If that applies to the TFA, why the bureaucratic hurdles to the Christian community in getting permits to build churches – or even to freely use the word ‘Allah’ in their Sunday sermons and literature?

Opposition slammed for belittling “people first” slogan
(Sarawak Tribune, July 5, p.3, Bernama)

Paraphrase (2nd para): [Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin] said the opposition’s claim that (the 1Malaysia slogan) ringed hollow was forgetting the fact that the slogan had been long practised by the BN government. “It is just that under the leadership (of Najib)… we want a transformation for an even better qualify of life for the people.” (Muhyiddin addresssing youth leaders, unions and NGOs in Malacca, July 4).

Question:
Malaysia’s brain drain is continuing with most heading for Singapore and Australia. Latest estimates – about one million skilled Malaysians are living and contributing overseas. Non-Malay students are also choosing not to come home after they graduate. Why is this?

Paraphrase (5th para): Muhyiddin cited his one-day visit to Malacca as… putting the people first… where he had mingled with taxi drivers and petty traders at the Melaka Sentral market here. “By going directly to the people, I can get to know their problems and find solutions.”

Question:
 Putting the people first is expected of an elected public servant. What problems did you find out from the taxi drivers and petty traders? What cause their problems?

Paraphrase: Pressing home the point further, Muhyddin said the great thing about meeting the “main-in-the-street” was it was a “shoulder-to-shoulder” meeting whereby the chairs the leaders and the people sat were of the same height.

Question:
So what?

And, the prime minister thinks this level of reporting is worthy of emulating?

Lesson for mainstream journalists

The lesson that mainstream journalists, and editors, should draw from the past weeks of unthinking government-led journalism is this: not everything that those in power say is intelligent or accurate. Know when you’re being used as a mouthpiece. Think, ask, probe, challenge, factualise and verify. If in doubt, check it out many times – or leave it out.

We know, as rank-and-file reporters your hands are tied working for editors whose first loyalty is to the state than the people. Your stories are often censored or spiked. But the people wish that you’d at least try to be more creative, intellectually independent and passionate enough to ‘beat’ rather than become part of the editorial system. If all else fails, just send your stories to alternative outlets. The ‘truth’ should be told.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 15 July 2011, 6:48 pm and is filed under
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Poet Samad Said to boycott gov’t functions

By
Nigel Aw

Jul 15, 11 | MalaysiaKini

Protesting the government’s crackdown on peaceful protesters in Kuala Lumpur last Saturday, distinguished poet and novelist A Samad Said said he will from now on not attend government functions.

“I don’t know how my friends in government will react, but I will not accept any invitation from the government. For the moment, I will not entertain them,” he said.

“If the opposition wins, then I will entertain,” he quipped.

Samad made the comments in an exclusive interview with Malaysiakini at a restaurant in Bangsar yesterday.

The 76-year-old national laureate has written some 70 books and is a common figure at government functions.

His novel, Di Hadapan Pulau is also part of the Malay language literature module for secondary schools.

However, the usually low profile septuagenarian is now training his pen against the government in support of electoral reform group Bersih 2.0.

Popularly known as Pak Samad, he has composed three poems in support of the movement’s push for electoral reforms, one of which, Unggun Bersih, raised alarms with the police who investigated him for sedition.

The poem, penned during a Bersih meeting, described the movement as a flare for democracy.

The other two poems, Peludah Warna and Semarak Menyala, were a response to the government’s crackdown on Bersih.

The move caused an outrage among Malaysians, prompting more than 100 artistes to condemn the police action and express support for Samad”s work.

Four other national laureates had also called on the government to release all Bersih detainees prior to last week’s rally.

However, many of the literary figures were not present on the ground during the July 19 demonstration, and about this Samad said that they had their families to consider.

“Maybe they have projects (with the government) or need to consider their finances, or maybe their children’s scholarships.

“Some of my friends said there was no need for street demonstration, but for me, we should (go to the ground),” he said.

Asked if he would join the ranks of his friends if he had a government project, the national laureate said he would follow his conscience.

“I will ask my heart, my heart always does the speaking. Even now I only have only RM96 in my bag, from royalties… without it, I have nothing,” he said.

Bersih’s literary champion

The Bersih poems, which have become a symbol of defiance, were inspired by the political turbulence in the country, Samad said.

“I believe it was spontaneous. When I was at (the formal launch of Bersih 2.0) at the Kuala Lumpur-Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall, I felt that there was a need for a strong voice (for the movement).

“What I could not say, I wrote as a poem,” he added.

Despite being aware that his works on Bersih would hurt his literary space and earn the wrath of the government, Samad remains undeterred.

“In the end, I want to say, the fire is lit, and it will remain lit. It cannot be extinguished, the fire will fight back,” he said.

“It (income) doesn’t matter, for this year or two. My livelihood is from God, not from other people,” Samad said.

The national laureate added that he will not be writing in other media including the alternative media so as not to be labelled as pro-government or pro-opposition.

“I write on Facebook every week. If I write for Malaysiakini, people may label me as opposition,” he said.

The national laureate’s next project will be to compile his experiences in writing the Bersih poems.

This was Samad’s second protest, the last one being in March 2009, protesting against the government’s policy to teach Science and Mathematics in English.

A strong proponent of Malay literature, he has penned at least a dozen novels and countless poems, and has also worked as a journalist for several Malay-language newspapers, as well as editor at Berita Minggu.

He was honoured as a national laureate, or Sasterawan Negara, in 1985.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 15 July 2011, 6:35 pm and is filed under
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Sizzling yellow reception for Najib in UK

MalaysiaKini

Jul 15, 11

Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s visit to the United Kingdom was greeted by protesters in yellow condemning the high-handed crackdown on Bersih 2.0 rally last Saturday and demanded electoral reform.

Dozens of protesters, comprising both Malaysians and foreigners, gathered outside Mansion House at London an hour before Najib’s arrivalfor a meeting with the London business community.

Yellow posters and banners, condemning the clampdown on Bersih 2.0 were unfurled, urging the Malaysian government to release six Parti Sosialis (PSM) activists dubbed “EO6” being held under the Emergency Ordinance which allows indefinite detention without trial.

According to the Sarawak Report portal, Najib in a big convoy gave a cheery wave as soon as he spotted the crowd.

It said the protest went off peacefully with the policing minimal and friendly.

According to a protester, PKR youth leader Ginie Lim the police deployed a truck to block the protesters from the view of the delegates attending the meeting.

Yellow begins to reign supreme

There was another peaceful protest at Downing Street, London, where the official residence of UK Prime Minister is located. Najib was there to meet his UK counterpart, David Cameron.

Both leaders signed a memorandum of understanding on enhancing strategic cooperation to combat trans-boundary crime and international terrorism.

Protesters in yellow clothes put up posters, in matching colour, that read “Shame on you, Malaysia PM, clean and fair election and free our leaders now”.

Another protest will be called at the Inter Continental Hotel today in UK time 7pm where Najib is expected to attend a function.

Before the meeting with Cameron, both Najib and his wife, Rosmah Mansor, had an audience with Queen Elizabeth II yesterday in Buckingham Palace, who coincidently wore a bright yellow dress

                This entry was posted on Friday, 15 July 2011, 4:44 pm and is filed under
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The elephant in the (news)room

By
Dr Mustafa K Anuar

July 15, 2011 | The Malaysian Insider

JULY 15 — The morning after. The pro-government mainstream press splashed headlines, news reports, so-called “analyses” and photos that essentially and predictably mocked, discredited and demonised the leaders, supporters and participants of the Bersih 2.0 rally in Kuala Lumpur last Saturday.

For instance, the Sunday Star carried a front-page headline that said: “Defiant”. The bold headline accompanied a huge picture of a face-off between the Federal Reserve Unit and other police personnel on the one hand and the protesters on the other at the temporarily closed Puduraya bus terminal.

Why “defiant”? This is because the political backdrop that had been played up and emphasised by the powers-that-be and with the help of their compliant mainstream media as well in the run-up to this event was that an “illegal” rally was being planned.

Surely, as this logic would insist, to go along with that “illegal” gathering, nay defying the restriction order and police warning, was an act of defiance of the highest order on the part of the protesters.

If anything, if we follow this argument through, the demonstrators “deserved” to be depicted as “troublemakers” (and possibly treated, or rather mistreated, as such).

In the absence of a vital reminder in the news coverage about the democratic right of ordinary Malaysians to exercise their freedom of assembly and expression peacefully as enshrined in the Federal Constitution, such a depiction was aimed at gaining traction among the less politically savvy or simply naive Malaysians.

It therefore “makes sense” for Prime Minister Najib Razak, who was quoted all the way from Kuala Terengganu where he was attending a Bakti sports competition on Saturday itself, to have expressed his relief that the “illegal” rally “did not cause serious harm to people and property” (Headlined on page 2, “PM glad no real harm caused”).

In other words, one would expect anarchy and vandalism at the very least from people who seemingly had the penchant for breaking laws — but, alas, the police were able to arrest that chaotic eventuality.

On the same page as the PM’s story, the “people’s paper” ran its editorial, headlined “The game is over, time for everybody to move on”, which borders on mischief. Surely participating in the rally knowing fully well the possibility of incurring the wrath and raining chemically-laced water and tear gas was no game at all.

Indeed, the people had made a calculated move to not only sacrifice their precious Saturday but also possibly bear the brunt of the state apparatus. No picnic in the park on Saturday, this one.

Besides, some of the things posed by the editorial make one wonder whether the paper is indeed located on a different planet: For example, “was there no better way of putting across the message, cause or demand for a clean general election?” (yes, the Bersih 2.0 folk had expressed grievances to the Election Commission (EC), but so far received an unsatisfactory response); “Whether or not a street demonstration should be the last resort for aggrieved parties, it should seldom, if ever, be the first” (yes, because of the lukewarm response of the EC, the rally became the last resort); and “The Yang di-Pertuan Agong had advised rally organisers against a street protest, and the prime minister had approved in principle a stadium rally” (yes, there was an attempt by the Bersih 2.0 organisers to come to the negotiation table, as rightly suggested by the King, with the federal government leadership but it wasn’t reciprocated eventually). So were the Bersih 2.0 folk still playing a game?

To be sure, there was space given to the Bersih 2.0 organising committee to briefly express their views pertaining to the rally, but this was put in the inside pages, placed next to a news item on Perkasa. MCA president Chua Soi Lek, to which this paper is politically affiliated, was given coverage in an earlier page where he protested that “Bersih’s protests make no sense.” Clueless in Kuala Lumpur.

As if not to be outdone, the New Sunday Times (NST) “graced” its entire front page with a picture of an unknown person (presumably one of the protesters), face masked and donning military fatigues, about to throw something into the air. In other words, the kind of “combatant” that could wreak havoc in the otherwise calm, but jammed streets of Kuala Lumpur.

This picture, which might remind you of the stormy Palestinian Intifada of yore, was juxtaposed with the quizzical headline “Peaceful?”. This was possibly aimed at questioning the public assurance of the Bersih 2.0 rally organisers that it would be free of violence.

Like the coverage of the Sunday Star, the NST’s was meant to convey a message to the readers that street demonstrations of this nature inevitably lead to chaos, a breakdown in law and order, are a danger to national security and hurt businesses big time. Hence, the need to lock down the key entry points into the city and conduct road blocks, among other things, by the police force.

The second page of the paper ran the expected headline, “Four hours of madness”, that was accompanied by a big photo of demonstrators drenched with the chemically-laced water in front of Menara Maybank in Kuala Lumpur, and a fallen motorcycle parked by the roadside, presumably knocked down by the running crowd. A picture of disorder, in short.

A cursory look at the headlines in the following pages would give an indication of the newspaper’s ideological slant: “Govt not against fair election, says Najib”; “Hisham: King’s advice not heeded”; “‘Swift action contained rallies’”; “16 children among 1,667 held”; “Gloom as shoppers shy away”; “Demos ruin wedding plans”; and then the so-called think pieces of the paper’s Who’s Who such as “Sheer display of arrogance and political posturing”; and “Apply the law on rally organisers.”

The only space allotted to the Bersih 2.0 organisers by the newspaper was the one buried in the inside pages that reported of PAS threatening another rally if the authorities didn’t release their leaders and other Bersih 2.0 committee members; and next to it a news story indicating Bersih 2.0’s demands, but this without the steering committee members being given a voice to speak in their own right (“4 more demands added to 2011 list”).

The unmistakable and indefatigable Mingguan Malaysia screamed a headline “Usaha polis berjaya” (the police’s effort bears fruit) to convey the message that the police force managed to pre-empt the “illegal” attempts of the Bersih 2.0 folk to march to the Stadium Merdeka, thus saving KL from calamity.

It is the kind of “news” that was supposed to induce a sigh of relief among its readers. This news item carried with it a big photo of a scene where a few of the demonstrators were seen to have thrown certain objects at the police truck that was moving in front of them, an act which the daily deemed “wild” (bertindak liar).

Undoubtedly, the paper, like many other dailies and TV stations in town, put heavy emphasis on the “illegality” of the well-attended rally that was painted to be disorderly.

Also on the front page was a quote from the prime minister who expressed, as was similarly reported in the Sunday Star, relief and thanked the police force for having managed to ensure that the rally didn’t end with a disaster to human lives and property. Najib added that those who didn’t participate in the “illegal” rally were Malaysians who cherished peace and harmony and paid heed to the advice of the King, the Selangor Sultan and the (federal) government. If-you’re-not-with-them, you’re-with-us kind of simplistic argument.

Like the other papers, the headlines used in Mingguan Malaysia suggest a certain ideological bent. Take a look at the following sample: “Polis berjaya kekang Bersih” (Police succeed in restraining Bersih); “Pembangkang pesong niat Bersih” (Opposition deviates Bersih’s intention); and “Ingkar arahan, polis terpaksa guna meriam air” (Instruction defied, police forced to use water cannon).

There’s one whole page dedicated pictorially to the rally and here was where the dots were made to connect, judging from the captions of the selected photos: “Akur” (Compliance) accompanied a photo of Perkasa leaders holding a press conference, where it was said that the right-wing group refused to enter the fray as they didn’t want to go against the advice of the King. “Patriot” obviously showed a photo of the Umno Youth holding a counter-rally. “Jadi mangsa” (Victimised) accompanied a photo of the LRT passengers waiting tiredly for their delayed train. “Ganas” (Violent) showed a demonstrator throwing back a gas canister at the police. “Lengang” (Quiet) explained the quietness in the shopping area along Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman. “Layanan baik” (Good treatment) showed the detained demonstrators being “well treated” as exemplified by their ability to pray in the detention area. “Turut serta” (Participating) showed the leader of the Pertubuhan Seni Silat LIncah Malaysia, Omardin Maju, joining hands with the Patriots. “Ingkar” (Disobey) obviously referred to the photo of the Bersih 2.0 leaders in Kuala Lumpur who defied the ban order on them. And last but not least: “Sesak” (Jammed) depicted a Kuala Lumpur street that was jam-packed with vehicles caused by, surprise, surprise, the Bersih 2.0 rally.

Like their political masters, the mainstream press and other media had placed so much emphasis on the so-called “illegality” of the rally (and also its consequent violence, or the threat of violence — coming from the motley crowd that had been made out to be unruly) that this “illegality” factor had eclipsed, or drowned out, the very eight demands of the Bersih 2.0 organisers and supporters.

Additionally, the Bersih 2.0 steering committee was not given enough space to explain in their own voice their side of their story: why they did what they did after all avenues were exhausted.

In a sense, the mainstream press treated the “illegal” Bersih 2.0 rally like a yellow plague, which is most unfortunate given that the aspirations of the Bersih 2.0 organisers had transcended them, and subsequently caught the imagination of many Malaysians, both the rally participants and the “silent majority.”

Besides, this rally has assumed national significance for it had managed to amass tens of thousands of people on the streets of Kuala Lumpur despite the many obstacles placed against the participants such as pre-rally arrests (including MP Jeyakumar Devaraj and his PSM colleagues who are still being detained), roadblocks, hotel room checks, shutdown on bus stations and selected LRT stations, the threatening Friday sermon and warning circulars to civil servants.

And yet, the press as a whole chose to ignore, nay belittle, this “yellow elephant” in their very newsrooms. It’s a cruel mockery of the dreams of ordinary Malaysians, irrespective of their ethnic origins, who crave for a better tomorrow. Just look at the outpouring and sharing of sentiments and observations of the Bersih 2.0 participants in the online newspapers, especially those who felt “truly Malaysian.”

Equally important, to disregard this social phenomenon and all its ramifications is tantamount to the mainstream press abandoning, if not betraying, journalistic ethics, and commitment to truth and social responsibility.

Ignore all this at the mainstream press’ own peril for it would only heighten the credibility deficit that it so far possesses.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 15 July 2011, 10:45 am and is filed under
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Tung Shin should put people before gov’t

Malaysiakini Your Say
 | Jul 15, 11

‘Tung Shin missed the point: as a social entity with a mission, who should Tung Shin entertain first – the police or those who need help?’

Doctors: We’ll produce more evidence if challenged

Cala:
 Honorary secretary of Tung Shin Hospital board Chong Teck Hong has turned Tung Shin into a state apparatus.

From Chong’s perspective, the assumption is that the hospital is both a private property as well as a common-pool resource. The property is privately-owned by a certain entity or corporation. It is also common-pool resource, similar to commercial shopping centres like Subang Parade, since it cannot reject anybody from entering.

But Chong may have missed the point: What if the persons who wished to take refuge from the hospital were suffering from injuries inflicted upon them by police, say from water cannons and canisters?

As a social entity with a mission, who would you entertain first? Is Tung Shin now saying they would encourage police to do their job first? Or aren’t they supposed to attend to those who need help?

In effect, what Chong really says is from now on Tung Shin is part of the regime, similar to any state apparatus – the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, police, army, and judiciary.

140V:
 Article 18, Part II of the Fourth Geneva Convention (Aug 12, 1949) states clearly that: “Civilian hospitals organised to give care to the wounded and sick, the infirm and maternity cases, may in no circumstances be the object of attack but shall at all times be respected and protected by the Parties to the conflict.”

Ally Meme:
 Anyone asking around in the hospital would have found out the truth. This is certainly a case of an arrogant Liow Tiong Lai as health minister who thought the hospital management and staff would not dare to say anything contrary to his statement.

My hats off to these doctors for upholding an international convention. Hospitals are sanctuary for all.

Multi Racial:
 Liow is getting annoying. What more evidence does he need? Photos and videos of the incident are all over the place. Is he blind or in denial? Now he blames the hospital management for not informing him?

Swipenter:
 Liow, twisting and turning at this juncture won’t change the fact that you were lying with a straight face when you defended the lie that the police did not violate the sanctity of Tung Shin Hospital.

You now to shift the onus to the management of Tung Shin Hospital for not mentioning that the police fired tear gas and sprayed chemical laced water into the hospital ground?

Are you suggesting that you didn’t read the news coming out from cyberspace but yet you twitted to defend yourself? Have you no decency to apologise to the hospital, her staff and patients and the Malaysian public? Or you are waiting for investigation (whatever that means) to be completed?

Why don’t you challenge the doctors to show proof to make it easier for yourself so that you can apologise?

Fair_Election:
 It’s pretty simple, all you need to do is say is: “I’m sorry, I’ve made a mistake.” Would you rather live a lie than say that you were wrong? What so wrong about admitting a mistake? The reason Umno/BN is where it is today is because they have been arrogant and too proud to admit their mistakes. The rakyat would be kinder to you if you were more modest.

One Hand Covers The Sky: How can the health minister say that “the hospital authority did not tell him about the eyewitnesses in the incident” as if he was not aware of the Bersih rally last Saturday, where thousands of people clogged up Puduraya, which is in the vicinity of Tung Shin Hospital? Is he that busy and ignorant, or just pretending as if nothing happened at the hospital.

Liow, you are either out of touch with the reality of the things happening around you or you are not interested in knowing and caring about the rakyat who elected you as their representative in the government.

Better resign now, or either your Liow clansmen will disown you and you’ll be known as Liow the Liar.

Henry Hock:
 I happened to be in Tung Shin yesterday. Being a busybody, I asked several nurses and guards whether the tear gas really came in. All gave same quick replied, “No”. And like a robot, they all gave the same reason: “I was on leave”.

I asked a guard. I can see his eyes repeatedly ‘bouncing’ from side to side and he hesitantly said, “Tak ada lah”. His colleagues shook their heads and said “Kami on leave”. That guard then said, “Ya, ya, ya, saya cuti kerja”.

But I retorted, “Kalau you cuti, mana you tahu itu (gas and water) tak masuk?” He just smiled.

I don’t know whether they have all have been sternly instructed to say the same thing. But I salute to the brave doctors who are not afraid to say what they saw.

Joshua: I am sure many people are proud of the doctors for their boldness in coming forward. We plead for people in high places to be transparent, but I doubt it will happen.

Watch out, doctors, some of those very people in high office may at this moment be concocting plans on how to harm you.

Rocky:
 Liow Tiong Lai should resign because he had refuted evidence, but he blames the board of Tung Shin Hospital. Tung Shin’s chairman of the board should tell us the truth.

If he can’t defend himself, then he and those in attendance with the minister should resign, while the PM Najib Abdul Razak, Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein and IGP Ismail Omar should apologise.

Even prisoners of war have rights, why not our own rakyat? Police and ministers, please respect houses of worship and hospitals.

Suhakam to probe ‘police brutality’ during rally

SusahKes:
 Sure, go right ahead, Suhakam, do all the ‘inquiry’ you want. But then after you have compiled a massive report, you will hand it over to the same government that rubber stamped NFA (no further action) on VK Lingam’s file.

And while you’re ‘studying’ the terms and reference of such an inquiry, most Malaysians have already made up their mind. So please do spare a thought when you are sit around to discuss the matter, whilst enjoying the ‘karipap’ and ‘teh tarik’ funded by taxpayers.

Rayfire:
 Will it be for real this time? Since before such attempts fizzled out after the government voiced concern. Will Suhakam remain impartial and report the truth, for once? I do hope so, otherwise the Bersih generation will go against you.

Chipmunk:
 Suhakam, face the truth. You guys are toothless. Unless you are able to convince the rakyat you’ll take concrete and firm action, please do not waste the taxpayers’ money just to show the world that Umno/BN is a just and caring government. Maybe you should consider giving the IGP (police chief) tuition in maths, since he can’t differentiate between 6,000 and 50,000.

David Dass:
 This is a healthy development. And we should welcome it. Suhakam was established for a purpose. Let them do what they were set up to do. The police must know that they are subject to law and their behavior is subject to public scrutiny.

If among them are those who have misbehaved, let them be brought to book. We should use every legal avenue available to us to bring about positive change in the country.

Fellow Malaysian:
 So the ground work in the investigation has been established and the many accounts of PDRM’s over-zealous and excessive use of force have been documented. This looks simple enough.

The more important thing is to obtain a an appropriate commission of inquiry from the government to start proceedings and hear the case.

Suhakam, from the looks of your past record and credentials, the rakyat are dismayed and far from being satisfied with it. It is time you stand up and be counted. Debunk the label of being called a ‘toothless tiger’.

Your moment has come to set the record straight. The rakyat will not blame you for trying hard to defend them.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 15 July 2011, 10:09 am and is filed under
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Untameable Bersih Part 2, understanding it

By
 Sakmongkol AK47

July 15, 2011 | The Malaysian Insider

JULY 15 — Some spell it as “tamable”. Others as “tameable”. The fact remains, the marchers cannot be tamed and though battered and aspersed, remained unbowed and honourable.

How do we make sense and explain the actions that took place after Bersih?

Let’s have our own debriefing session lest we agonise over how the media characterised our fellow citizens who marched on July 9. On the whole, I think, those people who marched towards Stadium Merdeka on July 9 before being horribly set upon by the police with tear gas and chemically-laced water are good, honourable and public-spirited people.

They carried no parangs and other assortment of dangerous weapons which were displayed by the police a few weeks ago and which looked suspiciously bought from a same single supplier. Perhaps one person was assigned to purchase the “weapons” from a single supplier and then the cache was displayed before all. Logic would have it that if the weapons were owned by different people, they would be of a jumbled-up lot. Here an axe, there a pisau, over here a parang, over there a catapult. Where were the Molotov cocktails?

Samad Said, the National Laureate whose earliest novel “Salina” I read a long time ago, could hardly be described a subversive or crook. Khalid Samad? Haji Hadi? These people consisted of ordinary people from all walks of lives — pensioners, taxi drivers, writers, lawyers. They are just plain, public-spirited individuals.

The Bersih marchers are not street mobs on a looting spree. They are peaceful marchers making a statement about how elections are run in this country. But as usual Umno and the government like to claim and exercise ownership on the bad things. So any attacks against the bad things owned by the government are taken as attacks against lawful government and therefore require punishment. The punishment came in baton wallops, water cannons ejecting chemically-laced water, tear gas and physical abuse. All these are of course mild treatment from our own chaps in blue.

If we read and listened to the pliant print and audio-visual media machinery, all those who participated in the Bersih march are subversives, traitors and dummies. These people are tools of Lim Kit Siang, mules for Anwar Ibrahim, digits directed by Indians, especially that minachi named Ambiga. Those marchers and those who write in support of the Bersih cause will all perish. Umno will triumph and those causing trouble will be punished.

How does the government explain Bersih?

1) Bersih is an outlawed organisation used as a front by opposition politicians and politicians who have lost credibility.

2) Bersih is just a ploy by Anwar Ibrahim to revive his image.

3) Bersih is a subversive effort by people to unseat the government unlawfully.

4) Bersih is a strategy by non-Malays and foreign agents to destroy the Malay government.

5) Bersih is anti-Islam.

This is the story that is going to be retold over and again in kampungs and villages.

Bersih 1 took place so many years ago. The previous home minister must have slept through his job, whoever he was. Perhaps at that time, he was busier overseeing the processing of immigrant workers from Nepal, Bangladesh and Indonesia.

Bersih, which did the same thing as the intended one on July 9, wasn’t outlawed? The answer can only be straight and simple — simply because it never contained any crooked elements. This time, the government is more creative — first they discovered an assortment of weapons, then the NGO was outlawed. There was also an attempt to picture the marchers as communists because some posters of Shamsiah Fakeh were discovered. I thought some time ago Utusan Malaysia hailed Shamsiah Fakeh as a freedom fighter? Bersih was also hinted as a front for foreign powers and that it received funding abroad.

Why would the Yang di-Pertuan Agong be allowed to meet up with representatives of an outlawed organisation and why would the PM be willing to discuss with an outlawed organisation?

The outlawing of Bersih smacks of the use of unbridled discretionary power. If Bersih is outlawed, then it must have contained elements that were outlaw-able right from the beginning. That it was outlawed on the eve of the July 9 march would suggest that the decision to do so was done maliciously as it was unprincipled. This is the reason why Bersih was outlawed — to justify the actions intended upon the marchers.

Understanding why they were set upon then would help the marchers dispel any notions that they were crooks or subversive elements. These people are not crooks but participants and supporters to a cause espoused by a hastily and peculiarly outlawed organisation.

The hidden agenda is, by outlawing Bersih it will be possible for the government to declare the participants and the organisers en bloc as law breakers. As law breakers, they are subject to the laws governing crowd control and public disturbance. It will be easy henceforth to justify any actions against the marchers and organisers in accordance with the law.

I think the mainstream media is overplaying this point. There were elaborate attempts to show Bersih as a means to restore Anwar’s sagging fortunes. Hence Utusan Malaysia gave coverage about Anwar’s involvement in the rally. But this was truly and actually wasn’t about Anwar anymore. If he feigned his injury, wearing the familiar neck brace and looking almost dead on the hospital bed, he must have gotten a miraculous recovery for the very same night he was in his element at the PKNS stadium in Kelana Jaya.

Everyone saw he fell down while negotiating somewhere after leaving his presidential suite at KL Hilton. Tian Chua was mobilising marchers who stampeded through the police cordon and in the melee, Anwar fell. I am almost near to saying: Anwar was actually a liability in the Bersih rally.

I am sure the police must have been instructed not to touch the 91 people classified persona non grata in KL on July 9. The same cannot be said of the nameless but determined marchers on that day. Being nameless gave the police a freer hand to deal at their discretion. Excessive force was applied on these people.

Let’s push the argument further. Even if Anwar leveraged on the Bersih march, does association with Anwar make the march illegal? Somehow it must be wrong if Anwar is involved. Let’s not forget that Anwar has paid a heavy cost for his Sodomy I. He has not been convicted yet and therefore technically must be presumed innocent.

Anwar is a former deputy PM and is currently battling legal charges and is on trial. Association with Anwar, who is maligned with all sorts of dirty descriptions, does not make Bersih and its cause any less honourable. Anwar’s case is his and his alone — it does not pollute the cause of the Bersih marchers. Hence, there is no shame for the marchers if others accuse the marchers as Anwar’s mules.

Anwar’s presence does not diminish Bersih nor besmirch the honour of the marchers.

Let’s try to make some sense about how the government responded. Anwar was factored in the rally. First-hand accounts were elicited from international tourists. Traders and travellers were solicited for their comment. The whole rally was classified as haram. It caused great hardship to traders who lost business and daily life was disrupted. Bersih is an insidious ploy by non-Malays to undermine the Malay government.

Why is the government doing all this rather elaborately? The answer is: it’s all part of the mind-conditioning process of the public. It’s trying to isolate the Bersih marchers as some foreign substance to prevent it from becoming some integral element of a civil society.

But here is the thing. Spontaneous and voluntary banding together is an important ingredient of a civilised and democratic society. Only Third World despots who are naturally anti-democracy respond the way the government did. Use batons and other harsh treatment on its own citizens.

Is Bersih an agenda for non-Malays to dislodge the Malays from political power? The bitter and inconvenient truth is the majority who marched with Bersih the other day were Malays. That makes the debatable fact that the rally was planned by Indians and that Malays are being used insignificant.

The cause and the beliefs underlying the resolve to march with Bersih are more important. That the Election Commission hasn’t been up to standard in ensuring elections are seen as clean was and shall remain the main objective. It wasn’t about overthrowing the government though street action. People marched because they are motivated by real concerns.

Why is the government afraid of electoral reforms? Everyone seems confident that the government will be returned with a bigger majority. The victory will be more honourable if it wins with integrity. The issue of postal voting is insignificant. Those in the service vote earlier because of operational reasons and the election process is done under watchful eyes. Representatives of political parties are present during the voting and vote counting process.

Why should aliens be given citizenship and the right to vote in order to ensure victory for certain people? The bigger issue here: how is it they got citizenship with such ease and so large a number?

On TV, we were shown interviews with a few Caucasians. They were inconvenienced they said. The inconvenience of two or three Caucasians is considered to create a jarring impact on Malaysia? Their pedantic views are irrelevant; as though they are not inconvenienced by other things. Many of us had to waddle through crawling traffic. Come, interview us, we will tell you another story.

Our opinions, coming out as Malaysians, are definitely more important than two backpacking Caucasians. The two Indian tourists said they had to go to bed starving. Were they going for a particular type of food that can’t be found elsewhere?

We were of course made to listen to excerpted interviews. If these kwailos come from western democracies, they are not altogether strangers to marches and demonstrations. Everyone gets inconvenienced especially those who want to use the same route.

The impression represented by the kwailos is irrelevant to Malaysia. Caucasian tourists will still come to Malaysia. All Ng Yen Yen needs to do is to flash out on her expensive Facebook routes to be avoided by the kwailos.

It’s all part of the mind-conditioning strategies of the print and audio-visual media industry.

Interviews with the Caucasians and the horny-looking Egyptian will be exploited to show people that tourism in Malaysia will be affected. Ng Yen Yen came out with her usual condescending explanation of how much we lost in terms of tourist revenue. If we earn RM30 billion over a month, a loss of one day’s revenue is RM1 billion, she will boom in her usual speech-giving style as though she’s talking to stupidas.

We will teach you a lesson in Raub, nyonya. — sakmongkol.blogspot.com

                This entry was posted on Friday, 15 July 2011, 11:04 am and is filed under
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Why did the police do what they did?

By
Zan Azlee

July 15, 2011 | The Malaysian Insider

JULY 15 — The tough policeman with the huge muscles grabbed me by my shoulders and flung me towards the sidewalk not caring that I had a press tag around my neck.

I struggled to keep my balance and not drop my camera. I barely managed to not trip over the curb.

“Halau cameraman itu! (Get rid of that cameraman!)” screamed the policeman’s other colleagues.

My crime? I was shooting a bunch of arrested demonstrators being led out of Tung Shin Hospital and through a police line.

The detainees had their hands “cuffed” and looked pretty much subdued. However, as they were led through the line, they were kicked and punched by the police.

I was on assignment for The Malaysian Insider to gather video footage of the Bersih rally in Kuala Lumpur on July 9.

But I couldn’t get enough footage of that incident since I ended up behind police lines along with other members of the media, cordoned off from what was happening.

There were many instances on the day when demonstrators were being arrested and people around would start yelling for the media to come document it.

“Media! Cepat! Polis tengah tahan orang! (Media! Hurry up! The police are arresting people!)” they would scream.

Many of them wanted visual proof that the police were being overly-aggressive when it came to arresting peaceful demonstrators.

Many also realised that if the media was around during the arrests, the police were less likely to use excessive force.

To me, that is just proof that a free and balanced media is a very important component to keep the wheel of democracy spinning smoothly.

But, of course, keeping things going smoothly can be close to impossible while being under such tense situations.

In the morning, before the demonstrators arrived in the city, the situation was very calm even though there were police everywhere.

The media, myself included, were free to roam around, taking pictures and video of the police all ready to face the day.

When the demonstrators started arriving, things got a bit tense. However, as far as my observations went, the tension did not arise from the demonstrators.

They were just marching and chanting for free elections. It was when the crowd got big (around 10,000 of them) that trouble started in front of Menara Maybank.

The trouble definitely did not start with the demonstrators. They didn’t approach the police. It was the police who came in firing tear gas and chemically-laced water.

The demonstrators were pushed back towards Jalan Pudu and that’s when all the aggressive arrests started happening.

At this point, the media were allowed free movement, even though we were screamed at to move away by the police. But we were not physically man-handled.

It was only after the second wave of tear gas attacks that the police started to control the media by cordoning them off behind police lines.

My friend, film director Liew Seng Tat, came to me and said he saw the police firing tear gas into Tung Shin Hospital. He then disappeared to join the rest.

Twenty minutes later, he was arrested and brought through the same police line that kicked and punched him while his hands were cuffed behind him.

The media must be given freedom to be there, if not to prevent it from happening in the first place, then definitely in order to inform the public of what happened.

I spoke to a journalist from a local 24-hour news channel and told him about how the police shoved me away and didn’t allow me to shoot them beating up detainees.

“Footage macam itu memang tak boleh keluar TV pun (Footage like that can’t be shown on TV anyway),” he shrugged.

The response that I got from him showed me the defeatist attitude of some segments of the local media and this almost got me down for a while.

But thank God that feeling didn’t last long and I still believe in the power of the media when it comes to sticking up for human rights and defending the ordinary folk.

I also believe that the police exist to serve the people and keep them protected and safe. Then why did they attack, arrest and beat peaceful demonstrators?

They must know that they were doing wrong if they felt the need to keep the media away from witnessing what they were doing.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 15 July 2011, 10:51 am and is filed under
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Bersih and the wider trust deficit problem

By
Hafiz Noor Shams

July 16, 2011 | The Malaysian Insider

JULY 16 — Somewhere in Streatham, south of London earlier this year, I found myself slouching lazily on a couch watching the BBC with a friend and his still lazier cat. On television was the Egyptian revolution “live”, with protesters and government supporters throwing rocks at each other. Such was the lamentable state of Egypt that used to be the apex of human civilisation not once, but twice. Its deeply-flawed institutions had reduced Egypt into a state of anarchy.

“Don’t you find this impossible?” I think I asked my friend. “We know these protesters want Mubarak out but what about his supporters? Are their wishes less legitimate than those protesting on the streets?”

The reply came promptly, “The importance of a credible election. Credible elections are important in determining popular opinion. Nothing in Egypt has enough credibility or the competence to ascertain the popular opinion right now.”

The Arab Spring is an extreme example but it does highlight the importance of a working electoral system. It highlights the importance of individuals trusting a system to aggregate popular opinion fairly and peacefully.

For this reason, the effort at electoral reforms by Bersih is important. Some of its demands add transparency in the electoral process and transparency goes a long way in creating credibility.

Bersih, of course, is about electoral reforms but the question of confidence in institutions is really part of the larger trust deficit problem in Malaysia. The problem of trust deficit is this: a considerable portion of Malaysians distrusts the government. And they are not libertarians. Rather, they are part of the everyday people.

It does not matter whether that portion makes up the majority of Malaysian society or not. The point is that they are big enough that they cannot be ignored, or banned just like that. There is no place for an ostrich if the country plans to solve the deficit.

For Malaysia, distrust in public institutions will not degenerate to the deplorable level seen in the Arab world recently anytime soon. It is an exaggeration to say otherwise. That is a long way down the canyon. Yet, various other not-so-ideal things can happen with the lack of confidence in public institutions.

When the public distrusts the courts, the police and everything that is commonly understood as the typical uncontroversial functions of the state, the government will have a hard time doing its job.

Take distrust in the police, for example. Crime cannot be the responsibility of the police alone. Crime fighting requires co-operation from the public. In an overly distrusting environment, is there a reason for a person to aid the police? Be a witness for the police? Is there a reason for the person to report the occurrence of crime to the police? Is there a reason for the person to believe the police will protect them?

All that will see individuals investing in their security, taking resources away from more productive activities. They make redundant activities typically funded by taxes.

This is already happening. Drive around Petaling Jaya and other neighbourhoods and one can see what effectively are gated communities. Residents are pooling their resources to hire private firms to secure their property.

It shows they are distrustful of the police. Or at least how they do not believe that the police are competent enough to serve them, the taxpayers. What, one might ask, is the point of paying taxes to support the police force when one has to employ private security firms to keep one’s house safe?

And just to be naughty, if there was enough trust between the public and the government, the government would not have to spend millions of public funds for public relations exercises. That money can better be spent elsewhere. Yet, in times of great scepticism, what would be wasteful during normal times could become a necessity to keep the government running.

It is good to keep a healthy dose of scepticism against the government and the state in general. Yet, there is some optimum level of scepticism before destructive cynicism sets in.

Quite unfortunately, the current government of Malaysia — the Abdullah and the Najib administrations alike — is too good at inculcating public cynicism against itself. Given how the government tries hard to erode the independence of public institutions, the government is undermining public confidence in public institutions.

Bersih is a modest effort at trying to ultimately restore credibility to public institutions. In its little way, it is an effort to tackle the wider trust deficit.

The Najib administration, however, disagrees and demonises Bersih instead. Maybe that is not at all surprising. The flawed institutions of status quo benefit the incumbent. The administration and its fiercest supporters are happy with the status quo. In jargon-speak, they have captured the public institutions.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 16 July 2011, 12:46 pm and is filed under
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Bersih asset freeze will scare investors, says DAP

By
Boo Su-Lyn

July 16, 2011 | The Malaysian Insider

KUALA LUMPUR, July 16 — The government’s threat to freeze the assets of those involved with Bersih 2.0 will destroy Malaysia’s financial reputation as bad press abounds on the Najib administration’s handling of last weekend’s rally, the DAP said today.

Deputy Finance Minister Datuk Awang Adek Hussin said yesterday that Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) can freeze the assets of those believed to be participating in activities deemed risky to the nation’s security.

“Such actions are detrimental to Malaysia’s efforts to establish itself as a safe haven for capital and investments,” DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng said in his keynote speech at the party’s national leadership retreat in Seremban today.

“If assets can be frozen just for participating in a peaceful assembly or for receiving funds from non-profit foreign NGOs, then many innocent Malaysians and organisations will be unfairly victimised,” added the Penang chief minister.

The Umno-owned Utusan Malaysia reported on July 3 that Bersih 2.0 chairman Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan received funds from foreign non-profit organisations through a local bank, saying the bank was chosen to help the former Bar Council president in her plan to “cause chaos in Malaysia”.

It also claimed that an opposition leader owns shares in the bank.

Bersih was also hit by allegations of having received funding from, among others, foreign Christian organisations to finance its July 9 rally for electoral reforms.

But the movement countered the accusations by saying the donations for the rally came from Malaysian citizens here and abroad. It also clarified that money the group received from two US organisations — the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and Open Society Institute (OSI) — were for other projects unrelated to the July 9 march.

Lim said freezing Bersih’s assets would be a “gross abuse” of the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act, which allows the central bank to not only bar access to such funds but also trace both deposits and withdrawals of the offending accounts.

“Would others involved in ‘illegal assemblies’ like Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin have their assets frozen?” he asked.

The Bagan MP also pointed out that no action was taken against those suspected of illegally siphoning RM888 billion out of Malaysia from 2000 to 2008.

He stressed that the Najib administration only had itself to blame for the international media’s attack on its “harsh” crackdown on the Bersih demonstration last week.

“So ridiculous was the crackdown that wearing yellow was sufficient cause for arrest.

“The documented beatings and recorded brutal treatment on video tape was completely unprovoked and put Malaysia on the same international platform as the repressive Arab regimes in the Middle East,” said Lim.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 16 July 2011, 2:44 pm and is filed under
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Building a new ‘We’ for the nation

By
M Nadarajah

Jul 16, 11 | MalaysiaKini

Recently, I had to go to IJN to be with my brother-in-law who recently went through open-heart surgery to replace a faulty valve in his heart. He was in ICU.

As my trip was from PJ during peak hours, I had time to chat with the taxi driver – something I normally do with drivers who are friendly and willing to chat.

Most of the time, such conversations lapse into topical political issues, race relations, the economic situation and sometimes, personal challenges.

This time it led to conversation on Bersih and what it stood for. He was completely for it, showing a lot of knowledge about it.

He thought Bersih is for everyone. In fact, he also educated me on the fact that EDSA, the peaceful revolution in Philippines in the late 80s that saw the removal of the Marcos regime, also extensively used the symbolic import of the yellow colour.

So I asked him if he would participate in the event calling for the recognition of the principles for establishing fair and free elections in Malaysia.

He said: “I have a family … I have a sick mother… If I get into trouble, there will be no one to take care of my family … Not even those who I want to support … How can I participate? The only thing I do is pray … Without fail, I pray every day for what Bersih stands for…”

I am not sure how this response will sit with people who demand and pursue the need for everyone to put their signature on petitions or take part in confrontations, for those who say “you are either with us or with them” – people whom they call such Malaysians as scared or cowards.

Nation’s needs, the magnet

But it offered me, through a voice from the ground, another confirmation of ‘Bersih values’ and how far they have reached. It also showed me the many ways citizens are responding to the needs of the nation.

So if on July 9, you did not see your friend or neighbour in the peaceful rally, just entertain the possibility that they were there in spirit.

The support for a free, fair and corruption-free polity is far wide and deep coming for a peaceful rally to, perhaps, be considered a really good indicator. Numbers cannot capture the spirit behind it.

I reached IJN and waited with my family. The visiting period will start in about 15 minutes.

There are people of all races and religions – some praying in their own chosen way, some hoping all will be okay with their relative or friend in ICU. I recognised a wonderful social behaviour at this edge of life and death.

All are concerned with each other, checking out on each other’s relative or friend, one consoling the other, one informing the other of keeping them in their prayers, taking care where necessary – the doctors and nurses make sure that patients of all communities who have had gone through a long and tough operation, strapped to all kinds of sophisticated machines, are brought back to their normal, healthy self without ‘showing face’, without any gesture of disgust or displeasure, an inspiring service orientation.

The relationship among the people, doctors, nurses and patients at the ICU area reflected a Malaysia I always want to see, participate and experience.

Cruelty of outside world

Yet, when I walked away from IJN into supposedly the healthy world out there, it seemed to completely lack that mutual and cohesive spirit of care and concern for each other… the ‘healthy world’ out there is so divisive and ‘sick’ – devoid of a cohesive ‘We’ spirit on critical matters that involve the ‘health’ of the nation and all its citizens.

Over 50 years of independence, and now moving towards the 13th election, our polity is so badly divided we seem to have been unable to get our act together and positively move forward as a national community, with all our differences. It has become an ailment.

If an ailment is not recognised, the body is doomed to pain and eventually demise. That is where the nation is. It is sick and we are refusing to take care of it by coming together, as a cohesive surgical team would, with not only the required competence but also compassion and hope.

The old ‘We’ is so tragically fractured. And within the national consciousness, there is a state of denial of our national ailment which is not beneficial for us now or the well-being of the common future of our children, and theirs. Now there are many fancy and expensive symptomatic treatment of the ailment.

A housewife friend of mine puts it in exasperation, “What is really wrong about Bersih’s appeal. It is good for all, isn’t it? It is a cure, isn’t it?”

And the conversations, casual and involved, with other ordinary citizens suggest that we should all celebrate the call for of our polity, not go on the path to further hurt ourselves with roadblocks, checking, interrogation, legal actions, victimisation, arrests and incarceration, creating frightening scars on the national body and soul that history will judge us for…and ask the question ‘Was this the Malaysian way?’ It is unbearable, meaningless self-flagellation not preventive action.

Another more analytical conversation covered the following: “Is the government upset with the principles Bersih stands for or with Bersih itself as a political initiative or the way it wants to express those principles to the world?

Principles vs Malaysian way

“Looks like it is upset with it as a political initiative since the party representing the government see and demonise it as an opposition ploy not the voice of substantial number of citizens. They seem to be also upset with the way it is expressed, claiming that it is not ‘the Malaysian way’.

“Very difficult to define the Malaysian way in our complex political culture, seems more like a convenient ploy.

“Actually they should come out strongly in support of the principles and show to an objectively chosen independent body that they are actually addressing those principles in terms of institutional changes.

” But frankly, I do not see any sincerity or seriousness about the principles first. And it is perhaps this that is really causing the whole problem.

“Eventually these concerns should be the government’s not Bersih’s or the 60 odd organisations that support it.

“Our government should stand above parties for them, practice them and endear itself to all citizens. We can then nationally celebrate those principles anywhere… even in the Merdeka stadium!”

But that is not happening, so we badly need a therapeutic intervention. Bersih is certainly an attempt to cure and to help rebuild the country’s polity and re-form a new ‘We’ that the nation so badly needs – an honest, transparent and unifying We.

Bersih is really a platform to create the basis of a new “We” the nation is desperately looking for.

A new “We” based on the simple principles of transparency and honesty, particularly for organising and managing our public life. That must mean something if we are a nation of God-fearing people.

These principles – expressed through clean the electoral roll, reform postal ballot, use of indelible ink, minimum 21 days campaign period, free and fair access to media, strengthening of public institutions, stopping of corruption and stopping of dirty politics – are meant for all citizens, and certainly go beyond sectarian or party political selfish and myopic interests, beyond race, religious, class and gender.

Neglected side of political power

As I overheard in a restaurant, it is not so much about capturing power as much as it is for practicing power, responsibly and accountably.

It is also certainly for building a multi-cultural sustainable democracy for institutionally sustaining the new We. It must be in the interest of any government to see the value in the principles promoted by Bersih.

In corporate culture, it is about re-branding Malaysia, reducing political risks from pervasive, systemic and chronic conflict areas, building a stable environment of peace and trust thus reducing transaction risks and enhancing business performance.

Certainly, it must be in the interest of the government. So what would have gone peacefully and without much international media attention, what would have given KL huge economic benefits, and what would have improved people’s perception of the government, finally became highly visible social, political and media event and very negatively-charged.

So while we now debate the victory, success, or failure of the July 9 peaceful protest, which is rather perspectival, it is imperative we do not lose sight of the principles and the essential values they are based on.

Only if we feel oriented this way can be move towards healing a nation that is getting sick day by day with the old “We”.

We need a new lived unity to animate the heart of the nation. And we need it now… expressed through inclusive and compassionate symbolic, legal and institutional realities.

Walls must come down and bridges must be built. That will be our moral and political victory. And it should belong to all of us…

My family and I go to a temple to pray for my brother-in-law’s quick recovery and well-being.

It is customary for Hindus to wash and clean their feet, their hands and face before entering the sacred space of the temple. As I go through the process, all I could think was “bersih”. Isn’t it after all the precondition to enter any sacred space, including our nation… together?

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 16 July 2011, 3:03 pm and is filed under
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