The days leading to Bersih 3.0 on 28 April 2012 was
filled with a lot of uncertainties and fear. Where to meet? What time to take
off? Best route? What to bring? Transportation? Who’s coming? What to wear? Apart
from all of the uncertainties, I was a little pre-occupied with fear on the
prospect of being tear gas, chased by FRU and of course arrest. I had to
continually comfort myself on the reason I am going and because of these
reason, I needed to put my fears aside and think about the bigger picture and
that it’s no more about my, myself and I but about being a Malaysian. As a
Malaysian, I am standing up demanding that my right for a clean and fair
election is respected. Don’t hoodwinked me into telling me to express my views
in the ballot box when the ballot box is so tainted. And so I went…
THE DAY
On Friday night, a couple of us decided to overnight at a
friends place which was near the Kelana Jaya LRT line. Needless to say, with
all the anticipation, excitement and fear, I didn’t get to sleep much. But I was
very encourage when I read the news that 3,000 people were already at Dataran
Merdeka camping out. That was just crazy… the motivation for someone to
actually decide to sleep it out at Dataran for more than 12 hours before the
rally is very hard to comprehend. It just goes to show the deep desire in
people to see fairness and change.
We took off at 9am to make our way to Kelan Jaya station.
Already we were receiving news that the train station was close, cops all
around etc… But when we got there, the train station was not close but the
frequency of the trains were reduced significantly.. every 15 minutes one… and
there were a couple of cops around minding their own business. We could see
streams of people coming into the LRT station all dressed in their Bersih 3.0
t-shirt showing no fear at all. Train of course was pack but that was alright.
We all understood our purpose and was very accommodating and even helping crowd
management in the train by people giving instruction to make way and come in
further to make space.
When we arrive at Pasar Seni, we knew for good that we
were not a splinter group anymore but were in the midst of a sea of people all
with the same goal and objective. I didn’t know here that I would be
underestimating the actual turn out of the crowd. There were already a big group
of people gathered at Petaling Street. We had a heavy lunch, chilled around
Central Market where people continually made their way there, and before long,
the whole area at Pasar Seni/Central Market was packed with people. There were
on and off people shouting BERSIH! BERSIH! HIDUP RAKYAT! HIDUP RAKYAT! Apart
from the huge turn out of the crowd, it was nice to see our MPs also standing
together with us. Met Rafizi, Chua Jui Meng, Ambiga, Nizar, Nga Kor Ming and
Sivakumar.
Looking around me, it was a real eye opener. We always
thought that the Malays and Indians were the only ones who had the balls to
stand up for what is right and we Chinese were always in the background
gossiping about the matter. But these time around, there were loads of Chinese
people. We literally made up 50% or more of the crowd. It was really
encouraging to see people coming to the realization that sitting at home and
not doing anything more is no more a solution. We needed to take the responsibility
as citizens of Malaysia to fight for our right to be a Malaysian. Gone were the
days when we rested in our laurels and let other people do the fight. We are today,
all Malaysian fighters. Apart from that, another significant sight was the
college young and aunty uncle old were all part of the crowd. When I say college
young, these were like innocent looking 18 year olds who you wouldn’t have
thought that they will have any interest in this. The owner of the huge yellow
beach ball that we were all bouncing it around belonged to 3 very young cute
looking Chinese girls who took the effort to bring the ball and lighten up the
mood. Who would have guessed? And when I say uncle and aunties, these weren’t
only the educated English specking uncle and aunty but the Cina Cina type who
in the past wouldn’t risk anything that would affect their livelihood. Never
would I have expected all these people to be there. Of course the entire group
was made out of the various races of Malaysia standing side by side. I am only
highlighting on the Chinese involvement as I never expected to see so much
involvement from my own race. But today, we stood together not as a Chinese
fighting for his/her right, today we stood together to fight for the rights of
a Malaysian. 1 Malaysia in practice and not just lip service.
At about 1:30pm, after Ambiga’s speech, we began walking.
The entire crowd was in a party mood where we sang songs, someone had a guitar
and harmonica and was playing all the
way, someone had a kompang, and someone had a placard that said, “KUNING,
KUNING, NAJIB PENING”. Slowly we made our way, nobody shoving, all walked like
the civilize Malaysian we all are. There were even Bersih volunteers holding
black plastic bag collecting rubbish from the crowd, and one of them went, “SAMPAH
SINI! SAMPAH SINI! MCA PUN SINI!”
Not too long after, we arrive at the Masjid Jamek main
road. All 7 of us being first timers, we decided to play it a little safe and
were quite a distance away from Dataran. We were somewhere around HSBC. But
being in the middle was also pretty awesome. Looking at the direction of Pudu
Raya, we could not see an end to the crowd. There were just a sea of people and
my earlier quoted “sea” was now only a “pei si” (nose shit) now. The crowd was
not only along the main road but were also at all the roads leading towards the
main road. People were just standing everywhere and it was a true sight to
behold and an amazing experience to be with my fellow Malaysians of all race
and colors.
As the rally were all stationary as we could go no
further to Dataran, we decided to do a walkabout to chill from the sun. We join
the crowd again when we saw them moving but not too long after that, we saw
smoke coming out of Dataran and we knew… itu bukan asap kereta… calmly we began
moving in the opposite direction, slip into some alley mamak and use the parallel
road towards pudu raya. There we stood for a couple of minutes waiting to see
what would happen. By then, I already got a text msg from my wife and father
that Ambiga had declared the rally a success and has requested for all to
disperse (for some reason, data plan was not accessible the whole time). We
decided then to proceed to Nandos for a meal and call it a day. We did great!
It was at Nandos that we witnessed more Malaysians
running towards Pudu Raya and we knew the the chaos has begun. Even though we
could not see any tear gas smoke or the FRUs were no where close, we began to
have slight runny nose and an employee who was smoking outside came in with
tears in her eyes. Note to self – tear gas is really not funny. At about 5pm,
we decided to make our way back to Pasar Seni to take the train back.
You would have expected the action to have all ended by
now.
As we were walking back to Pasar Seni, there were about 3
FRU man standing in the middle of the road at the Pasar Seni intersection. Not
wanting to risk getting arrested, we decided to take the Petaling Street road
and come back out at the other end of Pasar Seni. Note – there were only a
small group of people hanging around here - about 10-20 people. Slightly
passing the net intersection, the FRU suddenly fired tear gas! We just started
walking faster and faster away from the tear gas and the traders started
closing their shops. This was totally uncalled for. There you freaking ask us
to disperse and there you morons are blocking all exits (Plaza Rakyat, Masjid
Jamek, Pasar Seni). How do you expect us to go back? In your PDRM lorry?
Anyways, thanks to a previous treasure hunt I attended, I
knew my way around Petaling Street and we walked down to Maharajalela – took the
monorail to KL Sentral and then a Putra back.
Of course we were all dead tired by the end of the day
but we were glad we were part of history today and that we might only be a few,
but the few that made the decision to attend made up the 300,000 on that day.
LESSONS LEARNED:
1.
Chinese people are no more side-liners. They don’t
just attend the rally. They attended the rally with big yellow beach ball, 2
super huge floating rocket with “BERSIH” and “ANTI-LYNAS” marked on them and
big bright banners. And they stood together as Malaysians with the people of
all other race and age as ONE.
2.
People who attended are no more minorities. People
who didn’t attend are the new minorities. I had friends from all walks of life
attending the rally. Some I never thought would even have an interest in
politics. I was wrong.
3.
In the corporate world, the stereotype of equating
attendance in a rally to potential dismissal is broken. I knew of an
ex-collegue who is the Head of Operations (a SVP/GM) who proudly wore his
Bersih shirt and rallied on that day. I also know of other colleagues who were
always comfortable with how life is taking their first step in actively
fighting for fairness.
4.
The young adults have awaken (I am also a young
adult k…). A huge majority of the people that attended were of the younger
generation.
5.
The senior citizens who you expect to be like
the Ent from Lord of the Ring have arisen and are demanding that they too are
heard.
6.
BN’s 1Malaysia is nothing like Bersih’s
1Malaysia.
7.
There is no such thing as hate among the races.
There’s only mainstream media mis-reporting and government lies.
8.
Businesses don’t loose money on that day. All
restaurant opened on that day were booming with business. We had to line up and
wait for food. There were some that even just ta pau and ate at the side walk.
9.
When the PDRM/FRU ask you to disperse, they don’t
really mean it cause they shut down all form of transportation so you can’t
really go anywhere. What they really mean is, “We’ve brought stocks of tear
gas, chemical laced water, trucks and handcuffs and we ain’t bringing back
those stock ”.
10.
Getting tear gas is not funny. Avoid at all
cost. I got the slightest amount of gas – the very very very bare minimal and
was already sniffing. I cannot imagine if one was to land in front of me.
SPECIAL NOTE:
1.
To the protestors who threw things at the police
vehicle/breach the barricade – WE ARE BETTER THAN THIS.
2.
To the PDRM/FRU who assaulted and beat up the
protestors and media representatives – YOU ARE BETTER THAN THIS.
3.
To the PROVOCATEURS – YOU ARE THE TRUE PIECE OF
SHIT OF THE DAY AND THE GATES OF HELL WARMLY WELCOMES YOU.
VIDEO & PHOTO ON THE DAY
VIDEO HERE
PHOTOS:
