QUICKLY SEEK AN IMPASSE TO THE BERSIH ISSUE

PM Naib during his recent visit to London was reported to have said quote, “if some quarters are still unhappy with the government, let’s square it out when the elections comes and let the people decide” unquote. Reading from this statement, I can reasonably assume that Najib does not understand what Bersih stood for. Nothing is mentioned about the demands of Bersih that is crucial to the establishment of a free and fair election. Najib appears tenacious in his belief that the existing election laws and regulations are to be upheld, and this run contrary to the very demands of Bersih, as well as ignoring the thousands that rallied seeking their constitutional rights.

It is obvious to me now that Najib is quite unprepared to be forthright to the demands by Bersih, which I believe is well understood by him. And throughout his appearance with the press in London and the many questions posed to him regarding the Bersih rally, Najib has made no declaration to discuss with the sponsors of Bersih anytime soon in order to reach an amicable solution to Bersih’s demands. Rather, he repeated his position that street protest is not the way to press for a demand, and at the same time does not offer a way out of the impasse. The local media as usual will play up the issue that the rally had no significant impact on the government, and that Najib’s position is not jeopardized.

Watching on You Tube to a group of supposedly Malaysian protesters awaiting Naijb’s arrival in front of Hotel Intercontinental, London, I asked myself whether such freedom to a peaceful protest will ever be a feature in this country. Despite their verbal protest over loud hailers, the policemen showed full restrain and kept a reasonable distance away from the protestors. There were no riot squads on standby, no baton changes, no arrests, no screaming policemen and no police warning of “bersurai, bersurai kalau tidak kami tembak”. Sadly, Malaysia that will emerge a develop nation in less than a decade from today, is still gripped with the ISA and various other draconian laws that are a ‘mirror image’ in some undemocratic and dictatorial African regimes. If our leaders were to claim that Malaysia practices a true form of democracy (don’t know what that means) than we need to look at how true democracies work and the freedom accorded to its people. I think we are still far from being a truly democratic country; be it the western or Asian model.

I also listened to the response by Foreign Minister Anifah Aman to a barrage of questions from some of the London protestors, and from the response it is fairly obvious that Anifah is still being clouded by images of fear that any form of protest held in Malaysia today will erupt into racial violence. Malaysian have proven Anifah theory of racial violence wrong on many occasions, and does he not know that this country had a racial violence only once i.e 42 years ago. And as I have said in some previous articles, if there were to be a protest leading to violence, it will not be racial in nature; rather it will be an all Malaysian protest against the authorities. Please mark my word.


CRUSADE AGAINST CORRUPTION