Civil Unrest

Be warn, long post ahead, read at your own interest.
I know things happened sometime ago, but today I only got the inspiration to write about this.

While the election is getting closer and closer, more and more conflicts submerge between the government and the people. Recently Malaysia had been on the international news because of rallies and demonstrations happening in our country.

This country used to be a peaceful place for everyone, but what causes the people go on the streets protest or voice out their opinions?

In case you dont know what's going on here. Lately there are 2 demonstrations being carried out in the capital city Kuala Lumpur:

#1 BERSIH - Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections (10 Nov 2007)




The first is the tens thousands of people in yellow march from various landmarks in the city towards the National Palace (you know who lives here dont you?).
Their purpose of this march, is to handle a memorandum to the King to call for a fair-play in next year's general election.

So why the gov oppress this movement aggressively? It's because the political background of this movement. You see, this BERSIH is organised by the main opposition parties, namely PAS (Pro-Islam party, hails from the East Coast), Keadilan (planning to take over UMNO's position one day), and also DAP (I think the most outspoken opposition). Also not to mention quite a numbers of non-government organisations joined BERSIH as well.

When an election will be held around the corner, any sensitive political issues will stir up the media, pressing more pressure on the the governing party to deal with it. Of course, most public medias in this country are being monitored or controlled by the governing party, so they can easily censor any news they think disadvantage to them.

The peoples are getting smarter, many of 'em turn up on the Internet to spread the news around through news portals or blogs, it's really effective. Youtube have lots of videos on the incident too.
Hoho, there's no way the gov can censor all the contents, unless they do it the China way.

I think I don't need to elaborate further bout the 10 Nov 2007 rally here as much of the info can be read here. Anyway, the Information Minister Zainuddin Maidin aka ZAM embarrasses himself during an interview with Al-Jaz journalist regarding this issue. You can watch the interview video here.


#2 HINDRAF - Rally of Indian rights (25 Nov 2007)




It happened just today, 2 weeks after the BERSIH rally. Affected areas are Jln Ampang, Jln Tun Razak, around KLCC that area. The British High Commission is involved as well.

This time is not really a political rally, but it's a racial march. Our Indian friends have spoken bout their disappointment and lost of patience after tolerating unjust treatments for decades, possible centuries.

So what'sup with British High Comm? HINDRAF (Hindu Rights Action Force), wanted to hand over a petition to Queen Elizabeth II seeking for better treatment and rights for fellow Malaysian Indians.
They filed a lawsuit on the British government, seeking for a USD 1 trillion compensation for every Indian in the country. Looking at the scale of this lawsuit, it's almost certain that it won't work. HINDRAF leaders knew this won't work after all, but their main purpose is to evoke public awareness of fellow Indians' exploitations for all the years.

I must say, the Indian friends remained silence most of the time when something happen, whereas Chinese will stand out and speak about our rights if the other group challenge us. I not saying Indians are weak or what, but different people do things differently, that's a simple fact isn't it?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My words:

These movements made the headline on mainstream medias quite awhile because there's no such kind of big scale illegal rally since Reformasi 1998.

When something big like this happens, there must be something to do with the political agendas and so. In easier term, people go on the street protest because they're not happy with something. If not, I dont think Malaysians will likely go on the streets in such fashion while they can enjoy a good weekend with family, friends or by themselves.

Looking at the figures of attendance, one might thought that these are all political zealots. Well, part of them is true, but others are ordinary civilians who're not happy with the system.

So called 'peaceful rally', eventually will turn up to become violent conflicts, as expected. The police force, I think they're pretty much helpless there. They just do things according to what the heads told, and they must obey the orders. It's quite sad to see people turn out on each others while everyone are equal.

One thing we people dislike is the way the gov heads settle things. It's easier to be said than done, they're very good in making excuses but their mentality is immature. Sometimes we see high ranking officials made themselves a fool while replying media's question.
Not many high ranking officials have the correct mindset to do the correct decision, only a handful of them unfortunately. Basically they remain quiet most of the time, because all the spotlight attention are taken over by those fame-seekers low-class officials.

These problems are just a fraction of Malaysians' agony, there is still reasons why people dislike the current gov. Say, price hike for many daily products: oil, flour, rice, sugar etc.
The gov keep taking international oil price hike as a reason to push the price higher and higher, saying that the gov have to spend more money to subsidise additional expenses.

The gov isn't short of cash, but they spend it on the wrong side. The gov is a poor idealist, spending the money on things that either dont work well or only a party is benefit from it. Bias is existence in the gov's policy, that's a very obvious weakness of the gov. They're favouring a group of people while ignoring other peoples (Chinese & Indians, as well as other minorities). It's been a routine for us to adapt this such kind of unfair environment, but they just taken for granted, making things worse for everyone.

2008 general election, it's cursed that UMNO will not score as well as 2004's general election. Even if they won the next term in the office, I doubt they'll win again in the coming 201X general election.
I'm having the idea that something BIG might happen in few years time which will greatly affect the entire Malaysia, something to do with politics again. Sometimes, my prediction can be pretty accurate. :P
We'll see what will happen in years to come eh.

I might write something bout this again if I have the inspiration, the instinct to write a youngster's view on Malaysia.