— Malaysian in the US
The Malaysian Insider
May 01, 2012
MAY 1 — Bersih 3.0 has come and gone. The protests outside KL were peaceful — 11 other cities in Malaysia, 85 cities in 33 countries outside Malaysia, including hikers up Mount Everest and divers off Acheh. Numbers ranged from a handful of Malaysians in some countries like Austria and Sri Lanka, to over a thousand in cities like London and Melbourne, to ten thousand in Penang.
The negatives. Many conspiracy theories abound as to how Dataran Merdeka was breached — was it just a group of unruly protesters, were the protesters instigated by the opposition, were the protesters planted by the government, were the police ordered to allow the protesters in? Whatever the case, once that happened, the police took that as an excuse to fire tear gas and spray chemical-laced water into the crowds, even those who were peacefully dispersing.
The trains stopped running at that point, effectively barring people from joining the protest and from leaving it. Again, where did those orders come from?
There was an ugly incident with protesters attacking a police car which then ran over some people. Was it staged? It’s understood that the police car was later overturned because the crowd believed that there was a person trapped under it. That single episode, taken out of context, has been used to depict the protest as unruly.
The negatives which help Bersih’s cause. The police chased, beat up, and arrested protesters and journalists. A bit stupid, really, with media and technology the way it is today. An Australian senator was in the crowd and got tear-gassed. Local and international journalists got their cameras smashed and their memory cards confiscated. The breach of Dataran Merdeka in no way justifies the level of police brutality. The government has shown itself to be “kejam” and “zalim,” in the words of many participants of Bersih 3.0.
The positives. Up until the breach, it was very, very peaceful. The photos of the sea of people in yellow are inspiring. The crowd was intergenerational, multiracial … people in wheelchairs were even sighted. This show of solidarity gives us hope for a new future. Continue reading “Analysing Bersih 3.0”