Will next year be like 1998 election in Malaysia?
Reading bersih.org’s website before it was pulled down gave me the impression that there’s going to be a big mess, guess the dispersion technique today was effective. Some (~20?) were caught unfortunately. Also heard that tear gas, chemical-laced water was used to disperse the crowd earlier. Here’s the news video from Malaysiakini, Anwar focused.
How will SPR reflect on this? Forget what the king and royal assembly will do in the first place. We know that’s not going to make a difference the existing bodies / systems remain status quo. The game hasn’t changed much. Opposition has to drum up to the elections, and get a clearer mandate. But when the system is jeopardized, i.e. someone in elections committee play cheat, then all these are not going to lead to tangible changes.
Anyway, looking for kaki who’re interested to take a week long leave for next year’s election. We go kampung by kampung (hopefully before the gas subsidy is removed/revised) to go listen lecture, vote then balik. On?
Update more footage yey! Al Jazeera:
Can’t wait for tomorrow’s paper and see how the event will evolve.
Hopefully, with this rally, there will be a glimpse of new hope.
This is sad: the next day, looking at the online media (I don’t know about he print editions…) none of the major local newspapers reported anything significant about the event, allowing foreign media to draw their own conclusions from the barrage of videos posted on youtube.
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&ie=UTF-8&ncl=1123382705
From Google News, the only local paper is bernama’s website quoting the “lack” of force 🙂 Yey now they say foreign media bias – bias then REPORT la!
http://www.bernama.com.my/bernama/v3/news.php?id=295412
And thestar? Moved around the whole issue by reporting the JAM!
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/11/11/nation/19443935&sec=nation
To tackle the information blackout from the govt-controlled media, each informed citizen who has online access can do a simple thing: pass on the information (truth) to his/her friends, colleagues and family members. A simple exmaple: download the pictures to your handphone to be shown around or bluetooth’ed to anyone. It was a remarkable experience for me when I showed the Bersih pictures to my mom and sister, who solely relied on the print media for news. Their understanding dramatically changed, and I saw their sign of relief about my participation in Bersih demo.
For a critical review of the event, see video clips of 101 East programme from Aljazeera:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ud3tNvQqdRU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1B3sYyzYr8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxLoBGlgavY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6q7VxURy8gY
Guests involved in the debate are leading human rights lawyer Malik Imtiaz Sarwar, de facto law minister Nazri Aziz and UMNO Youth leader Khairy Jamaluddin.