Monday, July 11, 2011

Make a choice.

The Bersih rally has come and gone.

I am no supporter of street demonstrations for I am of the opinion that it does nothing to prove one's believes or one's stand on something. But while I may not agree to participate in the street protests, I do not disagree to others choosing to participate in it. If you think marching the streets will be your way of telling the Government "ups yours!", by all means, don your yellow shirts and march the hell out of the streets.

Many of us have woken up on the 9th July 2011 groaning that we probably can't do our usual visit to the malls in Kuala Lumpur due to the massive traffic jams and road closures. We whine in protest that the LRT will not take us to where we want to go due to the station closures. We roll our eyes in resignation when we hear of the inconveniences that the Bersih supporters have caused us.

But truly, what is it that Bersih stands for? Bersih in the shortest summary possible, stands for free and fair elections. Is that such an objectionable idea? Why then do so many people of intellect reject this notion? Why do our countries top politicians deny the demands of Bersih? Who in their right mind would say NO to free and fair elections?

Clearly, one who have played dirty politics all these while.

The PM tells us, if we "tweaked" the election process, the opposition would not have won Selangor. If we meddled with the election results, PAS would not have retained Kelantan for so many years. But the truth is that these victories were landslide victories. It would be hard to switch a tick next to DAP/PAS/PKR to one for BN on a thousand or a hundred thousand balloting papers. But it would not be impossible to switch on a few hundred. After all, we only need ONE vote to separate the winner from the loser.

How many of us have flipped through newspapers during the elections and saw nothing but government propaganda. How many of us have only seen the faces of those campaigning under the BN flag? How many of us have been victims of unfair and biased reporting by our major dailies? Bersih demands that there should be equal opportunities for all parties to campaign. Information should be disseminated to the public fairly. We should be inundated with the BN campaign and the BN campaign alone.

But you know what? These words mean nothing to the the poor man trying to eke out a living, or the yuppie who has just received a scholarship from the government to further her studies, or the professional who has a great job in a GLC. It means nothing to be "anti government". After all, life could be worse off in other countries. We are peaceful, we have opportunities, we have everything we could ask for. So why rock the boat?

Simply because, I do not want to wake up in the morning and see that another one of our fellow citizen has fallen to his death at the foot of the MACC building- and nobody wants to take responsibility for it.

I hate to wake up and be told (again!) that our petrol prices have increased because the government can no longer afford to subsidize us. A country who can among others, spend RM1billion on the new palatial Palace for the Agong, RM17million for the PM (and his wife) to travel around the world (and take the opportunity to attend their daughter's graduation and wedding while out on "official visits"), build a worthless 100 storey building, and buy Rm100m jet engines which somehow goes missing.

I hate to wake up and be told that because I posted something which insulted our PM I would now be detained under the ISA and be held indefinitely without trial.

I would hate to bring up my children in a country where you know the judiciary can be made to follow the will of the party in power.

I would hate to live in a country where religion is thrown in your face to ensure political power is maintained.

You do not have to support Bersih and what it stands for. But you should support your right as a citizen of Malaysia to not have to answer to a corrupt and racist government. Choose to wake up to a Malaysia where you can be any race and religion that you want and live as an equal citizen. Choose to wake up to a Malaysia where your hard earned money goes to projects which will benefit you as a citizen, and not to the pockets of the politicians.

Screw 1Malaysia and its false propaganda.

I choose my government, and I want to be able to choose it freely and fairly.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why would our PM and government oppose to free and fair elections?! They really need to rethink what they are projecting to the people by doing so...

Bitch-on-a-rampage said...

I sometimes honestly feel that our government does not think.