Bersih 3.0: A celebration of political maturity — Sakmongkol AK47
May 04, 2012
MAY 4 — The battle for freedom must be won over and over again.
I am sure there will be a Bersih 4.0 if the legitimate demands of a people craving for political meaning are not met. Why should the Election Commission resist demands to clean the electoral list? Why should the government deny electoral reforms? Why should the Malaysian people be denied the right to insist elections are only for Malaysian people?
Why should we not demand the exclusion of phantom voters and aliens from our electoral list? Admitting Bangladeshis, Myanmars, Nepalis and other illegals and giving them instant MYkads because they can support a fearful government is treasonous!
We are denied because this government fears the judgment of its own people. It has certainly shown it fears its own people. Otherwise what kind of government that has shown it was willing to unleash the repressive instruments on its own people?
I almost fell off the chair when someone uttered the unthinkable — that Bersih 3.0 would serve only to whip up Malay nationalism. Because of Bersih 3.0, Malays will gravitate towards Umno?
A total of 3.7 million of them abandoned Umno in 2008 and the majority will stay there. Once black, they will never go back to the red side. Umno is in the red on so many fronts — good governance, integrity, clear vision, quality leadership, etc, etc, the list never ends. The Umno doctor said it well — Umno is full of crap and half-past six pretenders. So why should the majority of Malays ever want to go back to Umno?
What can Umno offer — another half a century of pillaging and subjecting the nation to ruinous policies? RM1.3 trillion spirited out of this country and almost RM30 billion each year of ill-gotten monies smuggled out of this country?
The Malays who have crossed the Rubicon in ‘08 have tasted a better life after Umno. There’s not only life after Umno, but a better life without Umno.
Will the Malays suddenly drop dead once Umno is evicted from power? If we do, then that is clear proof that Umno has failed to cultivate and produce rugged and robust Malays. If we do, Umno has shown that it has only been able to produce a society of wimps. If we do, it is clear proof that Umno has failed the Malays.
Then there is this Umno leader — they call him the president who’s struggling to inspire us with a clear vision. We don’t want a grand vision, all we wanted was a clear vision. Instead he has only come out with a Campbell’s alphabet soup of strangely arranged letters. Does he inspire confidence? He can only bribe and pay his way through, incapable of inspiring Malays to new heights.
Not true, unless the Umno xenophobic propaganda machine makes out the marchers of Bersih 3.0 as non-Malays wanting to overthrow a Malay regime. Here is the thing: if the entire population of Malaysia is composed of Malays, there will still be a Bersih-like march and protest. Then it will be a clash between the oppressive ultra-right-wing conservative-cum-feudal clique versus the disenfranchised and marginalised Malay proletariat, tired of the enslaving and exploitative and corrupt regime.
Bersih 3.0 has struck unimaginable terror in the Umno Plutarch and corporate potentates. There is a sense of nervousness, increasingly and dreadfully alarming that has forced corporate chieftains to regularise their business interests. 1MDB buys over Ananda Krishnan’s power-generation business at an astronomical price tag, obviously the price tag has been Umno-nised. The corporate potentate then sells off a sizeable portion of his oil and gas business (Bumi Armada). Other corporate chieftains are doing the same on the quiet side. Big businesses are deserting Umno and the Umno fools are rushing in where angels fear to tread.
We must not fall into the Umno trap of pigeonholing Bersih as a clash between the Malaysian people of different races. It was resoundingly not. Bersih 3.0 was a celebration of political maturity of the Malaysian people of all races. Each are committed as stakeholders to ensure a good nation is passed on to the next generation. — sakmongkol.blogspot.com
* Sakmongkol AK47 is the nom de plume of Datuk Mohd Ariff Sabri Abdul Aziz. He was Pulau Manis assemblyman (2004-2008).
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