I am copying this entire post from my travel blog to post it here, because it took me the whole morning to write it and I'm not going to put a link here so that you can not click on it and waste my effort. And I have to double post it because the travel blog is read mostly by my friends and family which I try to keep away from this blog.
(Hence you may observe that the writing style is more muted, but there have been multiple times when the F word was right at my fingertips. Oh what was I thinking, I can say it here. Fuck the F-word. And Fuck Zam.)
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I have struck a deal with the German guy next door who lives here semi-permanently, to use the wireless Internet password for two weeks. It costs me $7.50 which I have shared with Melissa (so $3.75 each) and needless to say we've both been very busy from yesterday till today immersed in the virtual online world.
So. No more beeps. No more excuses to close my blog posts. Interestingly I don't feel like blogging once I've got unlimited access, there are so many other things I have to do, like plan out what to do during my travel trip, or chat with people, or read blogs that I haven't read for ages. I've been reading up on the November 10 peaceful rally in KL, which has been grossly downplayed and skewed by the mainstream media, so here are some links to the eyewitness accounts by bloggers who were there.
Quaintly.net - We Know What We Want - A beautiful account of what happened by one of my favourite bloggers - an 18 year old girl who went there. Read the heartwarming scenarios from here.
Dan-yel - When We Painted KL with Yellow - More descriptions of the event, from another perspective by Su Ann's friend.
In Fantasyland - The BERSIH March - An eyewitness account on how agent provocateurs were planted in the crowd by the police!
Kakiblog.com - My Report from the Bersih Rally - A guy who got sprayed with the teargas, you have to read this to know what it's like.
Josh Incorrigible - It was All Yellow - Some lyrics and pictures.
Metroblogging Kuala Lumpur - Metblogs Reporting on Bersih Rally - Great post with pictures telling the stories.
Reduced and Recycled - BERSIH Rally: A Report of Events - A guy who came from JB just for the day. Also has some links at the bottom to more blog posts.
By the time I finished reading the blog posts - I am in tears, with goosebumps on my arms. Because of the people power demonstrated - people actually cared. Because of the cruelty unleashed onto civilians by our police. Because of the solidarity of all Malaysians who were there, from all walks of life. Do read them, and have a different perspective of what actually happened, by ordinary people who were actually there instead of reading the mainstream crap or even Malaysiakini. There are more, but I decided these would suffice for your short attention spans.
Yeah this is not exactly a travel post. So there. And please do not forget why the demonstration was held in the first place - it was held to campaign for electoral reforms, to pave the path - nay, to correct the path of Malaysia's democracy. Our dear PM keeps saying that it is opposition politics, but there are 40,000 people (official sources say 4,000, but everyone else says it is much more than that, and you can see through pictures of the sheer numbers of the people), concerned enough about the state of this country to brave tear gas, water cannons, getting arrested, the rain, possible bodily injuries, etc. to go into KL on that day, all because they love the country enough.
And, on that day, it was the police, civil servants who were supposed to protect us, who turned on the protesters with tear gas and water cannons. The opposition, Unit Amal PAS, directed traffic and cleaned the streets after the demonstration. The incumbents sure gave the opposition a lot of brownie points aye. And just look at Zam embarrassing the whole country in the Al-Jazeera interview. (Here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1_GQ-K7P_w; or if you want to spare the noise pollution you can read the transcript here, by Rachel Leow ) Someone just sack him already!
Yeah don't worry I'll revert back to my horror stories on door-knocking and gangster neighbourhoods in following posts. I just had to blog about one of the most historical moments in Malaysia's democracy which I unfortunately missed. Gotta love the Internet for all the documentation though.
