The time now is 10pm. This has been a great day.
The Bersih 2.0 Rally that I took part today was an eye-opening experience. As we are all aware that the Rally has been negatively spun in the past few weeks by BN-lead media hoping that the Rally would be halted, but really, how can you stop an event that is of national interest? How can you stop the rolling voice of people that demand for rectifying basic human right?
So many dirty tactics were used to stop the Rally, but I am glad to report that the combined will of the people cannot be challenged, depressed, and contained. I am glad that I had witnessed it today and be part of it.
Knowing today was going to be an challenging day, we made our journey to Chinatown in the morning. Lingered around until noon where the crowd become swollen minute by minute.
The ambiance was unbelievable and you have to be there to feel the passion. People chanted "Bersih" in unison. Youngs, olds, boys, girls, muslims, non-muslims we were all connected. Hell to the multimillion-funded 1 Malaysia campaign Prime Minister. If you were present, you should feel ashamed that your 1 Malaysia promotion is never effective because it lacks the thing that you could not acquired or inspired: the true spirit of togetherness. But the Bersih Rally did it without much cost.
I was so touch seeing that women were equally involved and most of them are our muslim sisters.
They marched with us. They suffered the tear gas and water cannon just like us. Even the aunties selling you kuih-muih / nasi lemak dressed up in bersih shirt! Kudos women power!
I am happy to know from my friend who took part in the 1st Rally that there were much more Chinese in the Rally this time around. The Rally was moving steady to Stadium but back down to Menara Maybank but very soon we were joined by another Bersih group marching from Puduraya. Let the photos speak!
You will read a lot of negative things about the Rally for the coming days by BN-lead media. You will be fed with the images or clips which shown that our police worked hard to overpowered untamed protestors. Please switch to the Channel News Asia (If you have unifi TV) or news portals that have creditability of fair reporting. Stop feeding yourself with the cabbage report from the BN-lead media. Let me just say as one of the participants, we were so disciplined and steady. We did not obstruct traffic instead we helped the cars to move away from the rally. We did not provoke. We did not break anything and most importantly, we treated each other like brother and sisters. We helped and we care about each other. We moved away from water cannon and tear gas in an orderly fashion that nobody got injured. I am so proud of what I had witnessed today.
Tear gas were fired and water cannon were used to attack the protesters. Too bad I could not get a photo on those but the tear gas is really something to avoid for good for it stunk my eyes so badly and breathing with difficulty. But the good people of the protesters so helpful they approached us and gave us salt to eat which minimize the effects of the tear gas.
We ran from Menara Maybank towards Puduraya when the tear gas was fired at us. Dispersed. Regrouped. Moved forward. Then retreated. Regrouped. Moved forward so on and so forth. Eventually, we retreated to Tung Shin Hospital when the unthinkable happened. Police continued to fire tear gas at us. We were outside the Tung Shin's compound but they fire anyway and some of the tear gas got close / hit the hospital entrance / window. I was thinking that police shouldn't shoot hospital. Such action is really unnecessary and inhumane! No, we did not chose to retreat to Tung Shin purposely but just a simple way to ran away from tear gas. Anyway, both sides of the main road were blocked.
The above photo taken in front of Tung Shin's compound. We continued to escape to Jalan Alor, KLCC, then took a cab home.
The government was really hard at us the protesters this time as I read the news just now, 1600 people were arrested. All we did was asking for a rectification on the fundamental right how hard can that be in a truly democratic country? The more repressive the government become, the more aggressive the people would be in pursuing reforms.
In those moments of running away from the police, it become clear to me that this will be a prolonged fight. It will take time. But I was upbeat knowing that many people are demanding the same and they show up in the protest. There is hope for this Country and I am proud to be Malaysian.
Bersih 2.0 Rally was an incredible experience and since its announcement, I knew I could not skip this. It was something ought to be done in life.
