Walk for a Better Malaysia

All my life I have been very obedient and a law abiding citizen. I also hate confrontation. Often I would ask my wife to go to school to meet my childrens teachers at school. I m a 52 y.o GP from the north. I weighed up the 3 likely outcomes of joining Bersih 2.0. A) Normal demonstrations with tear gas and water cannon. B) arrest and detention C) death. Option B) I have had several operations in the past and experience some degree of pain so I figured I could survive a police beating on top of police detention for few days. As for option C) I was confident my capable wife could take care of my children with our savings and insurance taking care of their college education.As Malaysian Chinese sacrifice is not alien to us.We scrimp and save for our children's education sacrificing our pensions and retirement funds. Terminally ill paarents forgo life prolonging chemotherapy to stop children piling up debt. Bersih is the same category of sacrifice.

I have reached the point where I have had enough. Our country is facing unprecedented social and economic problems but our government seems to be obsesed by imagined threats. Arresting people for nothing other than wearing yellow Tshirts. Arresting our revered collegue Dr Jeyakumar under ISAlike emergency ordinance on concocted charges of being a communist. 2 years ago in July Teoh Beng Hock died when questioned as a witness. Teens being shot in cold blood by police. I had enough of abuse of power.

Several days before the event I had come to KL for a business conference.Fortunately for me, my wife didn't try to dissuade me from marching. A speaker had all his PowerPoint slides coloured yellow. When I shared my intention to walk with a supplier L, at the conference , he tried but failing to persuade me to not walk.He promised to get his lawyer to bail me out if arrested.


On 8th July Friday night, my family and I went to KLCC, buy salt and a towel, advise from the internet for a novice demonstrator. At dinner. I told them should I be arrested they should go back to my hometown and wait for me. I could not bring myself to discuss option (C) accidental death , with my family because I did not know how to broach the subject. Walking back to the hotel I held my wife’s hand very tightly.

I worried as I waited for my high school classmate, a publishing Manager Poh and his wife to check in to my hotel. We planned to walk together. He nearly couldn’t make it because of the police roadblocks he took 4 hours to get home in Petaling Jaya from work. He finally did arrive by LRT after 11pm.

After breakfast 'we prayed together.I said goodbye to my family. They were staying in the hotel to wait for me.The 3 of us,Poh, his wife and I walked to The Pavilion, Jalan Bukit Bintang and finally Jalan Pudu. We saw people in small groups would be protesters, media people with their cameras and name tags, lawyers dressed in black suits. They all came from places like Penang, Kedah and Johore.I was very touched by a group of maciks in their tudung 5 or 6 of them in their 50s and 60s wondering how they will hold up under tear gas and chemical spray. There was already a police presence along the road so we avoided the police and zigzagged our way to Jalan Tun Perak.I also saw Malay families with young children in tow.

Suddenly I saw them! the huge crowd stretching all the way as far as my eye can see along Jalan Tun Perak. Despite all the intimidation all these Malaysians Malays, Chinese and Indians have come and in such numbers. I took a photo of this large crowd and shared on my facebook “Today I am so proud to be Malaysian.” I shook hands with a Petronas executive from Bintulu with his wife and 2 teenage sons all dressed up with Yassir Arafat type scarf ready to march. We joined the throng and shout Bersih! Bersih! in a carnival atmosphere. We took pictures with Baru Bian and his native friends with a Sarawak flag. I was so pleased to bump into Dr K, a good friend, from my hometown. Later in the day we are going share salt after being teargassed.


We followed the crowd to the front of Menara Maybank by this time about 1pm there was already 20000 people. I was on the road divider underneath the LRT overhead rails. One of the participants told me that this time there was much more Chinese participation compared to Bersih 1.0. There was a continuous chatter of Cantonese amidst the shouts of Hidup Rakyat and Hidup Bersih. A huge crowd appeared marching from Puduraya. We were worried that it was UMNO youth and an inevitable confrontation. As the advancing crowd got nearer we saw their yellow shirts, people started shouting “Ji Kei Yau,ji kei yau” our own people in Cantonese.It was a big morale booster . By this time perhaps there was over 30,000 people assembled infront of Menara Maybank. My friends wife wisely suggested we move up the grass slope of Menara Maybank to have a better look.


Then it struck ,when we were halfway up the stairs, the water cannon hit the crowd on the road followed by tear gas. All around me people started choking and coughing, when I felt like chilli had hit my eyes and going into my chest. I felt giddy and couldn’t breath for a spell. We were sharing salt with so many people and washing in the front ofthe fountain. Even in the rush everybody was helping one another. The young men from PAS were exemplary helping people encouraging people. I thought to myself this is really 1Malaysia. We saw police coming so we ran up to the canteen of Menara Maybank. My friend Poh, told us to sit down. This was fortunate as the police was just randomly making some arrests especially those who ran.

Then I it started to rain heavily, praise God it washed away the pungent smell of the tear gas We stayed in the canteen for lunch with many others sheltering from the rain.There were several young Chinese girls and an older Chinese lawyer who walked with a limp. After recovering from the teargas we decided to leave the compound of Menara Maybank. Going down the stairs we encountered several police who made no effort to arrest us. Perhaps they have fulfilled their their quota of arrests for the day.


On the way we saw a man collapsed on the road side and there were many helpers around waiting for ambulance.I don't know if that was Baharudin Ahmad. Our mutual friend Low rang to see if we are alright. He said he had reserved RM2000 to post bail if required. We walked around and joined a large crowd heading towards the stadium on Petaling Street. The crowd stopped right in from of Chinese Town Hall by trucks,barbed wire and few dozens of police blocking the road to the stadium. We shouted Bersih! When we sang Negara Ku tears welled up in my eyes. At about 400pm the leaders said according to Bersih’s understanding with the Agung we will disperse.

It was a long walk back to KLCC along Jalan Maharajalela as most taxis were not running and the monorail stations were closed. Halfway we stopped for drinks. We saw more people coming back from the march. One youngish Chinese man pushed a pram. Both he and the baby wore yellow. That kind of risk and commitment!!!We sat in the coffee shop and became instant friends with several malay men. All of them looked like police but their tear gassed eyes help to distinguish them from the men in blue. We finally hailed a cab in front of Melia Hotel after perhaps walking for 15kms that day.

I am thankful none of the scary things I imagined happened except for the tear gas. I read a pro Government official write yesterday asking what did we get from Bersih 2.0. How did we benefit from Bersih 2.0? Wrong question!It is not about getting. It is about GIVING. Malaysia called we answered, we gave our time, our money , our prayers, our comfort and possibly our lives as Baharudin Ahmad found out. On the streets of KL on 709, Malaysians gave, shared and partook gladly in a fellowship of suffering for our children's future.

Malaysians stood up that day against the bullying and threats in great numbers to say "Intimidation doesn’t work."Malaysian conquered fear especially the Chinese.Resurrecting May13 to scare Chinese of this generation doesn't work. I am so proud of Malaysians. The Arab Spring should have given notice to our government that intimidation doesn’t work especially with the social media today but I wonder how these multimillion dollar consultants are advising our leaders. One week after the event our government hasn’t really figured out how to deal with the fallout of videos of police brutality and tear gas being fired into a hospital. It is going to get harder to deal with this kind of situations by command and control of the media. The fight is not over but we are witnessing the beginning of a better Malaysia. And we are ready.