19 May 2009. I believe this date is another milestone in the social and political transformation which Malaysia has been experiencing since March 2008.
Last night, a group of young Chinese Malaysians met up and held a vigil. They are the latest heroes of the struggle currently underway in Malaysia. They wore black, a colour recently bestowed sacred status in the struggle – a crusade against the increasing lawlessness of the National Front coalition government. The vigil was within the compound of the premises of either a DAP building or the home of a DAP MP, Theresa Kok.
The police was par for the course and did not give the “519 heroes” any quarters. But they did not seek any. Lead by a young MP Teo Nie Ching and equally young state assemblyperson (I forget her name), they were exemplary in the art of peaceful disobedience. They did not comply with thuggish police demands to disperse but neither were they unruly or disrespectful. They simply sat down and refused to budge.
To the great shame of the Malaysian police, they forcefully removed these peaceful and law abiding private protesters and threw them into jail.
As Walker reported from the salt mine protest in India during Gandhi’s time, whatever residual moral authority that may have remained with the Malaysian police has been emphatically stubbed out by the arrest of late 19 May 2009.
The police is well and truly on a slippery slope and I see an inevitable result to all this.
Ante 