My BERSIH2.0 Story: Me & Ron
After one month of planning & talking about it, July 9 is finally here. The day started with quiet breakfast of Nasi Kerabu at home with wife and kids. Eldest, eight years Aimi was asking why am i going to "perhimpunan haram" because the police will lock me up (damned TV3!). I told her i am going because i want her to have better life than mine. Not too sure whether she understands me because for her better life means more ice-creams & sweets. Here i can see the parallel between eight-year old kid's thinking & fifty eight years old umnoputras' thinking. Five years Nadya is asking how am i going to run with bad knee (i had my knee op in january & i'm officially on disabled list) when they start chasing after me. I told her she doesn't have to worry because malaysian police are obese, we laughed. Youngest, 11-month Muhamamd was too young to understand & Mama was too understanding to stop me after 10 years of marriage & countless demos attended. After reassuring everybody (which me myself wasn't quite sure) that i'll be back in one piece, i'm off to pickup other comrades, Zahry & Bad. At this point of time, Ron was not part of our journey yet!
The journey from Shah Alam started at 9am & it was very pleasant one (no kidding here). We managed to avoid all the police roadblocks from Shah Alam to Kelana Jaya LRT due to planning & my knowledge of the areas. Now I know why God send me to this world as real estate agent! When we arrived in Kelana Jaya LRT station, we can smell the tension in the air. Lots of police, regular faced SBs & young & old Malaysians testing their wills against each others. Noboby is talking to strangers & everybody is keeping to himself with not even slight hint of eye contact. We managed to catch 930am train to Masjid Jamek & this is where Ron joins our journey.
When we arrived at Masjid Jamek, the smell of tension turn into smell of fear. There are more cops than civilians in the street. Unlucky rakyats were arrested because they just don't look right to cops. Students were shouted at for chatting & walking along the street with their friends. Pedestrians with bags were search as if they were al-qaeda operators. Mosque was chained. Jaywalkers with cameras & handphones were stopped & asked to show the contents of their films, memory cards & sms. This is how is it feel to live in police state & makes me more determined to show the whole what's going on in this country. Most of the shops were closed or rather asked to close by men in blue to show how damaging BERSIH2.0 was to our economy. We just could not walk futher without being asked where are we heading. With nowhere to go & nowhere to run & the threat of being arrested coming from all corners, we were saved by the bright yellow neon light of Ron's house for temporary refuge.
We spent about thirty minutes there strategizing & discussing our next move. We were so proud to see a lot of students with us. We were talking to them & giving them motivations & the do's and the don't of a rally. They came in fear of losing their scholarship, losing their hostel, losing their parents' love and ultimately losing their future if they ever get caught or being reported to their alma mater for the involvement in 'perhimpunan haram". Yet they came & the future is bright for a better Malaysia! After lenghty discussion & observation that police can arrest anybody without any justification, we decided against walking to Merdeka Stadium. We decided to go back to LRT & take monorail at KL Sentral & stop at Maharajalela or Hang Tuah before walking to Stadium Negara. That's when we decided to bring along Ron as our decoy.
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