Anger . . . dismay . . . disappointment . . . shock . . .disgust . . .hatred. I went thru (& still is) experiencing this whole gamut of emotions after the events of yesterday. This is mainly due to the fact that apart from the Sunday demonstration in KL where thousands of Indians took to the streets to protest the shoddy treatment of their lot by a govt they have supported fer 50 years; there was another ugly scene taking place.
This time it was at the sacred grounds of the Batu Caves temple in Selayang. Many had gathered there peacefully in an attempt to join up with their brethren in KL later. But as the pix above (from Jeff Ooi's Screenshots blog) show, the police had scant regard fer human rights or fer the sanctity of a place of worship.
As seen in the pix above, they herded the people into the temple grounds before locking them in. Then they opened fire with tear gas & chemical-laced water cannons. What next? Rubber bullets? Real ammo? I am absolutely sickened & outraged! What sort of fooked up society are we living in?
Of course, all these scenes were not covered by the local media. Instead, the demonstrators were portrayed as thugs & hooligans hell bent on causing chaos. The Malay papers showed pix of wounded policemen on the front page but showed none of the many pix (just a quick run thru the blog sites & Malaysia Kini will show) of demonstrators being beaten fooking senseless.
I am also dismayed because so many people are still in the dark. Take my colleagues fer instance. Here was a bunch of highly-educated & Internet-savvy people but were completely unawares of the main reasons fer the demonstration. All they had heard was Hindraf's stupid gimmick of suing the Brits fer trillions fer being the root cause of the Indian problem. They were shocked when I showed them the pix above. They could not believe that the police had acted like apartheid-era thugs & had shown no sensitivity to the fact that they were firing into temple grounds.
Furthermore, they were also unaware that the main reason fer this show of anger by Indians is the continued & systematic destruction of temples by the govt. I told them of how the FRU behaved like a frenzied mob in the recent demolitions of the Padang Jawa & Puchong Hartamas Hindu temples (& that these incidents were but few in a long line of similar cases).
How can we make any sort of in-roads when the masses are unaware of the facts? Many will still think it was just a bunch of rowdy & misguided Indians trying to stir shit. Imagine, countless kuils & tokongs have been smashed up & the rakyat are none the wiser.
What are we to do? I fear that it will probably require some seismic event to finally shake Malaysians out of this stupor. Peaceful demonstrations have not made any significant in-roads into the consciousness of the average Malaysian & therein lies the root of ALL our problems . . .
31 comments:
i'm with you on this. there was no fucking regard that this was a holy place of worship. i for one hope that Gandhi's civil disobedience method of resistance takes hold here as jeff ooi speculated.
These are turbulent times we live in but yet Malaysians still talk of a "peaceful society".
What bollocks!
We fooking live in a bloody POLICE STATE!!!
Mate, imagine this - places of worship is respected much more by the PAS led govt. in Kelantan. Heard and read reports of how the UMNO "opposition" was making a fuss outta it. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!
I think we do live in a police state. Its appalling to see how ill treated malaysians are when they want to express their well justified feelings to the government. I feel that the people's mentality have evolved whilst those in authority have retarded their own.
This has become disdain. This whole thing.
I am as fooked up as you now because the people working in local media are just sickening and breaking the fundamental rules as journalists!!!
It is sickening enough not to report about Bersih but now, reporting the people hurting the police and STARTING THE RIOT?!
It is really fooking sick to know all this things from the Internet yet knowing so many people cannot get access to it and some who can are even so blind to it believing all those already well-known bias media!!! People need some perspective!!!
Now, I am going to get those links and send emails to everyone to make their judgments if they haven't or have made some wrongful assumptions! Will anyone do as well?!
Police said in the papers today that they did not fire tear gas into the temple compound. Do they really think nobody was watching? If they could gather all the forces to disperse the crowd, why not just grant them permit to assemble and ensure that no untoward incidents happen? Instead of protecting the people, they are abused and restricted from airing their views. SICK!
segar: Yeah, this is the problem when the govt controls every aspect of the mass media.
Let's face it, Astro & the Net only reaches a very small %. The majority are either oblivious of the truth or worse, accepting of the fooking bullshit fed to them.
Still, the fact that pix & news exists to show they are fooking liars is a start.
I am UTTERLY speechless at the treatment.
Lest not forget the Baling incident. Push comes to shove, there's nothing to stop em from really opening fire on us . . .
Unfuckingbelievable. Both the act itself and the denial of it. It's Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984 all over again, with the metaphors replaced by grim reality
Even in this day and age, where people have access to the latest information at their fingertips, literally, they choose to be blind about what does not (apparently) concern them. The ignorant masses shall one day fall prey to their self-serving inaptitude and wake up (too late) to uncompromising, bloody-minded dictatorship.
And if we're not careful, those ignorant masses will include us, whether we like it or not.
premo: Malaysia . . . truly Orwellian!
That should be our tag line introducing ourselves to tourists!
Its all fooked up . . .
yea,i remember hearing some Ministers saying that majority of the demonstrators are gangsters....and that they're young people who are naive and some even do not know what they're doing there on the streets...
and media is controlled by the Gov. isn't it? so how can they report stuffs that will scar the Gov/police forces' reputation? it all still comes back to fucked up admin by you-know-who..
i'm so gonna get NZ PR and not come back to Msia... =X
My village back in my hometown is flanked by a Kampung Baru Cina and a rubber estate. We've been living peacefully & complementing each other economically & socially very nicely. Well, economically, nothing has changed for the past 30years or so. The houses in the estate still look the same and leaning more towards the reddish earth now, SRJK(T) Kati Estate still requires a major facelift like it did 30 years ago, the row of shops in Kg Baru Cina still offer the same goods, my village roads only got tarred/repaired whenever BN feels the need to fish for votes, kutu2 still lepaking with nothing to do, kebun 'anggur' is getting bigger, pushers are making good money, etc.
Well, still have nice memories playing friendly football matches on the SRJK(T) Kati Estate football field, sleeping until dawn on the field after hours of Milo/Tamil/Hindi movies, looking for biji getah in the estate, etc.
A few of us speak the others' mother tongue. We played and we worked together, we learned how to share. I'm praying hard that this will never be broken.
But looking and hearing what is happening around at the moment, I'm scared shit that a whole lotta bigger Memali will happen and another Malaysian soul (and this time I don't think the number will be just 1) will be taken away by another Malaysian. Like what Bala said, they have opened fire before and they will definitely do so again. Justification is easy to find and the opportunists in UMNO are already laughing and oiling their machines gleefully. It will be a very sad day indeed.
Duuuude, I know what you are talking about. I go to class on Monday and my coursemates are talking about how there were a "riot" on Sunday and how "those stupid people that have to do that stupid thing and I can't go clubbing coz of all the roadblocks"....its appaling.
And these are Malaysian youths and they duuno wth is goin on. I have to keep on correcting them all day long that it was in point of fact, a rally and not a riot and what they see on Malaysian news is Goverment-control media propaganda. In which they replied "whatever, I just wanna go party."
It pains me. Really.
kiaq: well fooking said, brudder man. U know how we are all bros who rock & live in peace.
But such is the scenario, chasms grow bigger & deeper by the fooking day.
Memali PtII is waiting to happen & the powers-that-be will use it to scare an already timid & apathetic populace into submission.
constant_d: the youth of today . . . the Barisan of tomorrow.
senorita: if you can get PR, yes by all means do. Once upon a time, I said we must fight fer our rights as THIS IS OUR COUNTRY TOO.
But as the pix in the blog openly demonstrate, the minorities are treated like fooking shite.
What's worse, the majority don't seem to fookibg care (eg yer coursemates).
What a sad indictment of the state of our nation . . .
baba,
just to state clear of where i actually 'stand' on this whole issue. i dont really support any rally/demo. but i have friends who were part of the past 2 rallies and my respect to them for their courage to walk the talk.
*there you go. the real torres is back.
typo error. obviously i meant bala instead of baba.
sorry brother.
kerp: TQ fer the clarification. But a tru-blu poonk rawker like yer goodself, yer credentials & intentions were never in doubt.
Anyone with Dead Kennedys or Discharge in their CD collection will surely know the importance of civil disobedience & sarcastic rhetoric against the authorities!
ps: the isuue isn't Torres but Rafa, how long will he last?
As Ian Mackaye once sung:
Make do with what you have
Take what you can get
Pay no mind to us
We're just a minor threat
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlWmafBG1Mo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JU8ZsNYSGbQ&feature=related
yes,i totally agree that we must fight for our rights.. but seriously,how to do it and what is considered the right way(s)? i see oppositions going round giving talks.. promising everyone of this and that... and frankly speaking,i cannot imagine how the country will operate when they do take over the office.
so far I've seen that some parties who stand up and fight for what they think is right are getting into trouble, and of course,it looks like nothing has changed..
so really,how do we do it?
Was in Court yesterday morning and the paranoid pigs were out in full force & had closed the main Court gates & screening every Macha coming to Court. In fact there were some Macha filing clerks who were not let in on account that they don't look right.
senorita: Let's not jump the gun. We are not talking about the opposition gaining power. Let's just work towards denying BN a 2/3 majority. This is of paramount importance.
We must also send a clear signal that fooking arrogant, brainless dickeheads like nazri are booted out of office.
Unbridled croynism in the form of KJ must also come to a halt.
Unfettered racism in the form of kris-waving & inflammatory remarks by the likes of KJ & Hishamuddin must fooking stop!
And do leave fer NZ if you get the chance!
Bernard: Racial profiling is still ok here. After every macha is a rowdy, belligerent, wife-beating drunk, rite?
Dey I heard that bout that go to NZ thingabomb. Funny thing is that I would love to stay but marital bliss is utmost important to contend with.
Coming back to the subject of the young not caring about politics. It exists with every society. However, how many there out there are blessed with understanding the Rights of Man by Thomas Paine and concept of civil liberties. Not all are lucky. Those that do not have to be educated with what their rights can do to the government executive branch.
PEOPLE, THE CONCEPT OF DEMOCRACY IS ONE PERSON ONE VOTE. IF YOU DO NOT LIKE THE CANDIDATE, VOICE YOUR OPPOSITION BY VOTING AGAINST THE INCUMBENT.
THE GOVERNMENT WAS MADE BY THE PEOPLE AND FOR THE PEOPLE. REMEMBER THAT! VOTE TO YOUR CONSCIENCE AND NOT ACCORDING TO RACE OR PARTY LINES.
WE'RE BEING MADE FOOLS OF BECAUSE WE CANNOT DECIDE FOR OUR FUTURE SO GOVERNMENT DECIDES FOR US. IS THAT WHAT MALAYSIA IS MEANT TO BE?
ASK YOURSELF.......
albertus: haiyo, pls read me comments properly lar. I said once upon a time, I would have called fe u to stay & fight BUT these days, I wish all emigrants the very best of luck. By all mean go, brudder, GO!
The worrying thing bout M'sians is that we are APATHETIC by nature. Worse, IGNORANCE has become second nature due to the constant diet of fooking bullshit fed via the mainstream media.
Tis the unfortunate truth that the MAJORITY of people I have encountered (from colleagues to me neighbourhood pork noodle seller) are misinformed bout almost everyting regarding the recent rallies. Worse yet, some even don't fooking care as they say "it's none of their business!"
How can the state of their own nation NOT be their fooking business is MIND FOOKING BOGGLING!
watch the movie V for Vendetta. A clear example of a police state.
albertus: Yup, seen the movie but more importantly read the original graphic novel! Fooking brilliant stuff.
Highly recommended - "V For Vendetta" - Alan Moore. Buy it!
In the words of the very selected few politiciants i respect - "The problem of power is how to achieve its responsible use rather than its irresponsible and indulgent use -- of how to get men of power to live for the public rather than off the public." Robert F. Kennedy (1925-1968)
JonC: Wise words indeed. But fer the moment I'd just settle fer the fooking authorities to refrain from spraying tear gas into temple compounds & of course, to stop the continued demolition of temples.
I know the problem goes deeper but fer me that is the paramount issue fer now.
It has to STOP!
I heard about these incidents. Can't say I'm surprised by the way the police behaved and the way things were reported in the press, though. Malaysia has got lots of bad press in Australia. And it's all true ...
You people talk of inequality and how the govt is not being fair to indians and how a lot of your friends are in the dark. the situation is true
but let me ask you... how many of you went to show your support that day? if you are unhappy, what have you done to show it besides just making noise about it among your other middle class friends over the internet or slamming the govt in the pubs with your guiness stout. or did you just watch the whole thing on TV in your nice comfortable home and claim to know what is going on.
if you guys did show up in the rally on that day, than i am happy and i thank you. we may have even stood next to each other. if not, i think all you guys are just posers and nothing more. doing what indians are always teased to be... making noise but no action.
thank you
srs: here we go. just because some may not have been at the rally doesn't mean we do NOT care. Quite the contrary.
And fer you to assume we are all comfy middle class posers drinking stout . . . well, how is that different from the typical "semua Keling mabuk & pukul bini" stereotype?
Sorry to say, you have gotten things somewhat wrong here but I defend yer right to express yer opinion. A touch of perspective to go with yer anger is recommended.
At least here you get people who care bout the lot of the Indian community & also share similar sentiments.
Isn't that better than the large numbers who still suck Barisan cock? Even after the demo, there were plenty wanting to show they were "loyal" to BN. Isn't that more sickening?
ps: have been unable to join any public rallies - bersih, hindraf etc - due to poor health. Not an excuse but a fact.
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