UMNO’s response

BolehGeneral, November 8, 2007

English, Side notes |

By xpyre

Looks like they are going to throw everything in the way of the up-coming Bersih rally on Saturday, 10th November. With under a week to go, hackers have gone to work on Bersih’s website, shutting it down and replacing it with a message declaring the rally a no-go. The Bersih site recovered momentarily before succumbing again.

These attacks demonstrate the character of this Barisan Nasional regime under which we all live. This regime breeds tyrants and fascists who would find “free and fair elections” a bad thing. Joining the onslaught against the Bersih rally is the Son-in-Law himself. What does he hope to gain? Well, he ends up looking like a right ‘ol UMNO stalwart, and ensures a rotten government remains so he can work his way up the ranks.

I wonder, now, if this rally will be the straw that breaks the proverbial camel’s back - UMNO seems to think so, or else it wouldn’t be spending so much time and effort on crushing the rally. This is, after all, more than just a rally about free and fair elections. This is a show of force, of disquiet: UMNO cannot afford it - not when opposition parties have successfully associated themselves with NGOs and civil action groups. Now the opposition has critical mass - or potentially so.

Yeah, there’s this argument: this isn’t about opposition parties and NGOs and the Bar Council and everyone ganging up on UMNO. That’s bullshit, and the opposition know it. Whether NGOs think so or not, the opposition have backed many NGO coalitions and movements - and these groups and movements are now overtly political, not merely championing social issues.

Is this a bad thing? I don’t know - what do you think?

Does the Centre for Independent Journalism support vernacular schools? Does it support an Islamic State? Does association with a political party over one issue mean it endorses the said party’s other, contentious issues?

UMNO would have me believe it. That’s how it talks about Bersih and the Article 11 movement. Personally? I find the marriage between NGOs and political parties distasteful. It sticks in the back of my throat. But then again, why should I let idealism colour my perceptions of the reality on the ground? The truth of the matter is, we don’t have parties on opposite sides of an issue. The truth is, there aren’t any issues in Malaysian politics. There is only race and personalities.

UMNO, for all its talk of negotiating between races, has proven itself time and again as a chauvinistic party. It only fights for one thing - a successful Malaysia for Malays who lap up their version of Malay supremacy. Time and the politics of fear have turned Barisan Nasional into an edifice to tyranny and failed democracies, whose success is borne on the backs of the generation of pendatangs whose only mistake was being born of a different colour and creed in this country.

Incest between NGOs and the opposition? No, I see desperate people fed up with the government running our country to the ground.

I guess I’ll wait and see if that desperation boil over and turn into violent anger on Saturday.

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