The Right of Assembly As A Weapon Against Tyranny And Injustice

Hey, sorry for not writing for quite sometime, been quite busy lately. Anyway, despite being busy with work and stuff, it is hard to ignore the heightened political tension now. The tension is caused by the BERSIH 2.0 rally not to mention Perkasa and UMNO Youth that will have similar counter-rally at the same place and time as BERSIH 2.0.

I'm not a fan of street demonstrations. I don't believe in demonstrating for the sake of demonstrating. However, I plan to take part in the BERSIH 2.0 rally. The reason being is that BERSIH 2.0 is a rally for democracy, a cause close to my heart.

However some quarters have demonise BERSIH to the extent of equating it to communism, foreign imperialism and what not. It is expected especially from the government seeking to continue their manipulation of the electoral system for the sake of their hold on power. It is not national security as much as it is maintaining political order and preservation of power. Draconian ways in the name of national security have been used to contain the rally including arresting those who are in any way associated with BERSIH ( eg wearing, selling or using BERSIH goods, promoting BERSIH).

It is funny how the ones accusing BERSIH of communism is practicing ways of the communist. Communism states are known to crash dissent using fear and torture and apparently, to a certain extent, the BN government seems keen to use the approach of communist states instead of the ones used in developed nation democracies that allow peaceful protests. We are behaving like a communist nation so much so that even wearing a BERSIH shirt warrants an arrest. Chin Peng must be laughing at us right now. Demokrasi acuan sendiri kan.

Despite the legitimacy of security issues, we must remember authoritarian nations tend to use this argument to crush dissent due to their own tyranny and unjust way of governing. I have seen it so many times. The Mubarak, Suharto, Mugabe and other autocratic regime have used the excuse of national security in legitimizing their unjust crackdown on those who are opposing them.

Even fear-gripped USA voted for Bush in 2004 due his national security agenda. Look what happened to the United States due to their decision, illegal detention of so called terrorist, the waging of expansive wars that resulted in lost of innocent human beings, cruel methods to gain information such as waterboarding and other atrocities never imagined possible, especially from the US. We must not lose our humanity in the presence of fear as the ultimate fear is losing our humanity. That is when injustice begun.

Finally, the use of assembly and demonstrations have brought down tyrant regimes like the regime of Suharto, Mubarak and many more throughout history.

The use of demonstrations also have managed to get the government to react in a positive manner. For example, in Malaysia, the last BERSIH rally managed to get the government to agree on few electoral reforms such as the use of transparent ballot box instead of the metal ones and the presence of independent officers during the counting of the ballot. The government even agreed on the indelible ink proposal but aborted in last minute due to technical issues. The election conducted by the government after BERSIH's first rally is cleaner compared to previous elections.

Even the Anti PPSMI( Pembelajaran dan pengajaran Sains dan Matematik dalam Bahasa Inggeris) movement managed to put pressure to the government to overturn the policy of teaching English in science and mathematics whether the move is right or wrong. The point is, sometimes the use of demonstrations are necessary to pressure the government to act accordingly and to bring down tyranny and unjust government.

In conclusion, the right of assembly in a peaceful manner should be protected as it can be used as a weapon by the people to ask the government to change their ways or to change the government itself. It is the manifestation of people power or Ketuanan Rakyat. Let me end this article with the famous quote in the movie V for Vendetta with the hope that we, malaysians demand the same from ourselves and our government '' The People Should Not Be Afraid of The Government, The Government Should be Afraid of The People".