things to do on a sunday afternoon
this afternoon found me kneeling on tarmac in the middle of four lanes of highway, leaning back to catch a shot of the advancing frontline of the riot police.
(that was a particularly fun sentence to start a story about my day with)
it started outside sunway pyramid: a demonstration organized by members of the opposition parties (mainly DAP and Keadilan) and a handful of NGOs, to protest against a ludicrous hike in road toll prices (ranging from 20%-60%) that had come into effect at the start of this year.
the police were on the scene at once, amassing in a stoic gaggle.
but the crowds formed faster, armed with their discontent. some homemade placards lamented a creeping, unchecked poverty;
others cursed the corruption of the "capitalist cronies" who were lining their pockets with wealth siphoned mercilessly from the rakyat (people).
impassioned speakers
called for an elimination of tolls altogether;
they gathered with supporters behind great white and blue sheets of thoroughly disgruntled inscriptions
which really spoke of much more than simply a preoccupation with misappropriated wealth.
so under the chorus of almost boyish, cavalier shouts were rumblings of a deeper discontent. certainly by the time the demonstrators had pushed past the police
and onto the highway,
something more fundamental had crept into the sounds of protest.
more and more there were cries of "reformasi", of "hancur BN" (destroy barisan),
of lies and corruption, of unaddressed injustice, of disaffection.
but malaysian levity is irrepressible,
and the demonstration remained peaceful
(largely).
people nearest the frontline had the first ominous views of the police tanks rolling into position, nozzles poised to deploy powerful jets of water at the first sign of escalation.
at this, some of the demonstrators laughed and, without missing a beat, turned their chanting from "jatuh, jatuh, jatuh BN" (down, down, down with barisan) into "jangan, jangan, jangan pukul" (don't, don't, don't hit us) -- whereupon, I saw one of the policemen snicker into his sleeve.
one enterprising individual tried to take the demonstration to the other side of the road
but was forced back by policemen, and returned to a hero's welcome.
but more than the toll-hikes, more than the levity interspersed with disaffection, more than the eight tanks and swarms of police, even more than the sheer size of the demonstration itself,
what struck me most about this brief two hours was the racial diversity. those of you who know malaysia will know how racially divided it is purported to be. yet this afternoon, chinese, malays and indians agitated behind the same banners
politicians leapfrogged between english, chinese and malay, without missing a beat, to a crowd that applauded their speeches no matter what the language of delivery; and perhaps most incriminatingly, there were malays there who no longer felt the legitimacy of a government that had been set up explicitly to protect them.
if the french revolution was any indication, surely here is the true rakyat: not the rigidly divided, xenophobic cultural clusters that legitimize barisan's paternal concern for our interracial safety; just the age-old struggle of the powerless masses against the empowered elites. the chants of hidup, hidup rakyat! (long live the people) just ring too historically familiar.
and if history is any indication, the demonstration will have little real effect. standing behind the picket line, facing the curiously blank faces of the authorities as the crowds surged around me, I suddenly felt as though we were shouting across a divide, an abyss so wide and so deep that our voices dissolved in the internecine blackness before they could reach a far side that we knew was there, but couldn't really see.
what amazed me, and perhaps shouldn't, is that the rakyat carried on shouting anyway.
(and they will apparently go on shouting -- the demonstration is, so I hear, scheduled to happen again next week. you should join in, if you're around).
[edit] for the deep-diggers amongst you: more pictures here; thorough treatment of the toll issue here.