Fair & Square, My Thoughts Over RPK’s MCLM

ARCHIVES 2010

By admin-s On Oct 27, 2010

People are starting to question the capabilities of PR to govern should they be given the mandate to take over Putrajaya. What happened with PR the past 2 years indicated two very distinct weak points. Credible candidates and the arrogant ‘we know best’ attitude, just like umno.

By Richard Loh

This posting is to share my thoughts over Raja Petra Kamarudin’s (RPK) Malaysian Civil Liberties Movement(MCLM) and not a challenge to take on RPK nor having any other ulterior motive. Who am I, an unknown little person to take on RPK, whom, up till now has strong support from the public, especially those who are up in arms against umno/bn.

Raja Petra Kamarudin wrote about the Malaysian Civil Liberties Movement(MCLM)

This Saturday, 30th October 2010, I am going to legalise the Malaysian Civil Liberties Movement (MCLM). And so that I do not create any confusion or be accused of ‘hijacking’ the MCLS, I am going to call it ‘Movement’ instead of ‘Society’.

Thus the launching of the MCLM this Saturday to take over from the MCLS that was shot down even as it was still taxiing on the runaway and before it could take off.
You can read the full posting here.

There are confusion among his readers regarding his posting on the Malaysian Civil Liberties Movement(MCLM) especially when they saw Tun Mahathir and Umno’s big shot, Tan Sri Sanusi Junid, names were mentioned.

Let me begin by describing how, for the first time and hopefully not the last, I met and shook hands with this great man, Raja Petra Kamarudin (RPK).

It was at the biggest bersih rally in 2007, I happened to walk right pass him among the 50k or so crowd. He was with his wife (we met a few more times later when RPK was detained under the ISA) and I think his son was there as well. I recognised him and paused for a while, thinking of whether to approach him or not.

We were already near the front gate of the Istana and cannot move forward anymore, just standing on the muddy ground, soiled by an earlier heavy down pour.

After looking around for a few minutes I decided to walk up to him and introduced myself. “Hi, you are RPK”, no response and his wife quickly answered “yes” and she signaled to him of my presence. I said, “Richard Loh from Penang” and we shook hands, his wife gave a surprised look and asked, “you came down all the way from Penang?” RPK excused himself saying that he was trying to call someone. I had a short conversation with his wife before moving away to meet up with Haris Ibrahim.

A few days later, at home on my computer, I visited MT to read the news about the big rally. There were many photos and I was surprised to see a photograph, a closed up picture of me in full. I think it should still be in the archives.

My one sentence description of RPK. A quiet man who talks with his brain rather than his mouth.

Many of us are amateurs when talking about politics. We are clueless or incompetent when comes to talk or argue about our country’s politics. We just follow the tides and sentiments depending on which side of the political divide we are aligned to.

A few may have graduated to be political analysts but many, including myself, are still hanging here and there, once a while trying to be smart, writing or commenting on political issues, after the 308 tsunami.

What we can observed is that a majority of MT followers are pro-opposition, not for the love of it, but the hatred of the ruling government. Each time when RPK whacked umno/bn, everyone would add more fire onto the already hot issue in their comments just to make one feels better.

So, what is wrong or right about RPK’s article on the Malaysian Civil Liberties Movement(MCLM). I assume many like me had not heard about this Malaysian Civil Liberties thingy until we read RPK’s article about it. He may had written about it many years ago, but, not many had much interest about politics at that point of time.

All these years, RPK had wanted change of a new Federal Government and works with PR to help in whatever way he can to see that it takes place. The 12th GE came close but not close enough to see the change except the consolation of winning 5 States. Everyone seems to be happy with the results and the forming of PR was officially sealed.

The next step is for PR to wrest Putrajaya in the 13th GE. Everything looks fine during the first year after 308 but things started to go wrong after Perak was given back to umno/bn on the platter with the help of 3 jumping frogs. Many frogs started to jump following the fall of Perak and internal bickering within each party in PR started to show the weaknesses of PR.

One party within the PR coalition is showing its true color reminiscing that of umno. The craze for position, infighting and throwing out all the gabbages of the party openly to the media. The other two parties also have their internal problems but not that glaring.

Not only you and I are frustrated but I guess RPK is very furious as well. He had highlighted many disastrous events about to happen in PR by writing in MT or maybe even had spoken to the leaders but no actions were taken to prevent it from happening and sadly enough it did happened.