What Bersih 4.0 needs to accomplish
By Christine Hu
Here’s what I expect the Bersih 4.0 rally to achieve: Nothing.
Let’s say the best-case scenario happens: Malaysians, fed up with Prime Minister Najib Razak’s blatant corruption, turn out in droves and a million people rally in the streets of Kuala Lumpur, Kota Kinabalu, and Kuching. They demonstrate against the government for two days from August 29 to 30, and then after that they all go home.
Surely this will force the government to change, right?
Surely this will shame Najib into resigning for robbing the country blind, right? Oh wait, no, it won’t, because Najib has no shame and couldn’t care less if people know he’s corrupt as long as they can’t do anything about it.
Surely this will prompt institutions like the Attorney General’s chambers, the police, the MACC, and the courts to hold him to account, right? Oh wait, no, it won’t, because Umno ultimately controls all four, especially after sacking the former Attorney General Gani Patail and having the police raid the MACC to remove evidence.
If the result of Bersih 4.0 would be people coming together to shout against Najib’s administration for two days and then going home with nothing achieved, Najib would just laugh at us. “Let them shout, lah!” you can imagine him laughing. “Let them get it out of their system!”
What a joke that would make of the rakyat! Why should a government ever fear the rakyat if this is the most they can do? Why should a prime minister ever think twice about cheating the country again if this is the worst that can happen?
That’s the problem. Bersih, civil society, the opposition don’t have a strategy. It’s not a strategy if even in the best-case scenario nothing changes. How can they expect Malaysians to come out to rally if they have no strategy for bringing about change? I am willing to come out for Bersih 4.0 and rally, but not if they have no strategy.
To have any chance of success, Bersih 4.0 has to go beyond a two-day rally. It must become a continuous demonstration that can move from one part of the city to another, but doesn’t end – not until the demands of the rakyat for Najib to step down for his corruption are met. Protest camps should be set up, with people rotating in and out, leaving for a while to take breaks or fulfill obligations, and returning to relieve their comrades. Key components of this movement will be students, politicians, and civil society leaders, and everyone should be prepared to be in it for the long haul.
The Umno party is not used to so many people openly challenging it like that. Every single day that demonstration goes on for will be an insult to it and a challenge to its power. Specific areas of the city should be targeted. Merdeka Square is one, as a symbol of our country’s freedom – a freedom that is being threatened by Najib’s tyranny. The area around the Umno building is another, as a symbol of Umno’s power – if that can be threatened, people will see Umno isn’t invincible. The area around the building should be blocked so that no one gets into it without a fight. There will be other key areas in KL and in other cities too. How long do you think Umno will be able to endure such a challenge?
This is the way abusive governments were toppled in Ukraine during the Orange Revolution in 2005 and in Egypt during the Arab Spring in 2011. This is what people in Hong Kong did, holding out in a tent city for over 70 days last year. Through similar rallies in Bangkok, a small minority of the Thai population forced the resignation of their own government.
But, some might say, those other places are different – it’s hard to get Malaysians to do something like that, it’s not our culture. To which I can only reply: Is it our culture to let corrupt politicians get away with robbing the country blind? Do we love our country less than Ukrainians and Egyptians and Hong Kongers loved theirs that we aren’t prepared to fight for it?
The Bersih 4.0 movement must be strong, but fluid. If they try to arrest the protest leaders, the people must rally around them, fighting back the police if necessary. It must stand up to smaller odds and retreat before overwhelming odds, only to regroup later at a different part of the city.
But, some others might say, this will cause chaos in the country. To which I can only reply: Good! Malaysia could do with some chaos! For too long we have let “maintaining order” be an excuse for allowing the Umno dictatorship to stay in power just because it’s the biggest bully in the country. Would we rather have Umno’s order, an order it maintains by arresting and jailing anyone who threatens it, by suspending newspapers and punishing whistleblowers or the creative disruption necessary for real change to take place? Are we so naïve that we think that anything less can bring the change our country needs?
Yes, it will involve the breaking of laws – laws like the Peaceful Assembly Act and the Sedition Act – repressive laws that are fit for a dictatorship not a democracy, laws that should never have disfigured the statute book.
Yes, it will involve overthrowing a prime minister, but not one with a democratic mandate – Najib has some nerve trying to claim a democratic mandate in an electoral system as gerrymandered as ours, in a political system in which the opposition is persecuted all year round and in which he holds a monopoly on mainstream media (and even then he still lost the support of the 52% of his people). Through corruption and abuse of power, Umno has no more moral legitimacy.
And yes, there is always the risk of bloodshed. Umno may eventually decide to call in the army and have them fire on their own people, murdering them in the streets regardless of what the rest of the world thinks.
But I say we have no choice. This is a make-or-break moment for our country. If Najib survives the 1MDB scandal, it will show he can get away with anything, that any prime minister can get away with anything no matter how vile. Together with his new deputy Zahid Hamidi and his new Attorney General Apandi Ali, he is likely to usher in an even more repressive era, stoking racial and religious intolerance, imposing curbs on free expression online, maybe even passing hudud throughout the country. They are likely to target social media like Facebook and Twitter, and independent news outlets like The Edge and online news sites – we can see this coming – many in Umno are calling for it increasingly loudly. If we stand up to Umno now, there is the possibility of failure. However if we don’t, there will be a certainty of failure. The worst thing we can do is take no risk at all.
When freedom was eroded in the May 13th incident, my parents’ generation did nothing. When critics of the government were locked up under the ISA during ops lalang, my generation criticized, but did nothing. When our country’s judicial integrity was destroyed in the 1988 judicial crisis, my generation shouted about it, but did nothing. When Anwar Ibrahim was sent to prison a second time after a sham trial, we protested against it, but did nothing. We are responsible for the state Malaysia is in. We allowed all this to happen.
I don’t want to do nothing any more. I call on the Bersih leaders, Maria Chin Abdullah and Ambiga Sreenevasan, on opposition leaders like Wan Azizah and Lim Kit Siang and Lim Guan Eng and Mat Sabu and civil society leaders to implement a strategy that can bring the change we need for the upcoming Bersih 4.0 rally. We cannot afford to do anything less.
I hope they will, and I hope to see you on the barricades.
