By RZMay The Malaysian Insider May 04, 2012
KUALA LUMPUR, May 4 — We were ordinary Malaysians, professional, non-professional, rich, middle class and poor. On April 28, I found out that the different classes don’t matter, we all felt the tear gas. I was at the Masjid Jamek LRT station when they fired on us, and they closed the LRT station. I was angry at that time, but now I understood that an open LRT station could have caused more danger to us than a closed one. We could have fallen on the tracks; there could have been more injuries, and even death.
We found out on that day that our skin colour and our beliefs don’t matter. Muslims or non-Muslims, Malays, Indians, Chinese, Ibans, Kadazans, half-Eurasian half-Malay, quarter-Javanese, quarter-Portuguese, we were all one colour — yellow.
Our fight was for justice, and justice is a universal value that is upheld in every religion and belief. They say that if the polls were rigged, the opposition wouldn’t have won five states. If the polls weren’t rigged, how did BN with only 50.27 per cent of the votes get 63.1 per cent of the parliamentary seats? Why does Putrajaya have 5,000 voters yet Klang has 100,000 voters?
Then you’re going to say that we were hijacked by the opposition. Let me tell you this, we invited everyone, BN and PR, to join us, the rakyat. We are your masters, not the other way around. The only one who got “hijacked” during the gathering were PR leaders because they succumbed to our demand for free and fair elections. And let me give this warning to PR leaders, in any case during the future should you be in power and you rig the elections, we would not hesitate to go back to the streets to demand what is just, because we are your boss.
We were 250,000 on the day itself. For what reason would 0.7 per cent of the country’s population spend their weekend under the hot sun, be forced to buy RM2 non-chilled canned water (shout to the traders: really? RM2?), get tear gassed, beaten up by the police, risk massive stampedes and later accused of being disloyal to the country? Why was that huge number of people willing to do that despite all the odds and pressure? Even free food won’t persuade that many people.
Let’s not be distracted by the few rowdy supporters, real or covert. Those were just red herrings to try and distract us from our demand. We, normal Malaysians, are proud to show our love for this blessed country, and we want this country, our country, to succeed. We condemn the violence from both sides, and you guys can bear witness that we were all peaceful on that day, regardless of what the mainstream media says.
On that day, I was proud to be a Malaysian and I hope you were too. Thank you people for walking with me and let’s make Malaysia our proud home.
Hidup rakyat!