BERSIH, please do it in a stadium next time!

Folks!

In my previous post, I had suggested that maybe BERSIH should hold the much touted mass rally in a big stadium somewhere.

It has come to my attention yesterday after being told by my seniors and superiors in my Muslim NGO group that somebody did push forward such suggestion when BERSIH was tinkering with the idea of holding this mass rally a few months back. The suggestion however was shot down by BERSIH themselves.

We could not really blame the police for rejecting BERSIH’s application to hold the mass rally (MalaysiaKini has more on this) over at the Merdeka Square. We can argue that the police made such decision after being influenced by some worried people in the government but let us look at it more closely now.

Merdeka Square is located in one of Kuala Lumpur’s busiest street arteries and very close to some well known commercial areas. You all know what we have around there. The streets of Tunku Abdul Rahman and Masjid India are full with traders and prominent business centers such as SOGO. The business community over there had all ready gone through some bad experiences once or twice during the time of REFORMASI and now they hear that a new event of bigger magnitude is being planned in their neighborhood. Don’t play a fool with them. They have strong and influential associations and unions. They can easily ask the police to stop anybody from creating possible chaos in their neighborhood.

Yes, I highly criticize BERSIH for coming up short in their planning. They should have booked a big stadium somewhere and hold the mass rally there. Only then the police would not be able to give us any excuse to stop us from assembling in huge numbers.

Well, it is too late to fix things now I suppose. Everyone knows that the event would take place in Merdeka Square this Saturday. Despite my disappointment with BERSIH, I would still go down there and support them. This is not about BERSIH anyway. This is about the future of our crumbling nation and we should do something about it.

Be there or be square, folks!