Do I hold the people who run this government in my twilight years in the same regard as those in my formative years? No I don't.
Come to think of it, I have nothing but contempt for them.
There were too many incidences that stirred my sense of righteousness leading me to conclude that the present day government no longer belongs in the domain of the righteous but in the domain of the evil.
In my little own ways, I silently protested. It has been two years since I watched the local news on National TV and Astro. It has been six months since I told Muniandy our newspaper delivery boy to stop our daily orders of The Star and New Straits Times .
No, I would not even touch Utusan even if it is the only piece of reading material in the barbershop while waiting for my turn.
Bersih 1.0 had my silent support. Work circumstances prevented me from being an active supporter.
I told myself that I cannot remain passive for Bersih 2.0. At 62, I am fit enough to be with the crowd.
It is not for pleasure; it is not to whet my waning ego. It is for self-demonstration that I have to walk the talk.
Other than my wife and two daughters, no one needs to know that I was there at Bersih 2.0.
Even this article is anonymous with probably only my kin and close friends who could make an intelligent guess that it was me.
To the rest of the country, I am just another Mat Bersih. Would my presence make a difference?
Yes it did to me and most of all it did to Bersih. I was a number that made up the Bersih crowd. 50,000 or was it 100,000? It makes no difference to me.
What I know was that the crowd was huge. I have never seen the like of it in my lifetime, not even in Bukit Jalil stadium. I was there and I never felt more relevant.
Parking my car at UOA building Bangsar at 11am, I took the LRT to Masjid Jamek. Surprisingly there were few people at the station and on the train. Doubts crept into my mind that Bersih 2.0 might be a non-starter.
I chose to stand in the train just to view the roads below. All was quiet. KL Sentral was quiet and so was Jalan Bangsar. There were a few cars on the road and I did not see the streams of people walking towards Dataran Merdeka like I thought it would be.
The police roadblocks became evident near Museum Negara. Upon reaching Pasar Seni and looking across the river I saw the huge crowd.
My loud ‘yes' exclamation turned smiling heads of approval towards me. I promptly walked out of the train and joined the crowd.
Being in the crowd for the first time and seeing all sorts of people from all races around me had me fighting hard to hold my tears. Sebak , as the Malays would say.
My adrenalin took hold of me and I moved upfront. Turning the bend at Bangunan Loke Yew and nearing the Straits Building, I saw the police line in front.
So soon I told myself. There came the shouts from the Bersih leaders upfront and passed down the line to stop and sit down on the tarmac.
A good move I thought. This was in order to allow the crowd from the rear to catch up.
The crowd's sheer size might stop the police from acting rashly. My thoughts came too soon. The police knew they have to prevent that and barely a few minutes of sitting down came the sound of shots.
I saw the white trails of tear gas canisters in the air, some canisters falling a few feet from me. I ran bending low as if under enemy fire and moved back with the crowd along the river towards the rear of Dayabumi.
I had the first taste of tear gas. I was gasping and I barely could open my eyes. My grey hair, my skull cap and my extreme reaction to the tear gas was obvious to many that this was a senior citizen whose tolerance level was low.
As I sat down, help came within seconds. Water was poured into my hands to wash my eyes. Salt was handed over and I was told to lick it.
Someone put a bottle of water to my mouth and I was sternly told to drink. A young lady came to hand over a surgical mask. I sat for about 15 minutes with the crowd, now waiting for instructions what to do next.
Soon shouts came to move. We changed direction and tried to cross the bridge near Pasar Seni. A line of police was waiting and before we could cross, white trails of tear gas came snaking across the river towards us.
I told myself that this is not even 1pm. Bersih was supposed to start at 2pm. The skirmishes with the police were expected but not this early and fierce.
I knew the principles of crowd control something I learned during my military days.
The police seemed to ignore these principles purposely. No warnings appeared to be given. If there were, the loud hailers could not be heard.
The march was not a funeral procession that moved in silence. Can't they use banners instead of loud hailers? This was going to be bad, I told myself.
The crowd ran and I followed, this time not knowing exactly where the column was heading. We moved across a bridge and down the road.
Soon we were along narrow streets that were totally alien to me but having the heritage look. The crowd filled the roads and with no signs of the police, the march became merry and fun filled. This time we had people lining the road on both sides egging us on.
They were locals and tourists cheering and giving the thumbs up sign while snapping away with their cameras.
The march took the shape of a fiesta. I sighted an old Chinese man sitting on the balcony with his legs up on a stool grinning away, looking ever so happy and raising his arms every now and then.
My thought went back to the late Sixties.
I bet it was never in his dream that he could see such a joyous mixed crowd of thousands of Malaysian of all races walking past his doorsteps that could stir so much happiness in him instead of fear.
What a sight to behold when our column turned round the corner and saw thousands of people lining the roads at the Pudu Raya/ Menara Maybank junctions.
They were hundreds too on the steps and escalators to Menara Maybank. Shouting and clapping, they welcomed our arrival taking comfort that their numbers have multiplied many times more.
I saw the police line, they seemed to be watching and not making any move. Feeling courageous I started to move up towards the police line to snap some pictures.
Little did I know it will soon be total chaos and I would be tested physically.
First were the water cannons. I was still outside their reach. I continued forward and seconds later came the whooshing sound of tear gas canisters arching over the air and falling in the midst of the middle section of the crowd where I was.
Good tactics. Hit the front of the crowd with water to stall the March and then fire for effect into the middle section of the crowd (the killing zone as the army call it) for maximum impact. I had canisters falling close to my feet.
If at the Straits Building, I was bending low while moving back but still very much in control of myself, this time I lost myself.
I only knew that the smoke had got into my lungs and while the stinging pain in the eyes was familiar from the Straits Trading skirmish, the pain in my chest and the intensity of my breathing difficulties had me thinking that this time I had pushed my luck too far.
I groped my way back and once in the clear sat at on the kerb in front of Starbucks catching my breath. The same scenario repeated itself as at the rear of Dayabumi.
"Tolong orang tua (take care of the old)", I heard someone shout and help came; water, salt and repeated questions of ‘uncle or abang ok tak?'.
This was when I told myself that I had to stop my bravado. I knew that I would not be so lucky if I had to go through one more dose of tear gas like just now.
I saw the crowd massing at Pudu Raya and I crossed the road from Starbucks inching close to the buildings until I was back in the safety of the crowd.
It was a wise move as I saw stragglers at where I was before, being nabbed by the police. Yes, being together with the crowd is the best way to escape arrest.
The next scene flabbergasted me as it went against all principles of crowd control, the most important is that when dispersing a crowd by force, ensure that the crowd has exits to escape.
Pudu Raya Bersih marchers did not have escape routes. Both ends of the Jalan Pudu had police lines. The crowd was trapped. There were no escape routes.
I sensed the danger and desperately looked for an escape route. I saw that the basement of Pudu Raya (where the buses are parked but were empty then) was a better option than Jalan Pudu should more tear gas canisters came flying.
There was a 10 feet drop from the road and with a bad back at my age, I could not do it. Suddenly a Chinese man who had jumped down earlier asked me to sit on the ledge and slowly lower my feet onto his shoulders.
One guy stood in front of the man and stretched his palms and told me to grab them with mine.
There I was being safely lowered and thanking both profusely as I knew I could not take another dose of tear gas should I remain on Jalan Pudu.
Down came the rain and there was a respite that I took advantage of. Moving up the ramp, I moved into Tung Shin hospital compound.
The rain came pouring down drenching us to the skin. When the rain eased up, the police onslaught commenced from the Pudu Raya end.
The police line at the other end was quiet. Volleys of tear gas were fired one after the other in front the hospital.
When I was there I did not see any canisters that fell into the hospital compound but firing tear gas in front of the hospital was as good as firing into the hospital.
Some of the crowd shouted to the police line at the other end telling them to tell their friends to stop the tear gassing as it posed a danger to the hospital.
As far as I was concerned, it was criminal negligence by the police ground commander. If sounding your horn while in the hospital proximity is prohibited, what's more was firing tear gas in its vicinity of the hospital.
My phone battery by now had gone flat and I had no pictures to show of the Tung Shin incidents.
It took awhile for the police to come to their senses. They finally decided to allow the crowd to disperse from the hospital compound by using a side lane to the hospital.
The crowd took advantage of the amnesty and marched on until it emerged at the rear of Hotel Istana and then onwards to Jalan Ampang where we joined up with another crowd moving towards KLCC.
I was still at the mid-section of the column and looking front and back, I saw Jalan Ampang filled to the brim with people, stretching from Hotel Concorde junction right up to Wisma Angkasa Raya road junction.
What a crowd! One must be looking with blinkered eyes to say there were only 6000 Bersih marchers. It may be correct to say that 6000 policemen were deployed.
The police operations room at Bukit Aman has the figures from all monitoring stations including the helicopters.
I would estimate close to 70,000. The police knew and we knew and that's good enough. Just ignore the IGP.
I sat with the KLCC crowd for a while and since it was close to 4pm without any food, I had to call it a day. I managed to enter KLCC. Not long after, all doors of KLCC were closed preventing any entry and exit.
Exhausted I finally managed to exit KLCC at about 5.30pm and walked almost 2 kilometres to Dang Wangi station to catch the LRT to Bangsar /UOA building and to my car.
I have only one thing to say in conclusion. The government lost the hearts and minds of the marchers and also the hearts and minds of a lot of onlookers and post event readers.
It is good for the opposition cause but it gives me a kick just to ask the BN government "where's your brain eh?"
