There was no teargas at the Bersih rally down here in Sydney, but there were tears of joy in a great many eyes at the speeches, protest songs and the phone and Internet messages coming through on the progress of the brave marchers in Malaysia.

bersih sydney Being in Town Hall Square with Malaysians of all ages, from babes in arms through young students to grandfathers who had lived away from home for 40 years, was an intensely emotional experience for us Australians too.

Then, by the time we reached home, there were more lumps in our throats and tears in our eyes at sight of hundreds of soul-stirring Internet pictures and videos of other Bersih gatherings around the world.

But what especially gladdened our hearts and misted our vision, of course, were the scenes of courage and resolve in the face of the current Malaysian government’s treachery, threats, intimidation, attacks and arrests in the streets of KL.

Sadly, since then, our feelings of elation have been dampened by news of the death of one of our brothers in the Bersih cause, Baharudin Ahmad.

funeral baharudin bersih protester But we owe more than our condolences to his family and friends. We owe the late Baharudin himself, like hundreds of previous victims of Umno/BN brutality, from Altantuya Shaariibuu to Teoh Beng Hock, the justice that Umno/BN persists in denying them.

And, as always, the moment I think of or mention Umno/BN, all my thoughts of tears of joy or sorrow are swept away by an upsurge of rage.

Who the hell, I cry, do the kotor crats of Umno and Barisan Nasional think they are? Members of government are supposed to be servants of the people, not their slave-masters. They’re supposed to run Malaysia, not ruin it; to keep the country clean, not mire it in crime and grime.

BN has been in office so long that it loves to pose as the very institution of government, when in fact it is just a pack of pretenders clinging to power by perverting the electoral system; a criminal conspiracy against the people whose interests it falsely claims to represent.

Not worth one human life

Keeping this coterie of crooks in possession of Putridjaya is not worth one human life like Baharudin Ahmad’s, let alone the hundreds of others that have ended at the hands of its so-called ‘law-enforcement’ agencies.

Yet, since Baharudin Ahmad died during the July 9 Bersih rally from the effects of tear-gas and police neglect to render him emergency assistance, there’s been no word of sorrow or sympathy from the powers-that-be, just excuses.

NONE KL acting police chief Amar Singh ( left ) dismissed Baharudin’s death as simply from a heart attack, and, despite witness claims of tear gas and flight from the FRU, denied any police involvement.

And the puppet-master of the police crackdown on the assembly, Najib Abdul Razak, was, as ever, as far from contrite as from the truth, declaring that, “They said they wanted to hold a peaceful rally. If the police had not monitored it, it would not have been peaceful.”

Who does this prime, crime and grime minister think he’s kidding with such a pathetic pack of lies? It’s plainly evident for all to see that his and his cousin’s ‘monitoring’ of the rally with riot police, tear gas, water cannons and hundreds of arrests was the only reason that the rally wasn’t peaceful.

Just as everyone is aware that he was lying again when he went on to claim that it was Anwar Ibrahim who masterminded the rally, rather than the Christians or Communists that he and his cronies had earlier tried to stick with the blame.

In fact, as Lim Guan Eng, chief minister of the opposition-ruled state of Penang, said in his eulogy at the funeral of Baharudin Ahmad the only power behind the rally was the people.

“When (Baharudin) attended the peaceful rally, it was for our future, for peace, for justice, for truth, for democracy and for a clean and fair election,” Lim said. “It’s a struggle we have to do together. Let them not steal our children’s future, it’s a cry of the common people.”

But clearly the common people have a great deal more crying to do yet, as Najib, having presided over what Amnesty International branded “the worst campaign of repression we’ve seen in the country for years” and Human Rights Watch slammed as “a maelstrom of the Malaysian authorities’ own making,” was still spouting lies like “the government also favours clean elections” and that “democratic principles will be defended.”

Off ended, more like it, by one dirty trick after another.

NONE Like conspiring with race-hate rabble, Perkasa, to sow discord in society; like dressing-up Umno Youth members as “patriots” rallying in support of dirty elections; like employing the ‘mainstream’ media to demonise honest citizens; and like plotting with the police to ‘discover’ clearly fake arms caches allegedly intended for use by Bersih supporters and to set-up roadblocks to cause massive traffic jams to try and turn the so-called ‘silent majority’ against protestors.

Najib has called on this silent majority of Malaysians that he claims are opposed to Bersih’s call for clean and fair elections to “make their stand clear in cyberspace.”

Silenced majority finds its voice

But from what I see in cyberspace, even though some of it, notably Malaysiakini , has been under distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attack for several days, what Najib is confronted with is a formerly silenced majority that is finally finding its voice.

A voice rendered increasingly venomous by every dirty deed the Umno/BN commits in its fumbling, bumbling and ultimately futile efforts to fight for survival.

Instead of silently sighing or crying over the dirty state of their beloved country, more and more Malaysians are openly revealing their feelings and shedding their fears.

So here’s to cheers and joyful tears to the burgeoning spirit of Bersih, sorrowful tears to Baharudin Ahmad, and three jeers to the forthcoming bitter tears of buruk, busuk Barisan – or rather Basi ran - Nasional.

 

DEAN JOHNS, after many years in Asia, currently lives with his Malaysian-born wife and daughter in Sydney, where he coaches and mentors writers and authors and practices as a writing therapist. Published books of his columns for Malaysiakini include ‘Mad about Malaysia’, ‘Even Madder about Malaysia’, ‘Missing Malaysia’ and ‘1Malaysia.con’.