YOURSAY 'What is so disrespectful about the Dec 31 rally and what is there is to celebrate on New Year’s Eve, which signifies the coming of a year of hardships?'

Dec 31 rally 'disrespectful' to New Year celebrations

Lim Chong Long: Gerakan Youth chief Tan Keng Liang is not mature enough to know what respect is. Let me offer some suggestions.

Increasing prices of basic necessities for the people to feed the lavish lifestyles of our so-called leaders and their unelected wives and children and adopted children is disrespectful to the people.

And you are telling us that we in exercising our right to express our dissatisfaction over the price hikes is disrespectful is beyond disrespectful to us. It is downright outrageous and insulting.

Price: What you mean by New Year celebrations, when there are people who are struggling to make ends meet? This clearly shows as a politician, you are not even aware of those who are struggling with their meagre income.

Apacerita: Who bothers about celebrations when our livelihoods are at stake? What's the good of celebrating and welcoming 2014 when we will all suffer because of price hikes?

Tan Keng Liang should get the rakyat's priorities straight. Is a one-day celebration more important than the price hike that will affect us for the next 365 days and more?

Anonymous #02382443: Whilst I do not condone violence, may I ask of those who oppose the peaceful demonstration, what is the problem of showing one's objection to the raising of prices on essential commodities and utilities?

What is so disrespectful and what is there is to celebrate the New Year's Eve, which signifies the coming of a year of hardships?

TTT: Tan, what do you mean by, "They should respect democracy and the decision made by Malaysians in the last general election."? The rally has nothing to do with decisions made in the GE. It is about the price hikes.

Malaya: What democracy is Tan talking about? BN came into power due to unfair election policies. BN only had 47 percent of the rakyat's support. And now they are increasing prices on most of the essential items.

The rakyat have the right to voice their unhappiness on these increases. That is democracy.

Onyourtoes: Yes, we respect democracy. We respect the right to assemble peacefully and the last time I checked, we are the majority.

What is so great about your New Year's Eve celebration when most of the people are not even able to cover their day-to-day expenses?

As a Chinese, I wouldn’t mind even if the protests were to be held on Chinese New Year's eve. And I hope the Malays and the Indians will also hold protests on their major festivals too.

Tehachapi: What is immature and disrespectful is for these BN political operatives to ignore the pain and suffering of the people by coming up with every plausible excuse, except to earnestly deal with the real issues affecting the livelihood of the people.

Don't they know that it is useless to use empty words to soothe the pain, when there is no deed to show? There is a complete loss of trust in the political leadership of this nation.

While these politicians are busily preparing for another hollow celebration, the people have to worry and contend with the real hard question of dealing with new challenges before them.

We the citizens are seeing our dreams and hopes evaporating quickly before our own eyes and there is little we can do about it, except to patiently wait for the nightmare to end.

Without a future to hope for, who has the mood for any celebration, be it Christmas, New Year, Hari Raya or what have you? Most are bracing for a very difficult time ahead.

LogicalMalaysian: BN Youth is now picking a quarrel with Penang and Selangor. Their story is to blame the impending rise in costs on the fees and charges by both state governments.

They still don't get it. The people are angry and frustrated with the BN and Umno for failing to rein in excessive losses and corruption (see the Auditor-General’s Report), but instead force the price increases down the people's throats.

The Selangor and Penang state governments are well managed and people are satisfied with the curbs in losses and corruption in those states.

DevilsSlaughter: With all the prices hikes, how could we still have mood to celebrate the new year? Are we going to shout “thank you” for all the price hikes?

We cry instead of laugh. We curse instead of love our so-called leaders. Indeed, we should wear black to mark the coming of the ‘price hike’ year.

Rakyat Boleh: Maybe Tan Keng Liang should attend the rally tomorrow to make sure everything is peaceful at the event. I'm sure the cops wouldn't fire tear gas at him.

Continue-The-March: Hello Tan Keng Liang, as long as the police and Umno do not create a ruckus for the general public who choose to join in the demonstration there will be no trouble. Remember in the KL112 'People's Uprising Demonstration' in Stadium Merdeka?

Over 80,000 Malaysians marched to the stadium and it was peaceful. Why? Because the police and Umno did not get involved.

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