COMMENT According to some Pakatan Rakyat leaders, the street protest today may see a new wave of young Malaysians participating in the movement for change.

                                               

Will it, or will it not?

 

It depends. The way I look at it is that it depends on how mature we are as a democratic nation, and how well we understand war strategies.

 

For example, the great Chinese war strategist Sun Tzu taught us that there are five essentials for victory:

  • He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.

 

  • He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces.

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  • He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks.

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  • He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared.

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  • He will win who has military capacity and is not interfered with by the sovereign.
    • Strategy, without tactics, is the slowest route to victory. Tactics, without strategy, is the noise before defeat.

     

    The leader himself is serving a five-year prison sentence. Pakatan supremo Anwar Ibrahim has proven to be a leader with calibre.

     

    He has set an example by not applying for political asylum elsewhere. A leader leads by example, not by force.

     

    The clarion call

     

    Two of Anwar’s daughters, Nurul Huda and Nurul Iman, have urged all Malaysians to take a stand against oppression.

     

    It is not that Malaysians do not know about oppression, but what appears to me is that March 7 is a great opportunity for young people and the politician wannabes to rally together in a show of solidarity for Anwar.

     

    It is the generation of Nurul Huda, Nurul Iman, and others the likes of Adam Adli and Safwan Shamsuddin, who are already making into the news circle. Today is a great opportunity for a new generation of Malaysians to be groomed to carry the torch of democracy and the much-lauded Reformasi.

     

    While these younger leaders were still in schools and universities, others have gone onto the streets in the past. Now is the time for the young people to feel the pulse of the nation.

     

    As I mentioned in my previous articles, we are a nation in birth pangs. I believe today’s rally will not be the end. There will be many more to come until Anwar is finally released from prison.

     

    Therefore, to start questioning the ‘commitment’ of state and federal representatives simply because they choose not to attend the rally today, appears to be mischievous.

                                                                                                               

    Any strategist would tell you that such insinuations were purposely posted on Facebook just to create doubt and pit the Pakatan grassroots against their leaders.

     

    Judging from Nurul Huda and Nurul Iman’s age, they were probably still at college or in school when Pakatan leaders like Azmin Ali, Nurul Izzah, Tian Chua, Elizabeth Wong, Khalid Samad, Saari Sungib, Mohamad Sabu, Lim Guan Eng, Lim Lip Eng, Anthony Loke and others were on the streets.

     

    Even activists such as former Bersih 2.0 co-chairpersons Ambiga Sreeneevasan and Pak Samad have participated in countless rallies in the past. It is not that they totally ignored the call for today’s rally, but they have to now play a different role.

     

    Leaders like Guan Eng, Mohamad Sabu and Saari Sungib have even gone to prison. These bitter experiences, which Anwar has to experience even now at 67 years old, have emboldened them to fight on, but at a different level and on a different platform.

     

    Knowing that they could be arrested for whatever they did or did not do, I would think it is wise for them not to be down on the streets that often so that they do not easily fall into the enemy’s dragnet. Imagine the news flashing across the country: ‘Penang chief minister arrested!’

     

    Guan Eng would be charged, and if fined more than RM2,000, it would immediately disqualify him from his role as Penang chief minister.

     

    We cannot afford even one state or federal representative to become disqualified over this. At the federal level, Pakatan currently has enough parliamentarians to deny BN the two-third majority that it will need to push through the Election Commission’s redelineation exercise.

     

    This is one of the reasons why BN is trying to disqualify a number of these parliamentarians using the court process, and courting an unsuspecting party like PAS to temporarily form a unity government.

     

    Different roles

     

    We have to accept the fact that, in any warfare, there are different levels of doing battle. During the Second World War, there were the foot soldiers; others flew the fighter planes; still others worked round-the-clock in factories to produce the weaponry.

     

    Although street rallies are important in any democracy, not everyone should be compelled to join the such protests at all times; or, if they fail to join them, they should not be ostracised.

     

    There are also those who believe in signing a petition to urge US President Barack Obama to intervene. As it stands, there are already 59,306 signatures on the US White House online petition , but they will have only until March 12 to hit 100,000 signatures.

     

    As Nurul Izzah Anwar has put it, “We have to use every channel to seek for justice for my father.”

     

    If I recall correctly, the (now retired) American four-star general Colin Powell did not win the first Gulf War using foot soldiers alone. During the Iraq war in 2003 to topple the dictator Saddam Hussein, Powell sent in the US Air Force to bombard Iraq, and pounded the country using missiles from submarines and the US Navy, before sending in the foot soldiers.

     

    We are told that Iraqi forces were quickly overwhelmed as US forces swept through them. Therefore, we should leave the parliamentarians to carry on with their job.

     

    On hindsight, the Kita Lawan rally also appeared to me to be well-planned as it is held just two days before the Parliament opens.

     

    We expect some young leaders to be nabbed by the police. I do not believe there would not be some agent provocateurs at work among the protesters so as pin the blame of possible violence on the organisers. It has happened before at a number of peaceful rallies in the past.

     

    I believe even Najib Abdul Razak has sensed it; therefore, we have Umno leaders rallying behind him to show their support to the embattled prime minister tomorrow.

     

    The coming parliamentary session on Monday will be an interesting one to follow. Let’s wait and see what happens in next week.

     

     

    STEPHEN NG is an ordinary citizen with an avid interest in following political developments in the country since 2008.