IN MALAYSIA
A TAXI driver was my saviour on Saturday afternoon. He had come to join the massive anti-ISA rally in the heart of Kuala Lumpur, but stopped to pick me up instead as I flagged him down on Jalan Sultan Ismail. Ah,
thank God.
I had inhaled enough teargas and noxious fumes by then, and my feet were blistered from running from the stampeding crowd. The protest was running out of steam, and would end soon.
Like many, I had been ‘chased’ down the road and ended up at the light rail transit station opposite the Sime Darby building on Jalan Sultan Ismail. But it was closed.
The air was thick with choking fumes, and we were stranded. A railing barred us from the busy road but hitching up my skirt in the most unladylike fashion, I clambered over it. The cabby came along minutes
later.
It was a long drive along jammed roads into Bangsar where I left my car, and I listened to him talk about why he supported the protest.
It was about the ISA, yes, – but much more than that too; it was also about the overwhelming imbalance of power without checks. The sense of helplessness against governmental power.
The rally was organised by the Anti-ISA movement against the Internal Security Act which allows for detention without trial, indefinitely. The ISA has become seen here as a tool to suppress political dissent,
as well as to hold suspected terrorists.
The protest drew 15,000 to 20,000 people, and was supported by the opposition.
The cabby wasn’t interested in terrorists or the opposition’s lack of a coherent policy on this. (The opposition seems to be using the anti-ISA cause as a rallying cry, rather than with any real policies on national security.)
He saw the ISA as the symbol of excessive power against the people.
The endless shots of teargas and repeated blasts of water cannons chasing people down the street merely reinforced this belief.
And when Barisan Nasional supporters ask why people blame the police, and not the protestors, for the chaos in the city centre, that's the answer.
People see it as an overwhelming imbalance in power, and the protestors as victims of oppression.
The government really needs to find a new response to street demos, rather than reacting with teargas and water cannons. Perhaps, they could even think of allowing some demonstrations with police supervision.
After all, as Prime Minister Najib Razak said, the government is already in the process of reviewing the ISA. The protestors and the government, it would appear, are on the same page on the ISA.