At the main road in Jalan Pahang, there are a number of skittles on the side of the road, meaning that the police was waiting to pounce on cars coming from the east coast. After a meal, I took a bus to Chow Kit and I started walking from that point all the way to Central Market.
I had a walk all the way from this starting point, passing through Maju Junction and then Sogo. I noticed that there were policemen lining up at the main entrance of the complex. They anticipated that this would be one of the four rally points for them in event that the Merdeka Square would be sealed off by the police.
I kept walking until I passed Coliseum and at the end of the road, the road got sealed off. If you look at the background, the FRUs and many police trucks were there as to bring the people that they arrested into the truck back to the police stations. I tried crossing to Petaling Street from the Masjid Jamek LRT station.
An FRU red truck was already in deployment with later that some people of the BERSIH coalition attempting to break through the lines. From the small lane at Burger King, a big group of PAS Youth people emerged from there. There were lawyers at the background as well. They would play an observer role, ready to help those who might be arrested by the police.
There, I met Tony and Ancient Mariner. At the mosque, the PAS Bersih guys are getting ready to be motivated by some figurehead, in preparation for a march out against the police. Later we were joined by Haris and Eric (I Am Malaysian).
The rain was quite heavy and another round of thunder and lightning was expected. If there is raining during the march, it means that the police would be cooling down.
According to Confucianism, the King is symbolized as an avatar of God on earth. And the signs of thunder above serves the warning against the police. Mencius, who lived B.C. 372-289, and devoted himself to the task of spreading and consolidating the Confucian teachings, made no attempt to lead back the Chinese people towards their early beliefs in a personal God and in a spiritual world beyond the ken of mortals. He observes in a general way that "those who obey God are saved, while those who rebel against Him perish. Those came are loyal to the country and the king, and in that Mencius context means they can be saved, while whoever attempts to kill or torture can be punished (perished). Coincidence?We were at the Bar council office. Rather than waiting for rain to die down, we dashed to Central Market via the back lane. We met Liz for a moment before going for a drink.Mencius said, "He who uses force as a pretense of Humaneness is the de-facto strongman among the princes. But such a strongman must have a large state in order to be effective. The man who uses his virtue to practice Humaneness is the true king. To be a real king you don't need an especially large territory. T'ang did it with only seventy li and King Wen did it with only one hundred li. When you use your power to force people into submission, they will never submit with their hearts; it is only because they don't have enough strength to resist. When people submit to virtue, they are happy from the bottom of their hearts, and they submit sincerely, the way the seventy disciples submitted to Confucius." (2A3, tr. Muller)
This was while we were waiting for Anu (Galadriel)
We got word from Tony that the entourage was leaving earlier than expected. So Anu came on time and we went back to the Bar Council office. Two roles of FRU were in standby. We could not get a closer view of what was happening in front. I had to be ready in case things go violent. With an umbrella in hand, I had to play taking care of the sick man thing and Eric had to play the sick man. :)
Rather than getting stuck in the blockade, we took another route, the path across Petaling Street along the river bank.
So we walked all the way through the palace, and we took some shots along the way. I ended up at the divider going to Mid Valley. There were Special Branch people on top of the high ground, so we didn't take any photos of them.
The king's representative came out and everyone shouted Hail to the King (Daulat Tuanku). Then there some speech by PAS head Abdul Hadi Awang, following by the lead representative Anwar Ibrahim. When Anwar showed up, the FRU stepped aside to let him move to the gate. Coming through the way I came with Eric, Wan Azizah showed up, and the words Reformasi were ringing out loud among the PKR supporters. No sooner than a few minutes we started moving back, we knew that memorandum has been handed and the organizers called for peaceful dispersion. It finished sooner than expected, not even before 4.30 p.m.
I've seen no less than 3 helicopters circling around the city. The lowest position the chopper went was as low as the Lee Rubber Building at Jalan Tun Perak.
While on the way, we told some of them to go as the memo has been handed over. We met Nat and Polytikus. We wanted to meet Rocky at Central Market but we finally found out that he was at the National Mosque. Then we got word from Shah that the meeting point will be at BSC center.
We were deliberating the turnover showing up, and Anu hit the right estimation of 50000. I thought was 70000. But somehow it's about 25 to 10 times more than the number of UMNO members at the general assembly. Malaysiakini said that the turnover was close to 50000. And it was said that BERSIH had hoodwinked the police of location.
Here's an interesting note: Stephen and Rocky were the only ones at the empty Merdeka Square!
But then, the fracas was only done by certain cells of the police as there is a splinter cell wars that divides the police. The Special Branch are the ones that will sit above the fence. Some who are helping people out peacefully are the ones who support the CCID department while the others picked the crooked side. Credit to them for helping us out.
While the Mamak of Merbok is in active denial mode over the Al-Jazeera, you can be sure that he is lying out because he has no balls to acknowledge the truth. The whole blogger lot is likely to write the criticism of the Mamak idiot. He can shove the mainstream media and his statements back to his throat.
Coming later: Comparing Russian Revolution with this and Dinner after Rally
Previous posting: Part 1
Next: Rally Aftermath
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My tired old legs are still sore from the walking but it was worth it I think.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteOpps, do you we look like each other? ;p
ReplyDeleteWee must be at PC prior to that, too much of beer, hence the mistaken, LOL!..
Anyway, cheers bro.