More of the same on Nov 19?
Recollecting my past sit-in and march with Bersih 2.0 in Kuala Lumpur (and Sydney), I wonder if Bersih 5 on Nov 19 will ever move us closer to seeing real reforms happen.
The red-shirts’ bellicose denunciation of Bersih, indirectly sanctioned by the state and emboldened by the mainstream media portrayal of the movement as oppositional activists, makes me want to scream: “We’re as mad as hell, we’re not going to take this any more!” (Howard Beale, The Network, 1976).
Will Bersih’s pitch for a ‘new Malaysia’ be more of the same, only packaged differently? What else can the people do to show the prime minister that “we’re mad as hell, and we’re not going to take it any more”? Have the annual protests significantly raised the stakes in demanding for fundamental reforms?
Protest movements essentially draw power from non-compliance and civil disobedience, disruption and sacrifice. The Albert Einstein Institution in Boston, Massachusetts, notes: “Practitioners of nonviolent struggle have an entire arsenal of nonviolent weapons” at their disposal - nonviolent protest and persuasion, noncooperation (social, economic, and political), and nonviolent intervention.
Gene Sharp, founder of the institution and Nobel Peace Prize nominee 2015, listed ‘198 methods of non-violent action’, which could be adapted to the Malaysian environment. The tactics are in three categories. The first is methods of ‘protest and persuasion’ (public assemblies, forum, display of banners, petitions and public speeches), which Bersih have tried since 2007 with short-term impact.
The other two categories are more confrontational and disruptive. They involve ‘methods of non-cooperation’ - economic boycotts, student walkouts, workplace strikes, civil disobedience.
The Occupy movements adopted this strategy. Protesters were willing to break the rules to gain political mileage, if not to shut down the system. Which was more effective and strategic than sitting in a forum, such as that organised by Proham on Nov 17, to deliberate on how to exercise our rights to peaceful assembly.
If these methods fail to achieve concrete outcomes, disrupting the daily civil activities through a nationwide refusal to participate in the political and economic structures is the last resort - as happened in the Arab Spring. This represents a ‘direct and immediate challenge’.
Sharp writes that since “the disruptive effects of the intervention are harder to withstand for a considerable period of time,” active disruption can produce results more swiftly and dramatically than other approaches to nonviolent conflict. I can’t see this method of last resort happening in Malaysia - not when we’re unprepared to take on short-term pains and sacrifice for long-term gains.
Recollecting my past sit-in and march with Bersih 2.0 in Kuala Lumpur (and Sydney), I wonder if Bersih 5 on Nov 19 will ever move us closer to seeing real reforms happen.
The red-shirts’ bellicose denunciation of Bersih, indirectly sanctioned by the state and emboldened by the mainstream media portrayal of the movement as oppositional activists, makes me want to scream: “We’re as mad as hell, we’re not going to take this any more!” (Howard Beale, The Network, 1976).
Will Bersih’s pitch for a ‘new Malaysia’ be more of the same, only packaged differently? What else can the people do to show the prime minister that “we’re mad as hell, and we’re not going to take it any more”? Have the annual protests significantly raised the stakes in demanding for fundamental reforms?
Protest movements essentially draw power from non-compliance and civil disobedience, disruption and sacrifice. The Albert Einstein Institution in Boston, Massachusetts, notes: “Practitioners of nonviolent struggle have an entire arsenal of nonviolent weapons” at their disposal - nonviolent protest and persuasion, noncooperation (social, economic, and political), and nonviolent intervention.
Gene Sharp, founder of the institution and Nobel Peace Prize nominee 2015, listed ‘198 methods of non-violent action’, which could be adapted to the Malaysian environment. The tactics are in three categories. The first is methods of ‘protest and persuasion’ (public assemblies, forum, display of banners, petitions and public speeches), which Bersih have tried since 2007 with short-term impact.
The other two categories are more confrontational and disruptive. They involve ‘methods of non-cooperation’ - economic boycotts, student walkouts, workplace strikes, civil disobedience.
The Occupy movements adopted this strategy. Protesters were willing to break the rules to gain political mileage, if not to shut down the system. Which was more effective and strategic than sitting in a forum, such as that organised by Proham on Nov 17, to deliberate on how to exercise our rights to peaceful assembly.
If these methods fail to achieve concrete outcomes, disrupting the daily civil activities through a nationwide refusal to participate in the political and economic structures is the last resort - as happened in the Arab Spring. This represents a ‘direct and immediate challenge’.
Sharp writes that since “the disruptive effects of the intervention are harder to withstand for a considerable period of time,” active disruption can produce results more swiftly and dramatically than other approaches to nonviolent conflict. I can’t see this method of last resort happening in Malaysia - not when we’re unprepared to take on short-term pains and sacrifice for long-term gains.
Representing the backbones of the country
Regardless, I need to see Bersih lead a people’s power movement that represents the backbones of the country - the youth, the religious sector, academia, the media and business sectors. Bersih could take out a leaf or two from Sharp’s ‘198 methods of non-violent actions’ to shift the political paradigm - especially when wage disparities, public corruption, racial divides, religious extremism, crime, living costs and the people’s discontent continue to rise.
It takes more than public rallies and sit-ins to significantly impact on public policies and governance. Like it or not, for fundamental reforms to happen, the direct participation of the Malay grassroots is necessary.
Change in mindsets and ideologies and the zeal for political reforms must first emerge from within the majority population that has propped up Umno for the past 60 years. The Malay intelligentsia should play their agency role in transforming the politics of exclusion to one of integration, which ultimately benefits the rakyat and the country.
We need to break the dominant racialised discourse to make an indelible dent on the Malaysian political conscience. Wouldn’t it be amazing to see all racial, religious, age and gender groups in peninsulas and East Malaysia march with interlocking arms to the beat of ‘down with corruption, up with reforms’?
Beyond the sloganeering, Bersih must offer its followers a clear vision of outcomes that they can relate to. For all its successes in instigating a politico-cultural conscience for fair elections and transparent governance, Bersih has evolved into a hybrid gathering of NGOs that do not necessarily speak with one voice.
Here, I’m reminded of Aquino’s People Power, the Arab Spring, King’s Freedom Rides, Gandhi’s Satyagraha, Mandela’s anti-apartheid liberation movement - these landmark revolutions have shown that corrupt governments will be dethroned when civil societies and the people speak with one voice. Ultimately, the power lies with the people.
Bersih may or may not go down in our history as instigating a ‘Malaysian Spring’ that changed the contents, context and tone of our national conversation. It has, however, certainly achieved a modicum of recognition as a thorn in the government’s side. I hope Nov 19 will greatly magnify our non-violent scream “We’re as mad as hell, we’re not going to take this any more!”
ERIC LOO worked as a journalist and taught journalism in Malaysia from the late 1970s to 1986. He is now Honorary Senior Fellow in Journalism at University of Wollongong in Australia. Email: eloo@uow.edu.au
