I must admit that I had expected a maximum of 10,000 to 15,000 people to attend the red-shirt rally but the final attendance of 50,000 to 100,000 far surpassed this. And this is the biggest pro-government rally in Malaysian history.
Despite the apprehension and expectation of wide-spread violence, thankfully this red rally passed without (much) incident.
For avoidance of doubt, my stand is that I am totally against both the yellow and the red shirt rally. I believe street rallies have no place in Malaysian politics.
Now that the "Himpunan Rakyat Bersatu" rally has passed m, I believe this story can now be told .
The Red Rally would not have happened if the BERSIH 4 rally did not happen. It was entirely unnecessary and totally avoidable.
BERSIH 1, 2 and 3 did not have a follow-up red rally so the question is, why did BERSIH 4 had an anti-BERSIH rally?
The reasons are these:
1) BERSIH 4 was over-overwhelmingly from one race.
2) Many of the antics by the supporters in BERSIH 4 went overboard.
3) The arrogance of the BERSIH organizers and DAP regards the timing, the location and the attitude of BERSIH and DAP for not apologizing for the ill-conceived antics in the rally.
Let me explain,
1) BERSIH 4 was over-overwhelmingly from one race.
No matter how you say that BERSIH was supposed to be multi-racial and apolitical, it cannot be denied that the majority of the participants were non-Malays,
The reason for this change was that DAP had managed to antagonize, insult and isolate PAS who decided to stay away from this rally.
I had warned about this possible racial imbalance before the BERSIH 4 rally took place but was called a racist who talked about race.
Even the foreign press can foresee this imbalance and wrote about the danger BEFORE it happened.
The Economist wrote this before the BERSIH rally:
Yet it is also possible that the protest could end up rallying ethnic-Malay support for Mr Najib. Recent rifts in the multi-ethnic opposition have led to worries that many ethnic-Malay supporters of the opposition and of previous Bersih rallies may not turn out this time. The risk is that a big rally dominated by ethnic Chinese and Indians would inflame the pernicious sore, scratched on UMNO’s fringes, that the country’s Islamic heritage is under threat from non-Malays. That is a fiendish trap.
The racial imbalance then led to the perception (whether rightly or wrongly) that this happened:
29th Aug - 90% Chinese at Dataran Merdeka
30th Aug - 90% Chinese at Dataran Merdeka
31st Aug National day - 90% Malay at Dataran Merdeka
Basically the perception was that the Chinese disrupted the preparations for Dataran Merdeka for two days but when it came to actually celebrating Merdeka Day, we stayed away. So much for patriotism.
That was the view held by many of my Malay FaceBook friends during that time. And these people are not the kampung folks but Malay professionals on FaceBook working in the cities.
If you are going to accuse me again of being racist for pointing out the race imbalance of BERSIH 4, then you should also call Singapore PM Lee Hsien Loong for also stating the obvious.
You should also then call Bloomberg a racist for their article titled, "Big Anti-Najib Protests Fail to Draw Ethnic Malay Crowd".
I saw this obvious danger. PM Lee say this. Foreign Media even saw this.
So how come DAP and BERSIH did not see this and refused to admit the obvious?
Didn't DAP and BERSIH know that PAS has already said they are not participating and with that, much of the Malay support of the past three rallies?
But yet they stubbornly went ahead with the rally.
Perhaps they thought Mat Sabu and PAS break-away party Amanah could mobilize the Malay crowd and took a bet - a task which Amanah and PKR failed badly at?
However, DAP and BERSIH lost the bet and we had to live with the consequences.
Another stubborn move from DAP and BERSIH was: Why must you hold it at Dataran Merdeka and why must it be during our national day celebrations?
This is a valid question as after the violence and clashes after BERSIH 3 in 2012, Pakatan and other NGOs including BERSIH leaders agreed to hold the next mega-rally for Himpunan KL112 in Stadium Merdeka which received all the necessary police permits and approval.
It was held successfully and PM Najib even thanked the organizers for their cooperation and said :
"Saya juga mengucapkan terima kasih kepada pihak pembangkang walaupun saya tidak bersetuju dengan mereka, namun mereka menghormati semangat Akta Perhimpunan Aman,”
Their next rallies for the Blackout505 after GE13 were similarly held at Kelana Jaya stadium and at Padang Merbok. The fact that it was a rally based on non-existent blackouts and protested against the lies of the 40,000 Bangladeshis ghost voters that Pakatan has since denied every accusing of is besides the point.
But somehow, BERSIH 4 in KL refused to cooperate and stubbornly went ahead with holding it on those dates and at that location - which meant they did not get the necessary approvals.
BERSIH in Kuching did get those approvals because they agreed to hold it in a field and away from any Merdeka celebrations.
Therefore, questions need to be asked is if BERSIH in Kuching could cooperate and agree to the conditions and BERSIH and Pakatan themselves could agree to them, why can't BERSIH in KL?
Why the stubborn stance from DAP and BERSIH?
My parents and my friends visited me over last weekend and they were furious about the Red Rally and also shared how dangerous the rally could have turned out.
They questioned why did this Red Rally had to happen. I told them that it was hard to stop and then showed them the following photos and videos of what happened during the BERSIH 4 rally.
After watching this, they shook their heads and regretted the BERSIH 4 rally and said "some people can be so stupid and they should stop playing with fire".
They finally understood why the Red Rally took place.
For more pictures and videos, please CLICK HERE.
Written by LSS and sourced from here.
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