In the world’s most isolated city the same cry for clean and fair elections resounded. Last Saturday on a cold afternoon, I counted more than 300 Malaysians and their Australian friends gathered outside the Malaysian consulate in Perth to show solidarity with Bersih.

As Perth lies in the same time zone as Kuala Lumpur, the speaker at the Perth Bersih gathering requested the crowd to remember their fellow Malaysians in Malaysia who were in the throes of their event. He then read out the eight Bersih demands for electoral reform and the gathering concluded with the singing of Negaraku.

Picture courtesy of various contributors across the internet

There was no political talk, no condemnation of anyone, no talk of overthrowing the government, only a peaceful and civilized gathering of Malaysians and Australians concerned for the integrity of democracy and the electoral process in Malaysia

Malaysia’s national conscience is stirring and the most forbearing of its citizens are not reluctant to openly support Bersih as evidenced by the cross-section of Malaysians who took part in its July 9 event despite the government’s clamp down. Abuse of power is not the way of good governance and democracy.

The government abetted by the police risk losing their ‘democracy credentials’ as  the Australian SBS news service reported on the Bersih 2.0 event. News footage shown over Australian television of police using excessive and unnecessary force, and chemical-laced water-cannons and teargas on the peaceful Bersih participants does not look good for the government. The media can’t be faulted for reporting what they saw and video merely record the events at they happened.

Blaming the foreign media for sensationalized reporting is irrational because they are only a handful among many more local reports already circulating the globe, and if their reports are sensational it is because the events were sensationalized by the police applying force on peaceful citizens.  With the world media including CNN, Al Jazeera, BBC, SBS etc, all showing footage of the police actions, the world’s eyes are also being opened.

All the negative publicity against the government appeared to have been done by the police at home though not all the police can be implicated as a report of professional police conduct was witnessed in the Jalan Hang Jebat area.

The Perth event was a show of solidarity with Malaysians at home because out of sight does not mean out of mind for those who love their country.

Govt making itself look bad

The molehill of the Bersih 2.0 episode was made into a mountain of political capital for the opposition because the government failed to exercise simple common sense. It should not have resorted to the jackboot approach and it should not have linked what was fundamentally a civic society move to redress the faults in the electoral system with the opposition.

That the opposition is not afraid of free and fair elections does put the incumbent government in a bad light.

The failure to distinguish between genuine civic concerns and opposition politics and the government’s unfair defamation of the event and the banning of Bersih as illegal did lose it much public support.

All the melodrama that takes on the appearance of a Shakespearean tragedy could have been avoided had the government adopted a more reasonable and conciliatory approach. Bersih had bent backwards and aborted the walk after meeting the Agong but was let down when the rally at Merdeka Stadium was thwarted.

It looked bad on the government again.

Even the token arrests of pro-government supporters have not convinced an incredulous public used to government window-dressing and political shenanigans. It is the price of crying wolf too often.

I took the opportunity to ask some of those in the Perth crowd why they were there and got some telling answers.

An Australian man with a yellow Bersih headband unhesitatingly said, “To support the Malaysians in their demand for democracy and free and fair elections.” He commented on “the persecution of opposition politicians, the unfair use of the ISA, the restrictions on free speech, and the need to respect the diversity of views.”

A Perth policeman present expressed surprise that Malaysian police was politically partial and said it was “an eye-opener” as he mistakenly thought like many foreigners that “Malaysia is a stalwart democracy”.

A young Malaysian Indian woman said she was there, “to show our support for our fellow Malaysians living in Malaysia and we are able to do this in the comfort and freedom of being in Australia, we would like to see changes especially in the way elections are run in Malaysia… . I think the government should allow us to vote at the embassies of whichever country we are located at, which is currently not available and we want the government to do that.”

A Malaysian Chinese youth squatting down while holding a placard retorted with a forceful forthrightness that left me with no doubt about his frustration with his government back home. “Isn’t there enough freedom already, I pressed,” and he was quick to rebut with an answer probably on most people’s lips – “no, we need more freedom”.

Who can disagree?

Just like Orwell’s 1984

When wearing an innocuous Bersih T-shirt is a crime and citizens are bag-searched and forbidden to enter certain places, it is George Orwell’s ‘1984’ revisited and Big Brother is alive and well in ‘tak boleh land.’

The sleeping giant of global Malaysians has been roused. It is another first for Bersih in being the catalyst in garnering the moral, civic and political conscience of Malaysians abroad, as it has done at home.

It is not about opposition politics – it is about people power and that in itself is more potent than anything any political party can claim it can muster because there are more people who are not members of the ruling political parties. What is three million compared to the entire population of democracy-loving citizens?

Many will be asking how the government allowed a golden opportunity to capitalize on its democracy credentials slip through its fingers. But it is easy to understand why when you know that democracy is a strange concept to those who are used to having things their way and the notion of free and fair elections is anathema to their sense of political supremacy and false notion of invincibility.

The words of J. Johnstone, “Courage is not the absence of fear but the strength to do what is right in the face of it,” resonates with many Malaysians today.

They no longer want to live under a system that deprives them of their fundamental liberties and enslaves them under an odious system of corruption, political patronage, judicial and institutional injustice, police persecution and one where those devoid of reason but full of hot breath who only hector instead of hearing them.

The government may have to take stock of the enemies within itself when those who speak on its behalf treat the public with utter contempt. It has to come to its senses and realize it now suffers a serious attrition in public support that grows by the day, and that is largely due to its own doing.

‘Hell knows no fury like a woman scorned,’ as they say and the government risks the backlash of a citizenry scorned, betrayed and abused.

The high-handed handling of the Bersih event transforming it into a global phenomenon must be the mother of fiascos for a government still struggling to come to terms with itself in delivering good governance.

With electoral reforms that guarantee free and fair elections, the government may well face its Waterloo. Is this why it has demonized Bersih?