Quote quote from En Yusof Hashim in the forum Photomalaysia :
In 1969 when I was a naive, hot blooded, idealistic young graduate, Tan Chee Koon was my hero in the political arena. I still admire that man and what he stood for, and I thought I should show my displeasure with the then Alliance government at the general elections that year. I voted for the opposition. I hadn’t realised that there were so many idealisitic people like me. When the votes were counted the Alliance had their majority hugely slashed. And us young voters thought that maybe then we’d have some proper checks and balance for good government to emerge. How wrong I was. The opposition parties held delirious celebrations all round the country. In KL they went really wild. They marched through the streets of KL in their thousands and chanted and taunted really racist and hurtful slogans. When the police tried to control the situation, people got hurt and one person even got killed. His funeral was turned into a series of huge anti-government rallies. I was caught in the middle of one such rally in Batu Road (now Jln Tunku Abd Rahman) and I was horrified at what I had done. Although many PMers here were still not born at that time, we all know what happened in 1999. The rally moved through Kampung Baru and they taunted the people there. It was really a stupid thing to do. The USA had their 9/11 and we had our shameful 13/5 when people lost their minds, and the lights went out in KL, and in several other parts of the country, where rioting led to hundreds of senseless racial based murders. On the second day after 13/5 there was a curfew in KL. I was privileged to have been able to drive through Chow Kit Road in a Police vehicle (my brother was a senior cop) and I saw stuff you dont ever want to see or remember. I saw bodies in the street in Chow Kit Road. Many shops and busses and cars were still burning. The true death toll in those unfortunate riots have always been officially understated but I can assure you from very reliable sources, that they reached several thousands across the country. I tell you, if you’ve lived through those terrible days you will really be frightened of mass gatherings like this so called bersih rally, because of what they could lead to in our country where there are tensions suppressed beneath a supposedly calm exterior…
I’m not trying to be alarmist but many people of my vintage will still remember those dark days, and we worry that so called peaceful rallies like last weekend’s rally, could so easily turn ugly…..
Very interesting perspective…
Not sure what’s May 13 click here