To be Fair

Unlike others who normally treat Monday as the 1st day of the week, every Satruday is the start of my new week.

 

Last week was one of the most memorable week of life. May 4th to May 10th.

 

I was beginning to feel anxious on Saturday itself. My neighbourhood Lucky Garden was very quiet. I hope things would work out peacefully on the voting day. I walked around the whole time with a voice in my head ..random thoughts about our country and how it would pan out the following day.

 

I didnt work on Saturday. I couldnt focus. I was nervous for what would happen on Sunday

 

I voted on Sunday at 9:15am. There was no interet at home so I stayed at Starbucks to follow the news. When the counting began at 6pm, I told myself is best to go home. My only reliable source of news was from an independent radio station and through iphone I accessed Facebook and Malaysiakini, an independent news portal . There were too many news of phantom votes that I thought we have gotten too uptight. My colleague who voted in his hometown whatsapps us all that he was going back to the polling station to catch the phantom. How would you know if someone is indeed a phantom voter but he was dead serious.

 

I glued my ear to the radio. BFM has a live telecast of from the different polling stations. I was biting my nails praying hard for Nurul, the candidate from my constituency and the daughter of the opposition party leader. The police car sirens from Pantai and the shouting of the people down at Kg Kerinchi echoed the reports from BFM that phantom ballot boxes were discovered in the car trunk. I was relieved as Nurul won and was begining to feel even hopeful as the news broke that DAP the opposition won Gelang Patah, one of the key constituency. I felt assured and decided to allow myself to go to bed instead of waiting up.

 

I woke up on Monday at 5am to a sea of black on my Facebook page. Everyone has changed their facebook profile to black. Including my sister in Germany who has been relatively neutral all this while. The anger and sadness that permeated through Facebook was overwhemling.

I texted my dad and he texted back. He told me about there were power failure at several polling stations and after the power resume, the vote count of the ruling party candidates shot up miraculously. There was no proof but everyone sort of guess It was unbelievable that the ruling would have resorted to this trick

I went back to the office and some of the young staff told me that they have been waiting for this election. As 22 year old, it is their first time casting their votes. They are angry that their votes have been compromise but they are not deterred. They really want change.

I joined the May 8 rally dressed in overall black. The train to Kelana Jaya Stadium was packed .Everyone in the cabin was dressed in black but there were smiles on everyone's face. It was a exuberant excitement interlaced with a grounded determination. Everyone in the cabin was strangers and yet shared a common destination. A feeling that was very strange and yet touching.

As I walked towards the stadium, people greeted one another. One Indian man turned to me and he said "No Indian. No Chinese. No Malay. We are Malaysians". I couldnt hear the rally speeches very well from where I stood. The crowd was huge about 100,000 people. I didnt feel safe when I realized my watsapps and sms didnt work. I decided to leave early and missed the singing of Negaraku, which I regret very much.

The next day I watched the video clip of the chorus of Negarku from the thousands and hundreds who were at the stadium, I cried. There is still hope. "Melayu, Cina, India, Kadazan..." we are all Malaysians.