Bersih 3.0: 428 An epic day for Malaysians

I’ve never seen Malaysians were so brave to stand up for their rights until April 28, 2012.

With 250,000 ordinary Malaysians and thousand more around the world, Malaysians united to share and to voice the same echo: free and clean election and return our freedom!

Although we failed to enter Dataran Merdeka but we were proud that Malaysians, without any regards to race and background, we had come together as one. The government is using our money to show what 1Malaysia is all about, which is rather crappy. However, we, rakyat has proven that we no need crappy 1Malaysia to unite us, we already united to fight injustice and unfairness! 

 Here is my chronicle of Bersih 3.0

11:00 am  Surprisingly, the traffic was smooth without any major clampdown or roadblock like last year.

Heading to Bersih 3.0

11:30am Silly me, I thought we would be arrested by police for wearing yellow, so I wore black outside and yellow inside. Gee, the LRT was packed with yellow warriors. This shot was taken on the tail of the train. The front and the middle were sardine packed by yellow warriors.

On the way to Jalan Sultan, one of the gathering points for Bersih 3.0

12:00 pm Yellow warriors disembarked at Plaza Rakyat station without any police supervision at that time.

Sea of yellow

12:10 pm Once we got out from Pudu, it was sea of yellow. Malays, Chinese, Indians and others shouting same echo " Bersih!”

12:20 pm since Telco in Malaysia is generally sucks, we couldn’t contact our friends who were waiting for us at Jalan Sultan. So we joined this crowd to march to Dataran Merdeka.

Pandemonium in the air

12:30 pm Sometimes, I wonder Duduk Bantah ke atau Berdiri Bantah, coz we sat and stood for so many times. 

Marching to Dataran Merdeka at Jalan Tun Perak

1:10 pm As we were approaching to Dataran Merdeka at Jalan Tun Perak, the 250,000 strong crowd were shouting even louder. Whenever we stopped and sat down, there would be several speakers to talk about their frustration on the government.

 

1:45 pm It was zohor prayers. The non Muslims were cooperative enough to be silent for a moment for the prayer. Shouting and singing were ensued and followed by booing whenever police truck past by.

Just meters away to Dataran Merdeka

1:50pm We were near to Dataran Merdeka but we couldn’t really sit down as the crowd behind kept pushing us forward. 

 2:00pm The pandemonium reached fever pitch. We hardly could breathe as it was so packed and staffy!

2:15pm  We had to walk out from the crowd to Jalan Tunku Abdul Rahman to join another crowd. This is where the people faced off with the police. We really had light moments there. Some of the shouting leaders could really crack jokes, well you know, nothing good on our PM and his wife. It was a harmony scene to watch Malays, Chinese and Indians shouting together as one voice and as 1Malaysia.

3:10pm The frontliners were cheering! We didn’t know what was going on since it was bit distance, so we were all stood up.

Here comes the water cannon

3:20pm Polis Anti Rusuhan started firing chemical-laced water. We started to gear up with our masks, salt and damped cloth.

3:25pm Tear gas was fired. The crowd refused to move backward. However, as the wind blew the smoke toward us, we had to run. Not because we were chicken but no one could endure the pain of the tear gas. It was like hundreds of onions irate you eyes. It was like you choking on a bottle of pepper and the lips and the mouth were burning hot. Literally, we couldn’t breathe at all and i was choking and running to escape from the smoke. I felt sorry coz i couldn’t help those who fell on the ground as thicker smoke was blown gradually faster to us.

3:35pm i have lost my friends who left behind. Poor thing, people were choking and their eyes were painfully red. I think is my call to help them. So I stopped those who needed help and pour my contact lens solution on their eyes. I hope it could reduce the burning sensation.Though not helping much but at least i did something good.

BTW, i saw Anwar passing by with his security, his face was burning red!

3:45pm Managed to assemble with my friends again! I had no idea what was going, people at the front were running, then we also ran!

Seriously, what heatbreaking was they were a group of blind people joined the rally. Why punished them?  They didn’t have eyesight to run away from the smoke!!!

3:50pm, Silly us, we kept on running on the main road of Jalan TAR which gave more chance police to catch us, so we decided to turn right to God Knows what road. Phew. I think we look terrified, everyone passed by would ask us “Are you okay?”

4:00pm , we called it a day. As we were approaching to LRT station, we helped those whose eyes were really red with my solution.

It was very nice experience for me as it has given me a chance to see what  1Malaysia is all about.

Bersih 3.0, you have made the country proud!

More updates soon!