SEPT 2 — In 1999, then Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad sacked and imprisoned his deputy Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim for sodomy after he spoke up against the rampant practice of cronyism and nepotism in light of the Asian financial crisis.

He shut down and intimidated alternative media and launched a massive crackdown on the Reformasi movement, with scores of arrest, torture and detention without trial in secret detention.

Dr Mahathir was also the very engineer of the country’s unprecedented judicial and political crisis as well as our current state of democracy and electoral process.

Now, he is surfing well with the popular movement rallying with the public for an outcome yet to be defined.

Dr Mahathir and Bersih became a social buzz and now trending. In politics, a wrong can be cleansed with populism without any form of accountability.

Or is there a more sinister motive to the reherding and tagging process? 

Bersih is a popular movement symbolising the freedom that the people never felt before, the freedom to express and assemble, now also offline.

The Merdeka Bersih event is the pinnacle of it and symbolises that this freedom is now mainstream and here to stay. Its expression in its purest form. 

Questioning the means to the end in the festive mood is deem unpopular, yet the question is crucial. Will the popular movement achieve its slogan driven outcome or suffer the similar fate like Ali Shariati’s synthesis turned political atavism?

Or just a mere Laundry list politics and a big huge bubble bath.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail Online.