AUGUST 31 — This is in Canberra, the capital of Australia. As compared to Perth, Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Brisbane, we are relatively unknown to Malaysians. The Malaysian community here is mostly made up by university students and very few diaspora. Let me share our very unique Bersih 4.0 story with you in Canberra.
We were scheduled to start at 3pm (1pm Malaysian time) and we were providing free transport to students because we fully understand travelling without car is so much less incentivised for students to attend although the Parliament House is only about 30 minute-walk away from the main campus.
Our Bersih 4.0 Canberra committee was really upset when there was really few turned up for our free transport from the Australian National University (ANU) main campus to Parliament House (at most 30 only). No words could describe how discouraged and down the entire committee was simply because we were expecting at least 50 to turn up.
While everyone was on their phone following the live updates from our Bersih counterparts in Melbourne and Perth, sadly speaking, we had mixed feelings.
On one hand, we were glad that they had such a huge turnout, more than 5,000 in Melbourne and 2,000 in Sydney and on the other hand, Canberra is struggling to even have 50 to attend. We just could not fathom, why is it so hard for Canberra just to get even 50?
I was the last to leave the pick-up point to meet our other team who were already at Parliament House. The 10-minute drive was a full of question journey: “Have we not done enough to make people come?” We started to make fun with each other, probably this would our last time organising Bersih.
However, when we arrived our venue with six fresh domino pizzas, thinking of how we could finish these pizzas and drinks with only such a small group of people, things started to change. What we saw was totally surprising. There were actually more than 100 turned up for our rally and some people were still walking from the other side to merge into our crowd!!
Apparently, a lot of them did not want to burden us as student and therefore decided to travel by themselves. I must share with all my friends that how touched I am to see kind souls like Uncle Lim in his 70s who didn't know there was a Bersih rally in Sydney, drove 3.5 hours with his wife to Canberra just to attend our rally.
We have friends (Diana) from Wagga Wagga, travelled four hours just to meet us! And most importantly, we had a great turnout from students. Then, we have friends who wish to be anonymous sponsoring 200 spring rolls and a sweet lovely family sharing their homemade cookies and “ondek-ondek” to us. It turned out to be a joyful picnic protest!
After we dismissed, some working lads came up and said “Where can I donate to all of you,” “Can I chip in the cost,” “I want to donate” etc. We kindly rejected them simply because we did not expect there would be such a good turnout from working diaspora too.
We normally do not take donation and split the costs among us simply because our participants are mostly students and we did not not want to add any extra financial burden on them. A compared to our friends, relatives and families who are suffering back home, the little money that we contributed here is the least that we can do to support our cause.
To our beloved Bersih Canberra volunteers;
To our awesome brave and courageous Bersih Canberra participants;
To many of our unsung heroes that do not wish to be named;
We would like to express our utmost gratitude to all of you. Without you, Bersih 4.0 in Canberra would not have been so successful.
PS: Let us respond to our deputy foreign minister’s statement on their intention to identity all the overseas Bersih organisers: “Well, if that's the case, so be it.” We believe everyone will eventually be answerable to their maker of their doings. At the very least, we know that we have done nothing wrong. All we ask for is just a free and fair election in Malaysia
It was a great opportunity to have our demonstration in front of the symbolic Australian Parliament House because the building signifies the struggle of many of their generations and how much they have gone through in order to achieve and enjoy the freedom and democracy they have today.
A Philip Randolph was right, “Freedom is never given; it is won.”
* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail Online.
