From left: Datuk Dr Denison Jayasooria, CPPS Director Tricia Yeoh, Zainon Ahmad, Khoo Kay Peng, CPPS Chairperson Tan Sri Dato’ Dr. Ramon V. Navaratnam, Malik Imtiaz and Dr Farish Noor.
That was yesterday morning in Sunway University College.
I dunno what exactly to blog about it really except that it was an event I am glad I went for. I almost decided not to because mum and dad was worried people might cause some sort of trouble at the forum (like the demonstration at Komtar, Penang on Friday) so they didn't like the idea of me going there alone.
Luckily there were seniors who are kind enough to give me a ride (thanks to Peiling and Dr Carmen and Michelle Boon! together with the other seniors.
I must say I really enjoyed Dr Farish Noor and Malik Imtiaz's speeches. Malik's eloquence was -wooh!- very very admirable!
I was there mainly to hear what these noteworthy speakers have to say and my, my, I could see that there was a joy in having the opposition winning the elections in time round (from both the stage and the floor). Then again, surely most of the floor was made up of opposition party supporters.
I had an man wearing a yellow t-shirt with Haris Ibrahim's blog URL on it seated in front of me and we had a man in the yellow Bersih rally t-shirt in the floor too.
My seniors say that this forum didn't give as much about post-election analysis as expected but well, in my opinion, what can we predict about our Malaysian politics now that our government for decades is at the losing end? It's clear who's happy and who's not with it but still, personally I think we're in uncharted waters. How does change happen systematically in a society that has not known (but want) change for so long? I thought Dr Farish and Malik gave some good ideas as to what we as Malaysians should now do but no one really even predict what's to happen. (If attendees were expecting some sort of conclusion to our election.)
Briefly, these are few of the things that had me applauding:
Dr Farish spoke about reconstructing our history so that all of us can find our place in our history books; focusing on the years before we were Malaysia when there was healthy racial integration. It's tad further back in time but I'm sure perpaduan was better than in recent years.
Malik talked about having a new language for our Malaysian politics. Something about nationalist (for those in government) and pluralist (for those not in government). Well, think of it this way, in some states BN is now the opposition party so if we were to continue with terms like "opposition party" and the government, there will be some confusion as in who is being referred to.
I'll roughly quote Dr Farish here before I'm out:"(Give the new government some time), they've only been there for a week, after all BN has been there for 50 years and they still couldn't do a good job."
Applause from the floor.
I'd really like to go on actually but my mind's occupied with everything about my assignments and the impending deadlines.
ciao
PS: For further reading, browse Centre for Public Policy Studies for the summary of the event and go Google up any of the five speakers: Dr Farish Noor, Malik Imtiaz, Khoo Kay Peng, Zainon Ahmad and Datuk Dr Denison Jayasooria. The people with substance, hmm.
CPPS promised to put some stuff up YouTube too. Check it out!
Some more pics:
The guy with the http://harismibrahim.wordpress.com T-shirt.
Heheh: Peter Chen, the uncle with the Bersih T-shirt and too long a comment (he spoke so much the chairman had to keep asking him to leave the microphone during the Q&A).
The people I went with: Michelle's bro- Peter, Anthony, Kah Joon, Amy, (I didn't get her name, shame on me) and Michelle. Fahmi Reza, the dude in red and Johnny-Depp-specs behind us, was there too!
Oh yeah, my classmate Alex was there!
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