Of all the comments about Bersih, none are more despicable than those of Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin who claimed that our reputation would be tarnished because the proposed Bersih march was politically motivated and threatened national security.

By Mariam Mokhtar 

Surely not!

Bersih does not pose any threat to national security but is a threat to Muhyiddin, Umno and its cronies.

If the rakyat goes ahead with electoral reform and democracy is restored in Malaysia, then these people in Umno, and those who are closely associated with Umno, will lose everything. Some will lose their freedom.

Did Muhyiddin ever consider why he and his colleagues in Umno/BN allowed democracy to be destroyed in Malaysia, in the first instance?

Did he think that after 54 years, the rakyat would sit around and watch their country disintegrate?

It is all very well to call the Bersih rally illegal but what about the illegal machinations with which Umno/BN has conducted itself and the way it bulldozes the rakyat’s concerns.

There are several reasons why Malaysia’s reputation is tarnished and none involve Bersih. Many of the reasons have racial and religious undertones.

We have seen the cow-head incident and the Interlok book, test our Hindu brethren. We then saw our Christian brothers being subject to vilification by the ban of the word Allah, the removal of religious symbols in the presence of senior Cabinet ministers and how a child was whipped for eating pork sausages at school.

Sections of the community were also accused of planning to topple the government to pave the way for a Christian prime minister.

However, when Malay and Muslim extremists disturbed the peace and called for a jihad, they were just given a rap on the knuckles.

When the prolonged bombardment of sex, videos and lies did not achieve the desired effect on the rakyat, ministers then decided that we were communists intent on sabotaging the nation. Even wearing Che Guevera t-shirts became a crime.

Now people are being arrested for wearing or selling yellow T-shirts.

A few years ago, people were arrested for wearing black T-shirts, for distributing birthday cakes and for assembling under a raintree – Perak’s Tree of Democracy.

Now that Bersih is attempting to restore true democracy to the land, Muhyiddin’s suggestion that Ambiga Sreenevasan is a national threat is laughable.

Would he consider former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed who refuses to relinquish power and who has his hand up Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s back and manipulates him like a glove puppet, a threat?

What about Mahathir’s agent provocateur, Ibrahim Ali, the president of the NGO Perkasa who despite his seditious talk, manages to elude arrest?

It is said that Ibrahim Ali will be charged with sedition but we know that this is merely a last ditch attempt to appease us. The authorities realise that Bersih will continue with its march and the rakyat is determined to call for free, fair and clean elections.

The Election Commission (EC) is as much to blame for the decline in Malaysia’s state of affairs as the government.

If only the EC did not have a puppet who is in Najib’s pocket, as its leader, and if only it did half its duties, then Malaysia might not have fallen into the abyss.

Muhyiddin has the brass cheek to suggest the EC is not aware of our protestations of vote-rigging, of abuse of postal voting and the shambolic way the ruling party intimidates or ‘coerces’ people into voting for them.

All our complaints were brushed aside.

Muhyiddin who attracted scorn when he declared he was ‘a Malay first and Malaysian second’ does send out mixed messages and perhaps, is not aware of what he is saying.

As the Education Minister, Muhyiddin changed the language in which Science and Mathematics were taught in all our schools. In international forums, our poor grasp of the English language is evident.

To arrest the decline in English, Muhyiddin arranged for English speaking teachers from around the world, including the Peace Corps, to come to Malaysia to teach English.

Are there sufficient numbers to reach out to all schools? Are these people going to turn our education system around?

Why did he choose to ignore the untapped talent of thousands of the older teachers who were schooled in the old ways and who speak good English. Why enlist foreigners at the expense of these able teachers? Is it because the majority of the English speaking Malaysian teachers are non-Malay?

Muhyiddin said that because of Bersih, tourists will stop visiting, investors will sidestep us and that our ‘image globally as a peaceful and developed country’ will be tarnished.

How shortsighted is he?

Muhyiddin’s policies just prove that Umno has no political will to change or to accept reform.

If Bersih achieves its aims then there will be renewed business opportunities, more growth, increased investment in the nation and less theft of the rakyat’s money.

Corruption, abuse of power, nepotism and cronyism will be brought to manageable levels. Hopefully, our institutions like the EC amongst others, will regain their integrity.

The first Bersih rally in 2007, when 50,000 took to the streets in a peaceful march, was marred when the police used heavy handed tactics and turned chemical laced water from water cannons onto the crowds and also attacked them with tear gas and baton charges.

Bersih is not a threat to national security but is a real threat to Umno/BN.

Umno/BN is the real threat to national security

Please join the rally on 9 July and exercise your democratic right to free, clean and fair elections.

The police are going to be sent to the rally. This time, they should join the march, instead of turning against it.

They should do this to regain their reputation which Mahathir trashed and most importantly, for their own families and their childrens’ futures.

The Egyptian army did it and so can the Malaysian police.