Time to Change Default Settings
Marina Mahathir
I wore mostly black yesterday. I must say that this week I had not been focussed on May 7 vis-a-vis the Perak State Assembly all that much. May 7 happened to be the first anniversary of the passing of my cousin Zahari Zain and for me, it was a black day anyway. But I hadn't been planning to wear black at all.
That changed when Wong Chin Huat got arrested for sedition. I don't know the guy and can't remember if I've ever read anything he's written. But I don't believe that anyone should be arrested just for organising people to wear black to protest something. I'm not that keen on demos and such but I like creative acts of civil disobedience. I think they are more subversive. Wearing black is not that creative but it works because it's easy and you keep people guessing whether your wearing black is of any significance or not. (I went to a meeting yesterday and my colleague wore even more black than me…inadvertently as it turned out.) I decided to wear black really to protest stupidity…on the part of politicians and the police.
(The ultimate stupidity, to me, was how they handled the people delivering that cake to the PM's Department. It's a cake, for God's sake! Read Walski's witty take on it.)
Then it just got worse. Following what was happening in Perak on Twitter, I was left disgusted and fed-up. Firstly, there is nothing commendable about the behaviour of any of the politicians inside the Perak State Assembly. Obviously bad behaviour is not limited to any particular political party. How on earth do we teach our kids to respect these institutions if they're populated by a whole bunch of clowns?
