Written by lainie at 02:29 PM on September 13, 2008 in Rants, Friends, Arty stuff.

Rach took this photo - I'm showing off the CAIS badge I got in Stella Maris after attending the art tour.

And yes, I have a Gila Gila tshirt. Legenda? Lagenda?

=====

Twitter was profusely updated by Malaysians last night. RPK and Sin Chew reporter Tan Hoon Cheng had both been taken in under the ISA, detention without trial. Following Teresa Kok's detention, I could barely keep up with the news online.

Chats largely revolved around conspiracy theories. How Teresa Kok's arrest indicated this might be a move to incite a response from the Chinese (or non-Malay, but I'm guessing Chinese) community.

That an impromptu street demo against the unjust detentions under ISA could look like we are challenging UMNO (likely) / ketuanan Melayu (because it's been making headlines and people can't tell the difference, and media is largely manipulated or bullied by the government).

The first time I had an inkling of this, I was thinking...........NO LAH, don't tell me they're trying to recreate Ops Lalang / racial riots. But having faith in Barisan Nasional tactically moving past brute force and racial issues is like believing in the tooth fairy at my age - and I am not in the mood for anyone to leave stupid attempts at cutesy comments about tooth fairies being real.

I got a near-psychic sms telling me to stay calm. Rumour has it there's a list of 15, 16, or 17 people to arrest. The usual suspects were named. One friend called it the list of "non-Malay heroes" (with inverted commas). I expect these people to be lying low for a while. They shouldn't have to.

I already had a protest coming up against RPK's detention (and the Orang Asal walk, but that got cancelled). After Hoon Cheng and Teresa got caught in the ISA dragnet, there'll be two more candlelight vigils tonight. One by DAP, and another by the Abolish ISA Movement. 

This infuriates me:

"There will be lots of tale-telling. We want to stabilise the country's political situation with the intention and objective of paying greater attention to the needs of the people," he was quoted as saying by the NST daily.

quote by Prime Minister on Malaysiakini.

You know what I don't need? Shit like that.

I'll be frank. My god I have never liked the government. And I disagree with baiting MPs to switchover, even though I strongly resent that enough people voted in Barisan Nasional that they could form government. After this? I give. I hate UMNO. Crossover! Crossover! Pots of moral gold on the other side to cleanse your previous sins! And SABAH! SARAWAK! WATAFAK TUNGGU APA? Does it even look like people remember you guys teamed up with peninsula people to form the country??

Please, let Sept 16 happen whenever they can get it done. The longer that political party stays in power and wreaks damage to maintain the status quo, the more the rights of citizens in this country gets raped. 

I have deep mistrust for Anwar and trickiness involved in the Pakatan Rakyat coalition. But hell. That's still way better than my perception of BN. I'll take my bloody chances that this is the lesser of two evils. 

=====

I had dinner with some bloggers last night: Suanie (I've been mistaken for her a few times now), KY (who does food reviews) and Erna (I ganked a thumbdrive from her).

Because Suanie is much more in tune than I am, politically, she told me about the whole Teresa Kok being blamed for keeping the mosque from broadcasting azan, as claimed by the former Selangor MB Dr Mohd Khir Toyo (the head of the mosque has since lodged a police report against Khir Toyo for those allegations).

Suanie imitated the secretary of the mosque holding a press conference to explain that Teresa Kok had nothing to do with it.

Suanie: Basically he said "WATAFAK??? NO?!!". Well, not exactly la, but you know. 

Hehe. Quite succinctly put, I thought.