bobjots : redux

I must admit to being troubled after reading the report in Malaysiakini that HM the Yang Dipertuan Agung had disclaimed any interest in the people’s march for electoral reform organised by the Coalition for Free and Fair Elections (BERSIH) last weekend. There was, however, this nagging feeling that it probably was somebody in the palace that issued the statement and appended His Majesty’s name to it.

Raja Petra Kamaruddin, the guy behind the often controversial Malaysia Today site and a minor member of the Selangor royal family seems to think so too. His somewhat extensive piece with some insights on the inner workings of Istana Negara makes an interesting read. Even more tantalising is his assertion that the 16th Brigade of the Royal Malay Regiment was actually deployed on November 10 to respond to any major crackdown by the Royal Malaysia Police. How true that is remains to be speculated.

Considering the amount of energy put into discrediting the march, both before and after the march, I must say there is probably more than an iota of truth that the King and the Executive may not be seeing eye to eye on some issues. Some of the more obvious attempts were :

• The multiple attempts at defacing the official website of BERSIH
• Misinformation being disseminated among the public; esp. among the Malay-Muslim population, to sow dissent and inter-communal tensions
• The blossoming of apparently pro-reform blogs which allocate a large proportion of their writings to attack a particular Opposition political personality and fostering ethnic nationalism and religious sectarianism

The latter 2 would actually have worked IF they displayed less of the sociological and ideological characteristics of their UMNO-Barisan Nasional paymasters. Fortunately for the rest of us, it is almost impossible to do so without negating the raison d’etre of their paymaster’s existence.

There is one thing I find amusing about the pro Barisan Nasional sites and blogs. A large majority of them remain run by anonymous people who get anonymous “saya sokong” comments. How amusingly odd.

There’s much more that can be said, but as one commentor put it succinctly in my previous post, we need to get the message to the ground .. in the heartland of the people, rather than just within the privileged arena of cyberspace and the forum circuit of us urbanites.

Until then, the likes of Nazri, Badruddin and Zam will continue to haunt our national consciousness with their arrogance and flippant attitudes towards the common people.