I'll be frank. There's this girl I quite fancy, and she's not in the country. I had been quite hoping that she would return, yet there were also word that she had found a reason to stay put. Just today, I received the news that I was really hoping that I wouldn't hear, that she wasn't coming back.
I know things like this isn't quite your life or death situations where one would kneel in mud under the pouring rain yelling at the sky in a melodramatic fashion "Why, God, why??!!", but all the same, after having invested so much emotion, it is very gut-wrenching to hear that something isn't going the way you really hope it is. To say that I didn't feel anything would just be me putting up a façade, and would just be a total load of bull.
As hard as it is to see at this point, I have always trusted what the Bible says about God's revealed will for our lives, which I had very interestingly covered at my University College Fellowship at church. Holding on to the Father's promise that He is always in control, and that He uses everything to mould the people that He loves to be more like His Son, Jesus. Knowing first-hand that He is also a loving Father, and not a sadistic despot also helps me in my wrestling match between what I'm experiencing and His promise of a far better reality. That way I know that even when things don't go my way, ultimately, it isn't a bad thing to know that things will always go His way, and that His ways are always the best ways.
I got to Masjid Jamek at about 1300hrs without any incident. When we emerged from the station, there was already a massive gathering along Jalan Tun Perak for as far as I could see, stretching to both ends of the road. We sat there for a while and I have to honestly say, got pretty bored, so we decided to move up to Dataran Merdeka where the heart of the occasion was to see what was going on there.
As we made our way to the intersection between Jalan Parlimen and Jalan Raja, all you could see was just a sea of yellow. Jalan Tunku Abdul Rahman was packed to the brim, and Jalan Raja Laut was just bursting with protesters. Here's a map of what I could see:
We sat under the LRT tracks to get out of the sun, facing Jalan Raja and the police barricade. Just beyond that, I could see three or four bright red FRU trucks. A battalion of policemen were standing between the barricade and the trucks.
As we sat, we heard some jeering from the direction of inside the city. Two police trucks were coming out from Jalan Tun Perak, and some protesters were hurling empty plastic bottles at the trucks. At the urge of the crowd the hecklers stopped, and never repeated their actions towards the other trucks which eventually emerged.
It was about 1420hrs, and things were starting to die down. Save the occasional cries of 'buka!buka!', calling the police to open up the barricades, the crowd had actually fallen into a carnival mood. There were balloons being sold, drinks and food vendors on the corner of the streets. The people were just hanging around. By then, I had noticed that the police personnel had rolled up the razor wire and had pushed it to one side.
At about 1430hrs, we had gotten really bored and were about to leave when Anwar and Ambiga appeared on the back of a truck, speaking through a megaphone. There were cries of more 'buka!buka!', and that was when several things happened at once. The policemen manning the barricade (which had swelled in number significantly) began to run away from the barricade en masse. Concurrently, seeing the police force retreat, the initial crowd, thinking that they were finally given the green light to move forward, crossed the barrier and strolled towards Dataran Merdeka. The crowd has almost reached Dataran Merdeka when our friendly neighbourhood thugs in blue lobbed tear gas canisters into the oncoming crowd, then proceeded to hosed them down with chemical laced water cannons.
While all this was happening, I was still under the LRT tracks (more than 50meters) taking it all on film. I watched as the FRU water cannons came closer to the barricade, joyfully spraying all in sight. Jalan Raja had already been cleared of the initial crowd, and so I thought the police would stop. Next thing I know, I hear gunshots and I begin to see smoke rising from my right, and in front of me. With no warning whatsoever, the police began raining teargas cannisters into the passive crowd like they had a two year surplus of teargas and were in a hurry to use it all.
I turned and ran towards the DBKL building, trying to get out of the smoke. I barely made it to the steps when the gas took it's effect and I could barely open my eyes or breath. I tried calling out to my friends but I couldn't talk. I turned around in hope that the police force would have been satisfied with dispersing the crowd, but no! They continued firing cannisters all the way to the steps of the building. The crowd had no where to go - they were attacked from two ends (Jalan Raja and Jalan Parliamen), while the other areas were jammed pack with other protesters, that the crowd had to run into the DBKL building, into its narrow corridors and then around it to escape the gas.
As I ran with some of my friends (I had lost most of them in the chaos), teargas was still streaming in from Jalan Raja Laut. Struggling to breath and not get separated, I managed to reach the parking lot behind Yayasan Wilayah Persekutuan. Having had enough 'fun' for the day, we decided to leave immediately. Looking around me, there was no apparent way out of where we were. Jalan Raja Laut was under a blanket of teargas, and turning back to Dataran Merdeka was no option either. There was a bridge right behind us, but it was choked to the brim with people trying to escape. I suggested leaving through Jalan Sultan Ismail, but thankfully we didn't - from other eyewitness accounts, there were water cannons at Sogo area, barring our exit. Just then, my friend noticed that the bridge had miraculously cleared.
We left through the bridge and headed to Bangsar with no further incident. Except that bit where around Dayabumi where we saw a horde of police running in our direction. Turns out they shot a teargas cannister at themselves.
My Take
Having been at the heart of the action, I think I'm qualified to say a few things at least. Number one, the actions of the police at the Jalan Raja barricade is with no doubt psychological baiting. Rolling up the razor wire amidst the chanting of 'buka!buka!', and the running retreat of the the police personnel triggers what we call availability heuristics. The crowd would naturally think that they had won the day, and would finally be able to sit in Dataran Merdeka as they had wanted.
Consequently, the police action of firing beyond the barricade was completely unnecessary. If they had wanted to prevent the crowd from breaching the barricade, well, they had actually succeeded! There was nobody behind the barricade on Jalan Raja anymore! Yet, they fired into a passive crowd, and without any warning to boot.
Finally, the police violence and violence from the mob which remained after the dispersion was despicable, and should rightly be condemned. However, a micro part of me still can't help but feel that the mob's retaliation would somehow be slightly understandable, if not justifiable.
I've got some videos of the critical barricade breach moment, and I'll upload it once I've figured out how to tilt my videos....
Edit: Here's the video, unfortunately you can barely see anything on it after I had rotated the video. If anybody wants the unrotated version, feel free to drop a comment.
I grew up in a Christian family. My father was the pastor of the Reformed Baptist church in Melaka, while my mother was the MYF leader while she was growing up in the Methodist church. The bookshelves in my house were littered with Bible commentaries, Koine Greek and Hebrew lexicons, and a vast array of theological material. Names like John Stott, Peter Masters, Charles Spurgeon and J.I. Packer were household names to me. I faithfully attended every single camp my church organised, sometimes with a little coaxing from my parents, while at school, I zealously defended my faith. I tried very hard to be polite and well mannered, helping old ladies across the busy street, and I loved small cute animals. This was my pedigree. As far as me and my understanding of what being a Christian was all about, I was convinced that I was definitely a Christian, and a very good one too.
Despite my religious self-image, there were things which I thought about, and did which were strikingly different from whom I thought I was. I was comfortable telling the most outrageous lies; I’ve even made my mother cry out of rage. I hated my brother and sister with a fierce passion, and I thought I was always right. All these and more I denied and swept under the carpet. Thinking about them made me uncomfortable. I am a good boy. Good boy = Christian.
In 2007, I left for Japan. While I was there, I was placed in a host family whose mother was (and still is) highly critical of the Christian faith. During my stay there, she pressed me hard with arguments about Christianity frequently, hitting hard on the differences in my behaviour and my version of Christianity. Her questioning made me ask myself this: “What does it really mean to be a Christian?” I had no idea! My understanding of what a ‘Christian’ began to crack and slowly crumbled.
When I got back in 2008, I was reeling in confusion. My self-image as a ‘Christian’ has shattered completely, and my life was a mess. The things I did then only just served to widen the gap between my behaviour and my version of Christianity.
Yet, all was not lost. There was no sudden conversion, no flash of light, no voice from heaven, but God was at work in a series of events which led to my “ah-ha!” moment. After college, I spent some time deciding on which university to attend, and it was then when I had the time to speak to my dad about what it meant to trust in Jesus. Later on in HELP, I had the opportunity to attend a conference by the Gospel Growth Fellowship where I managed learn a little bit more. It was during a bible study series which I went through with my friends, Pastor Peter Kek and Aaron Liu when it all came together.
I realised that despite all my good ‘Christian’ work, I had been rebelling against my loving God who had created me. I had consciously rebelled against His plans on how to approach Him and told Him ‘Shut up and get lost! I decide how I want to come to you.’ This self-sufficient attitude of mine was exactly what the Bible defines as sin, and this sin is what God is going to judge us all for. No amount of ‘being Christian’ or ‘talking Christian’, even all the good I had done could pay for my rebellion and set me right with God.
The magnitude of my rebellion made God’s love so much more beautiful. This was what He did: He sent His own son to this world to take the punishment (death) on our part. Jesus took the full force of God’s justice on himself so that people like me could be forgiven. Even better, Jesus didn’t stay dead! God raised him from the dead and is He’s now God’s ruler of the world and will come back to hold us all accountable for our actions. But I know that when He comes back on that day, I will now be acceptable to Him, not on the basis of any of the good works that I’ve done but because Jesus has died in my place.
After so long, I have finally found the answer. Being a Christian is not about being good and living right so that I can go to heaven. It’s about trusting in Jesus’ sacrificial death for my complete forgiveness and then living under Jesus’ authority in response to the love He’s shown.
Question now is, where do YOU stand in your relationship with Jesus? =)
