Today 709

What is it that you want from us, Officer?

Do you want us to remove our shirts?

Is the yellow colour offending you?

We could have chosen white, you know,

As we wanted people to see how clean life can and should be.

But yellow means something more to us Malaysians, isn't it?

Do you not remember, Officer?

You who was born in the same country as us?

The same blood runs in our veins,

No matter the colour of our shirts or of our skins.

The dark of our pupils remains the same.

We tread the same earth.

We may not speak the same language, that is true,

But that is because we were confused.

This can be mended, quite easily.

 

So Officer, brandishing his truncheon at us,

What is it that you really want from us?

Do you want to confiscate our Identity Card?

Do you want to snatch our home, our wife and children?

Do you want to take our job, our salary?

Or do you eye our nasi lemak?

We'll gladly share our plate with you, Officer,

But we cannot give you what makes us who we are.

Perhaps we are mistaken: it is our life that you want.

So many of our brothers have been silenced,

Imprisoned, exiled, beaten to an inch of death –

And beyond, sometimes.

Warmongering dwells in the hearts of those who lead us.

Vanity poisons their thoughts.

Those are transient feelings though, they will pass.

 

Those who lead us, Officer, those who command you,

Are guilty only of letting the fear of tomorrow take hold of them.

Taking away our eggs before they're hatched,

Fining us whilst we have done nothing,

Sheltering us on the bare ground with just corrugated iron

Above our head while our leaders need splendid homes of stone,

All this needs no retaliation. We understand it was done out of fear.

Yet fear has never saved anyone from harm.

Fear must stop ruling their heart. Hope must emerge.

 

Officer, beating your bludgeon on your shield won't scare us off.

No. We will march nonetheless, so what do you want?

What are those orders you were given?

Our Identity Card gives us rights:

The right to speak, the right to vote, the right of assembly,

Among others.

We strive to exercise those rights, yet our leaders want something else.

They want us to bear the yoke in silence.

They want us to see what and how they see.

They want to have us believe theirs is the only way out,

The only way to defeat tomorrow and its lures,

Its pitfalls, its graves.

They want the bumi to think they are the chosen people,

They have them believe they can eat out of their neighbour's plate.

And who wouldn't take a little extra, the leaders permitting, enticing even?

But bumi are not the chosen people.

Malaysians are. And Malaysians only.

For if Malaysia was not chosen,

It would only be another Sudan.

Yet Malaysia is different. None could tell otherwise without lying.

 

Now, Officer, has come for us the time to fight.

But you were mistaken, for our fight will be fought in peace.

We have no need to clench our fists, our tongues only shall we use.

 

We told you our rights, Officer, now we will tell you our duties.

We, like you, have the duty to seek and maintain peace.

We, like you, must help and guide anyone in need.

We all have the duty to decide on our own future and to balance

It with the future of the Nation we are constituting.

Both must stand in equipoise and our duty is to exercise

Our best judgement to keep the scales level.

 

Now take a good look at us, Officer.

We may not be the poorest people here in Malaysia.

But sometimes the poorest forget they still have something to lose,

Despite having lost their home, their dignity, their purpose.

Yet we are no different. It could be us.

It could be us burning on that motorbike at the dead of night.

It could be us on the way to the gallows.

It could be us mourning a murdered relative.

It could be us fighting to put bread on the table every day.

It could be us quarrying stones to buy our child's copybook.

It could be us starving and begging and sleeping in the streets.

It could be us losing our sense of direction.

Yet we are all, in one way or another, striving to make ends meet.

God willing, we have different fates,

God willing, we can alter our course.

 

So Officer, what do you expect from us?

Do you want us to go quietly back to our homes,

Forgetting our own fate, our neighbour's fate, even your own fate?

Do you want us to accept this state of things?

Do you want us to turn a blind eye to the future of our children?

We cannot, and we are sorry.

Today is the day we start opening people's eyes.

For you may have cracked down upon us

For these past two weeks already, Officer,

Yet you are only showing Malaysians,

And also the peoples of the world,

That something that should be white is darker than the night.

Some things should not have happened, yet they did, yet they do.

Finding a culprit is not our intent, pointing fingers is futile:

We just want to tread the path we should have taken long ago.

We just want people to stand an equal chance.

The judgement of a few should stop deciding the future of many.

 

Yet these are orders you follow, Officer.

It seems that you have no other choice.

We do not know what thoughts race through your mind

When you embrace your wife and children, back at home.

We do not know if you fear punishment or shame,

Or if you feel like betraying the country you love and serve

When you are ordered to quell our 'rebellion'.

Yet we too love and serve our country,

Or we wouldn't be here, on that side of the fence.

And rest assured this is no rebellion at all, Officer.

For you can see our hands open in the gesture of friendship.

 

We know that some seek war, anger festering in their heart.

They cannot see how things can be changed,
They cannot see other means to fight than fire, stone and blood.

They have lost faith in words and ideas.

They must be guided back to the road we are all taking now,

For they taint our message. This method cannot work.

 

So Officer, handcuffing us roughly with our head on the pavement,

What do you expect from today?

What do you expect from tomorrow?

Malaysians are waking up, can you not see?

Will you arrest them all?

We hear the sirens booming in the streets

And the helicopter hovering in the sky,

Yet they draw the attention of more and more people.

 

And you, men and women leading us?

What do you want from Malaysians?

Will you have them all flee their own country?

Will you have them grunt and sweat under a weary life?

Will you have them starve? Will you hang them all?

Will you ban the yellow colour from our memory?

You cannot, for it glows bright on our flag.

Will you see only gold in the blackness of your heart?

 

If you could just open your eyes,

You would see the blazing sun and the pale crescent of the moon,

You would see the swinging palm trees and the opened coconuts,

You would see the quiet sand and the quiet turtles,

You would see the grain of rice sticking on your fingertip.

You would see the rain clinging on the frond of the banana leaf.

You would see Malaysia as many have dreamt it.

You would see Malaysians marching hand in hand, today,

In peace, trying to reach harmony and mutual consent.

You would see the readiness to discuss and not to accuse,

You would see the willingness to move on.

You would hear, at the end of this day,

That Malaysia has a voice of promise,

That Malaysia has a choice to make, today,

Between what has been and what may be.

Yesterday was painful, we know it more than anyone,

Yet we will remember it as a lesson.

From today – and do not fear today – things will forever be different,

Because tomorrow needs not fear a new dawn

Because tomorrow we will all be Malaysians, again.

Today, noon, July 9th 2011, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia