By Pauline Wong

If anything, the Anti-GST rally shows the government the people are no longer afraid

It can be said that life, from birth till death, is a series of lessons — ones you learn in the ‘classroom of Life’ and ones that only stop when you have passed on.

The anti-Goods and Services Tax (GST) rally that took place in the heart of Kuala Lumpur on Labour Day is one such lesson.

It is as if the rally was a classroom subject — Democracy 101 — and all we had was four hours to understand it.

And how.

Over four hours, 10,000 Malaysians knew: not only is it important to pound your feet on hot, hard tar for a cause, but to put the foot down when it comes to your basic human rights.

To be frank, the rally would not have an impact on the implementation of the GST. The government will not abolish the 6% consumption tax just because we took to the streets.

However, the government now knows that it cannot intimidate us.

The importance of being ‘arrested’

Just a few hours after the rally ended, several leaders and some 50 people were arrested or asked to surrender themselves to the police.

As is their modus operandi of late, the police have been ‘light’ on their presence during the rallies, only to get busy after the rally, arresting dozens at a time under the Peaceful Assembly Act or Sedition Act.

Among those who were hauled up yesterday were DAP National Organising Secretary Anthony Loke, PSM secretary-general S. Arutchelvan, and even former Bar Council president S. Ambiga.

They have since been released as the police failed to obtain a remand order from the magistrate at the Jinjang lock-up this morning.

However, at the risk of ruffling feathers, the arrests of these leaders, and the leaders before them, are significant in so many ways.

Perhaps the government hopes that the age-old adage of ‘chop off the head and the body will fall’ will work, but they are sadly mistaken if they believe this to be true.

Here’s why: Slowly, but surely, the people are beginning to realise that democracy will not be found in government policy and will stand up for what’s right.

Yesterday’s rally is a perfect example of that, an example that has not been seen since the Bersih 2.0 and Bersih 3.0 rallies in 2011 and 2012 respectively.

In those two mega-rallies, which called for clean and fair elections, more than 50,000 people completely brought the city to a standstill when they took to the streets. While political leaders were present during that time, it was an organic, people-led movement, spearheaded largely by civil society.

The Anti-GST rally yesterday saw students, civil society, workers rights groups and citizens  marching even though it was the start of a four-day weekend. Perhaps it was due to this that the rally started out a tad discordant, with pockets of protestors getting ‘left behind’ as some marched on to Sogo and KLCC.

Yet the anger was palpable, seeing that not a single person who attended yesterday can claim to being unaffected by the GST, and it is the people’s anger that matters more than any speech that can be shouted out over the loudspeaker by any leader.

Even with the threat of arrest looming over the heads of each and every protestor, they still took to the streets without fear.

This is why leaders must be arrested in the dead of night. The people have to learn that the government is one that cares not for democracy, choosing instead to drive fear in the people by arresting its leaders.

It is time to prove them wrong, and teach the government a valuable lesson on the voice of the people.

– The Rocket