Malaysian Spring

When I passed by a roundabout in the upmarket suburb of Bangsar in Kuala Lumpur, I was taken aback by the many flags, banners and colorful little pennant like flags that overwhelmed it.

It was a battle royale of flags and banners, with the big ones trying to block out the pretty little red, white and blue ones planted in the middle of the roundabout and the little yellow and orange ones standing gallantly around the edge of its circumference.

Little did I know the story behind this clash until I received an email detailing its background.

The residents of Bangsar had planted their little flags in the colors of Pakatan ( the opposition party )and Bersih ( the NGO advocating clean and transparent elections ) dubbed as spring flowers in support of their local MP Nurrul Izzah Anwar.

However by afternoon, the pretty “spring flowers” had been “plucked” by the local authorities and confiscated. The residents came running out and following a confrontation, managed to rescue their spring flowers which they replanted.

The video shows the concerted efforts of the people of all colors and races as they sorted out the flags and replanted them in the roundabout.

The people’s action resulted in the retributive horrendous deluge of banners and huge flags of the BN which were put up to “drown” the pretty spring flowers in this Lembah Pantai constituency.

The action of the local authorities to arbitrarily remove the opposition party’s tiny flags was viewed with distaste and anger by the residents and the immediate retaliation by the BN ( ruling party ) putting up the huge flags and banners to block out the replanted spring flowers reveals the lengths to which it will go in order to snuff out the efforts of the people who are hoping for change. All’s fair in love and war but unfortunately this wasn’t the case here.

Well, action speaks louder than words and come polling day the people will speak through the ballot.

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