Hi there skids, so it's been quite a while since I last rambled on with a load of pointless crap from the far east, and for that I apologise. No real reason for my abscence, apart from lazyness, busyness and moving house. We just moved to a new appartment yesterday in a spot a lot closer to KL. The appartment is very nice, and has fitted cupboards and a real kitchen (rather than the assortment of fold out tables and a crappy 1 ring gas stove that we previously had, still no oven, but there you go, can't have it all).
Sadly the block it's in isn't quite so nice, Vanessa doesn't like the corridor outside, it's very grey and a bit manky, but she'll grow to like it I'm sure. Our new balcony doesn't have such a nice view as the last one, but it is big enough for us to sling 2 hammocks side by side, his and hers style.
Malaysia has taken a decidedly interesting turn over the past month or so, with a general desire for people to stand up and demonstrate against the corrupt and illigal government here, all manner of people getting up and saying "actually, democracys are supposed to have fair elections, not rigged ones where you bribe certain constituants to vote for you", "perhaps you might like to make the media a free press, rather than the mouthpieces for your dictatorship that you have at the moment", "maybe people from all races should have an equal footing, rather that state-sponswered prejudice in favour of the Malay people" all that sort of thing. It's been rather jolly to see the normally very complaicent malaysian get up and do a bit of shouting and fist waving in the street. Sadly the police and government aren't very happy about this, purely because they know that they are totally undemocratic and in fact a great big bunch of extremely corrupt, thieving, brainless crooks. The response on their part has been one of total unacceptance, from the word go they waded in with teargas and watercannons (water laced with nasty eye/skin burning chemicals), basting the living shit out of everybody in the area. They have manged to piss off just about everybody in KL (the police, not the demonstrators - who the papers would have you believe are the root of all the problems) by dropping roadblocks on every road into KL every weekend for the past 6 weeks, and also on the Sultan of Selangors birthday last week too. This causes insane jams, hideous traffic problems, and makes the KL-ites very unhappy because it interferes with the most sacred of all malaysian practices, making money. Oh dear.
The week or so before the first demonstration was filled with this big hoo-haa, because the ex deputy PM (anwar ibrahim) released a video showing the High Courts highes judge being bribed to select a load of corrupt judges. Naturally the government went insane and started arrestnig all sorts of people, not the judges of course, but the ones who made the video (it stands to reason that they are the criminals. Doesn't it?).
So now every street demonstration is issued with a court order deeming it an "illegal gathering" subject to riot police brutality, but you have to wonder this... If your judicial system is totally illegal, your police force is populated almost entirely by criminals, your election process is totally rigged and illegal (as per international laws) - how legal are your proclemations of "illegal gatherings"? How legal indeed.
Anyway, the government have now arrested lots of people, some under the scary ISA which is a mighty medieval law (implemented by none other than the marvellous British when we were grabbing our money and running away 50 years ago) which can make you jolly well disappear with no actual crime having been committed for a very long time (exactly the same as our anti-terror laws back home).
Todays gathering was a bit scary, well, it never happened but their were all sorts of rumours, being spread via the media mouthpieces (my reasoning for this being: nobody finds out about the truth of these demonstrations from the papers, but somehow there have been several hints dropped in the papers this week, so why the leak?) trying to incite the Malay population to basically commit violence on the "dissenters", in a good old fashioned technique they used before on May 13th 1969, where a load of agitators caused several days of bloody riots, massacring hundreds of chinese, and indians too. The government suspended parliament then, which gave them a few days to re-write the constituation and then basically seize control of the country for the next 40 years. It's all a bit scary that, because the racialy "harmony" that exists here is quite tenuous, especially when people are forced to work really hard to get anywhere in life (the indians and chinese) when the Malays get everything handed to them on a plate (via the New Economic Policy), which means they can enjoy their favourite pass-time of sitting around and then sleeping.
It's quite silly of the police to have bulldozed in with their teargas and chemical water though, because if they'd let these things just happen (obviously use some control when they get out of hand) then it would all have blown over by now, but they have made all sorts of lazy people who couldn't care less into interested and supportive of demos, now they have just antagonised the situation, instead of letting it pass.
So there we go, hopefully no ISA for me for saying this (but Bloggers have become public enemy number one recently, because they can't censor you until it's too late) - oh shit, what's that knocking at the door? The thought police? Better put on my coolie disguise
