Photos and text by Azwan Mahzan

No matter what your politics are, one thing remains true: it sucks to march in the rain. That was what was running through my mind as I walked towards the Masjid Jamek LRT station, the sky darkening overhead.

Contrary to doom-and-gloom predictions by the authorities, Saturday’s #KitaLawan rally, in support of jailed Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, did not dissuade regular Malaysians from swarming the Jalan Tunku Abdul Rahman and Masjid India shopping district. In fact, even for a Sunday afternoon, downtown KL seemed packed to the gills with people out shopping for fabrics, a new pair of jeans, or just something salty and deep-fried on a stick.

Not pictured: widespread panic

#KitaLawan, it seemed, was being attended by reps from all sorts of places.

There were the political party operatives, of course – this was a Parti Keadilan Rakyat campaign, after all, and in support of a politician and Prime Minister hopeful who they claimed to have been politically imprisoned. But there were also student actvists (so many student activists), environmentalists, electoral freedom advocates, tax reformists (hi, GST!), pleasant-looking aunties and serious-looking pakciks, people who were generally just angry and fed up – they were all there, waiting to march to Sogo from the Masjid Jamek train station.

Daulat Tuanku.

My friend who I was there to meet had come all the way down to KL with his boss, PKR Youth information chief Lee Chean Chung, and his delegation from Kuantan. Parti Sosialis Malaysia’s secretary general S Arutchelvan was there, and PSM isn’t even a member of the Pakatan Rakyat coalition. (Then again, Arul will likely go to any street protest, it seems.) And contrary to speculation, DAP and PAS members turned out in droves, despite their central leadership’s reluctance to promote the #KitaLawan campaign.

PSM secretary-general S Arutchelvan and PKR Youth information chief Lee Chean Chung

PKR communications director Fahmi Fadzil



PKR Youth chief Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad, before his arrest

The march began a bit chaotically, but still on time. It was a relatively short walk to Sogo, made a fair bit longer with waiting for the tail end to catch up, and to navigate around weekend traffic. Onlookers thronged in front of storefronts and construction sites, and police were always there – just not armed to the teeth and riding FRU water cannon trucks. I saw many cops whip out their smartphones to take pictures and videos – a marked improvement over the clunky Handycams that even on plain-clothes officers were a dead giveaway.

Apart from Anwar’s daughter Nurul Izzah and to a (much) lesser extent, PKR veep Tian Chua, the real star of the show – and trust, it was a show, almost a travelling carnival – was the effigy of Prime Minister Najib Razak, a grotesque caricature made out of papier-mâché, glue paste and watercolour. It was carried around downtown KL accompanied by party and state flags, and the constant chanting of “Hidup! Hidup! Hidup Rakyat!” and the booming beat of the student movement’s drum circle, led by the notorious Adam Adli.

We can’t see the resemblance, tbh.

PKR veeps TIan Chua and Nurul Izzah, bouyed by the crowd

Student movement leader Adam Adli, probably checking his Instagram feed.

There were too many people in Sogo, both protesters, who had filled the street and intersection, and weekend shoppers, who had gathered around to witness the spectacle. Tian Chua urged everyone to keep marching, to KLCC this time. It started to rain. Everyone marched again.

As efficient as people may think the Royal Malaysian Police are at clamping down on protests, they were equally adept at making way for it, if not more so. The police (and a few DBKL officers) moved their checkpoints further and further out, paving the way for the procession to make it to KLCC, about 4 kilometres away.

It was a light rain that fell that day, enough to get marchers soggy but not enough to dampen their spirits. The drum circle kept playing, the chanting continued, and the effigy of Najib was ceremoniously carried through the streets, all while cars, bikes and buses across the street honked their support (and sometimes their irritation). People waved from inside buses, and foreign construction workers hooted from on top of steel girders.

I don’t think everyone who was at Sogo made it to KLCC, but there were thousands standing in front of the main entrance, around a PKR four-wheel drive vehicle with Nurul Izzah’s face on it. PKR said there were 10,000 people in attendance, and if they were exaggerating, they weren’t exaggerating by much.

A student protester lit a red emergency flare on the KLCC courtyard, but it was quickly put out by older protesters who might have been part of the march’s security detail. Someone tore off the head of the Najib effigy and passed it around the assembled crowd. Someone held up another effigy, this time of a Malaysian judge, whose heart had the word “UMNO” painted on it.

Cute.

I won’t bore you with the content of the speeches delivered that day. You already know what most of these people want. But I do want to report on the liberating experience of seeing Malaysians realising their right to express themselves, and to exercise their right publicly and proudly … and at times, eloquently.

I asked my father, who was 12 when it happened, about the Hartal of 1947, when people went on strike all across Malaya to call for the adoption of the People’s Constitution towards a country free of British colonisation. He said it was a little bit like what had happened last Saturday. He doesn’t remember much, and living in a small Kedah town, was removed from the main events in the cities, but he remembers when everyone regarded themselves as equal partners in a nation-building experiment.

On Saturday, one of the declarations was that there were no Malays in the crowd, nor any Chinese, or Indians, or Kadazans, or Bidayuhs – only Malaysians. Being Malaysian, in the rain. Because of course.

And at the end of the day, a march where you get rained on is a hell of a lot better than one where you get teargassed.