Bersih 3.0 Violence – The End Justifies The Means?

Below are comments sent to my big sister’s blog post entitled, ‘Bersih 3.0… A peaceful demonstration?

  1. ‘Tell us why a police car ran into the crowd …a boy has been warded because of this….how dare you twist the story…how much did they pay you?’
  2. ‘were you there AA … why are you lying about things you did not see….everything was peaceful until police started gassing people…peaceful marchers….you are typical BN …just put your side of pictures on the media…LIARS..I was there. The police were the thugs.’

Aren’t the comments rude?

My big sister is 14 years old, she doesn’t work for BN and she is not a BN member, so why should BN paid her?

Bersih is fighting for a clean and free election, something like freedom of speech.

So if my big sister thinks that some of the Bersih 3.0’s demonstrator were rude, they should respect her opinion.

It is alright not to agree but do it nicely like the comment I received from ‘formalaysia’:

‘Dear Ahmad, I know you that from your post you have been reading the newspapers, but just to let you know, they are all biased. If you want to know the real truth, please read online newspapers like The Malaysian Insider and Malaysiakini which give an unbiased view on what happened. Crowd only became angry after excessive tear-gas and water cannon, and protestors overturned the police car because they THOUGHT SOMEONE WAS PINNED UNDERNEATH. So, don’t be fooled by some of the adults. XD’

If they said that police was brutal, why should they too act violently?

As the proverb says, two wrongs don’t make a right.

Videos clearly showed that the violent attacks by the demonstrators caused the accident, so they should accepted the fact and not blamed others; truth has no answer.

And there is no fool like an old fool, the adults should behaved like how adults should and not doing bad things, follow their anger, shouting bad words and act violently.

Please click the links below for photos and videos of Bersih 3.0 rude and violent scenes:

  1. Bersih 3.0:In Videos-Police Brutality?/Video-Keganasan Polis?

  2. Videos-Bersih 3.0 Riot Instigated By Anwar and Azmin?( Video-Anwar dan Azmin Signal Rempuh Dataran Merdeka?)

  3. Photos And Videos of Bersih 3.0 Riot (Gambar dan Video Rusuhan Bersih 3.0)

  4. Bersih 3.0 – As Peaceful As Promised?

Another proverb says, if you are patient in one moment of anger, you will avoid 100 days of sorrow.

I don’t agree with the end justifies the means because crime doesn’t pay so it’s no use to do bad things for any reason.

As you sow, so shall you reap, everybody who broke the rules during Bersih 3.0 should accept that they should be punished.

Bersih organisers should look before they leap, they should think of what would happen before starting a huge street demonstration.

And they must be responsible for the safety of their demonstrators and the violent actions by their demonstrators.

Wisdom is better than strength, the pen is mightier than the sword.

And all that glitters is not gold, a total freedom is not that good, at least for me 🙂

Author: Ahmad Ali Karim

Blogger. Columnist at Utusan Malaysia. RCE Youth Coordinator at RCE Greater Gombak. Secretary at Pertubuhan Permuafakatan Pendidikan Malaysia (ME'DIDIK).

55 thoughts on “Bersih 3.0 Violence – The End Justifies The Means?”

    1. Dear Encik Muhammad,
      Waalaikummusalam,
      Sorry for taking a long time to reply. I’ve just came back home from a short trip 🙂 Thank you for your advice but as I said, we must not use our imagination in serious things like religion, safety, politics and others. If not, we’ll be thinking wildly, blaming others and do things that’ll destroy our credibility like in Anwar’s latest incident. Please read my latest post.

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      1. it depends on how do you use your imagination and of course what you imagine. I mean, trying to put yourself in someone else shoes,you need imagination to do that.

        Do you know the story of how Albert Einstein discover the theory of relativity? Without imagination he couldn’t do that. And one of his famous quote,’logic will take you from A to B,but imagination will take you anywhere.’.

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      2. Dear Ghost_XIII,
        I still think that we cannot use imagination in everything. Lawyers and politicians must use facts. Too much imagination can be bad like Anwar accusing Wisma Putra in his Facebook but tell the media that he did not say Wisma Putra, the same with Bangla issue. It is hard to imagine a smaller country like Malaysia can tell the Japanese government what must they do in their own country. It is bad when we do not know which are imagination stories or issues and which are the truth. I think that Albert Einstein used ideas and facts and not imaginations. Barney uses imaginations 🙂

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  1. Thats why I said, when you are independent writer, then you will be a matured writer. Everyone can own a view, but not a good one, if we are not yet matured enough. I just wanna say, your views are not matured enough, IF you are still depending on the people surrounding. Car, taxing, whatsoever, are just examples of depending.( I dont have time to write thus, the examples are subject to be generalised)
    Giving argumentation is not just quoting what people said. I generalise ‘people’ because, you are still depending on what your father and mother opinions. Ethically, your father and mothers are right. Seriously good advices(integrity etc). But at some point, you must know why they(father mom) are giving advices, to refer to them(the mufti etc) about particular matters. Why not other people.
    The tools will help. Do learn from them, but they was once learnt the tools like what I said. Federal Constitution, logical reasoning etc, and many more. This is what I stressed, the tools. A view is like a conclusion. The better the tools(the thinking), the better our views. The better the tools, the better our invention. And writing is like, making an invention, We create our view, and not a common view. I read on your writings and about the same like the other blogs. You dont create view, you just copying the others. Its nothing new. Dont focus on politics(read:views) too much cause everyone has one. Try to focus on the tools, at the age of yours now. The tools help to create the imagination and managing the views properly. Imagination is better than knowledge.
    Im just giving advices, cause you have got potential and still young.

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    1. Dear Encik Muhammad,
      Thank you for writing. I do not think that too much imaginations is good for me. Do you mean that we can just imagine everything like in ‘Barney and Friends’? Then “we could go to the moon on a big, big baloon”. I watched ‘Barney and Friends’ when I was a liitle boy. When I was 2 years old, I imagined that I will become a butterfly when I grow up 🙂 But when I grew older, I know that I can’t 🙂
      Anyway, I’m still good at using my imaginations but I only use my imaginations to write stories and poems. I wrote fictions too, not just politics.
      Imagination is better than knowledge? I don’t agree with you. Now I understand why some people like to spin stories. They use their imaginations and not the facts. When they refer to the case of Che Omar Che Soh v Public Prosecutor, instead of using the fact that Tun Salleh Abas said that Malaysia uses secular rules, they use their imagination and turn the statement into Malaysia is a secular country instead. And maybe that’s the reason why people created the story of Royal Professor Ungku Aziz’s poem about the #kangkung issue. They imagine that Royal Professor Ungku Aziz wrote it. Next they use their imaginations to write a post about it. Other people think that it was a true story and more people wrote about it, including Raub MP who is a Pakatan’s DAP leader. The Raub MP article was published in The Malaysian Insider and Malaysia Chronical as if Royal Professor Ungku Aziz wrote the poem.
      Do you mean that anyone could just imagine everything including politics and Islam and write about it as facts, including something like PR is trying to destroy Malaysia with Lord Voldemort’s help 😆

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    2. You are one weird person muhammad. Imagination cannot be better than knowledge or things will go all messy. From a cat eating a rat becomes a cat licking the rat. From a lion licking a meat, becomes a lion jumping on the meat.

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  2. Assalam,

    Hey kiddo, you know what, Im more keen on the factors on hows the ideas that come out from your mind rather than what your writings are all about(BERSIH, Kangkung,etc).

    I mean that,as you know, to predict something, to learnt, to make decisions, to solve problems, these sort of crucial things, are very imperative, what we called as, tools. The best tools we have, the best reasoning will come out. Its not how many information we do have and remembered in our mind, but rather than, how we could try to understand sophisticatedly on particular things especially politics.

    Im not belittling your intellectual, but, Im just wondering that, if you are still depending on your mother and father on most of the time, not fully exposing to the real world(own cars, home, taxing), etc your decision likely will be not matured enough. And how the way your thinking is, will be exactly same with the people who are living with you now.(i read your sisters, father blog).

    Thus, it will be hard for you to have differences in opinions and quality thinking. I reckon that, do try to learn as much as possible, on critical thinking, tools, argumentation(premises and conclusion) like the thinkers, Edward De Bono, Ainon Abdullah, Imam AlGhazali, Syeikh Hamza Yusuf, Prof Tariq Ramadan etc). Then, Im sure, you will be more respectful as you’r growing up.

    These are only my hypothesis and suggestions for u, my brother.

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    1. Dear Encik Muhammad,
      Waalaikummusalam,
      I do not really understand what you are trying to say. I do not have a car. I have to depend on my parents because I am just 10 years old and I am still studying.
      We talk about politics but I can have my own political view. You wrote that my view is “exactly same with the people who are living with you”. Why must that be wrong when there are lots of people whom I know who share the same idea as my parents’? It is all about akidah and not about trend. My parents teach me about honesty, credibility, integrity and dignity. I write about what I think is right and I have lots of discussion with my father’s friends and my parents.
      My parents do not tell me how to think but teach me how to debate ideas professionally using facts. That is why now I need to understand the Federal Constitution of Malaysia, so that I won’t write rubbish. Sorry I do not read books from those writers yet. Anyway we must to be very careful about what we read and my father used to refer to Ustaz Uthman El-Muhammady and now to Ustaz Ismail Mina and others including muftis, like the Mufti of Perak.

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      1. What I think Mr muhammad trying to say is, much of your opinion and thoughts are influenced by people around you,(ie:your mother or father) thus, it is inevitable that most of your opinion and thoughts are the same like them. It’s not wrong per say but it makes people wonder how far is the independency of your thinking.

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      2. Dear Ghost_XIII,
        I tried to tell Encik Muhammad that I think it is not wrong to have the same political view as people that I trust. But I have my own opinion and nobody tells me how to think about something. They may give me ideas but not telling me what to write.
        In fact, grown up PR’s popular politicians like Nurul Izzah, Lim Guan Eng, Nik Abduh, Haji Hadi’s son, Mujahid, Karpal’s sons and more follow their father’s ideas and political views. Nurul Izzah’s “opinion and thoughts are the same like” Anwar 🙂 Only Marina’s opinion is different from her father 😉

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      1. its not that I’m saying you are racist or anything. It’s just about how you are referring the bad people as non muslims.

        Wow..you got some impressive gene pool there..but do answer my question up there, what will you do if you are the baby’s mother?

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      2. Dear Ghost_XIII,
        If you read my articles, I never “refer the bad people as non muslims” or refer non-Muslims as bad people. We have lots of nice non-Muslim friends and I have non-Muslim relatives. When I wrote about Allah issue, I wrote ‘some Christians’ which means those who do not respect Article 11(4) of the Federal Constitution of Malaysia. By the way, not all Muslims are good people and not all non-Muslims are bad people.
        About the baby’s mother, instead of stealing she must first ask the shop owner nicely. There’s lots of people who want to help. The problem is there are people who try to cheat. Stealing is haram including from non-Muslim or from bad people.

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  3. Salam..
    Just stumbled upon your blog and I gotta say, very impressive for someone of your age to wrote about this kind of stuff. Quite compelled to say something after reading what you wrote. The world is never just black or white. There are times the world is grey. And there are times the end justify the means(not referring to this Bersih event though). You will see what I mean when you grow up. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not ridiculing you for your age but I felt there is still much you need to see to truly understand the world.

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    1. Dear Ghost_XIII,
      Waalaikummusalam,
      Thank you. Sometimes things seems very confusing and unfair. People who we like turned out to be not a good person. I am also angry when people do things that hurt others just to get what they want. Or defame others and spread the lie as if it is the truth. I am angry when people use Islam to cheat others. I am angry when non-Muslims humiliate the Muslims and do not respect the Federal Constitution. Article 11 says it is subjected to Article 11(4) but they spin the whole thing and do not read it with Article 11(4). I just hope that adult can grow up and be fair to others.
      But for what ever reason, the end cannot justify the means. Even though we are doing something for good reasons, we must not do it the wrong way. My mother always reminds me that Allah knows what is best and do not let syaitan tell us what to do. May Allah protect and help me always.

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      1. As far as I lived,the world is confusing and unfair. That’s just how the world is but do not worry. That is why Allah SWT create the judgement day. That is just how humans are.

        As for that person, I’m not sure who you are referring to but before you label him as bad, try to know why he do it and that also depends on how you define a good person or a bad person.

        When you are angry with non-muslim or whoever it is, don’t refer them as a religion, a race or their nationality. Try looking at them as human. As you are angry with non-muslim, did you know some muslims also hurt or humiliate the non-muslim? Try imagining how the oppressed non-muslim felt. Heck, muslims even hurt other muslims. Why? Because they are humans.

        Excuse me as I have no idea what those articles are or what they are about but you will see one day how stupid adult behaves sometimes.

        You are entitled to your own opinion and I respect that. But I still hold firm to my believe. The end justifies the mean. Of course it depends on what the end we try to achieve and what are the means we gonna use. Let me give you an example. A single mother with a baby and she has no money to feed her baby. She tried looking for help but nobody helped her and finally, she steals. Now,I’m sure you know stealing is wrong but if it to save the baby life, what will you do? What will you do if you are the mother?Think about it..

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      2. Dear Ghost_XIII,
        Thank you for writing. Sorry for the late reply because I was busy 🙂 I am not a racist and not against other religions. Why? Because my mother’s mother is a Chinese and my mother’s father is partly Malay and partly Chinese. My father is a mixed of Malay, Siamese, Arab and Chinese. We have relatives and very good friends(of other races and nationalities) practising other religions. We respect each other and visit each other. But I am proud to be a Malay Muslim and proud of the Federal Constitution of Malaysia.
        I always attend talks by my father’s lawyer friends and they always talk about the Federal Constitution(FC). It is hard to understand their talks if I do not know anything about the FC, so I have to learn about it. It was very hard at first but after a while, it becomes very interesting. My mother is my teacher and she helps me to understand lots of things. I also talk to FC expert like Uncle Naser Disa. When I wrote about COMANGO and UPR, I have to understand about their demands and also about FC. I am lucky because I can learn about UPR from Human Rights expert like Uncle Azril. Since I like to write about politics, I have to understand the FC.
        I am angry with people who do not respect the law and the FC as in JAIS case. I wrote about it here, here and here.
        I want people to be fair to others and not forcing their ways and want other people to give in like in Allah issue and COMANGO demands. And most of them are the same people. I use facts and I refer to the FC of Malaysia because we are in Malaysia. If we are in the U.S. I have to use FC of the U.S. and rule of laws of the U.S. 🙂 I am proud of Article 3(1) and Article 153. About Article 11, please click here. Do politicians care about their credibility? What about good governance?

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      1. Dear blogger,

        Its easy for us to jump into a conclusion just by utube and perception. Moreover, most of our emotional override our logical thinking on killing,suffer and war matter. For instance, it do effect how is the ateis thinking about good and evil and do not accept the theory of God just because He created evil. To me, its just physicological matter. So, there are lot more to read and understand the situations to justify things that were not easy to be interpreted. What say you about the protest in Rabia, Mesir and Syria? What says the scholars about it? Is it permissible or not in Islam. A good justification must given certain point of view parallel with fiqh and hadis. Its good to give opinion but theres lot more to understand all the possibilities that might be happened. I am not saying that your justification is not true, but critically thinking, there is not 100% very true story except words of God that is qatie thabit and hadis which has no doubt to interpet. And if possible, all the logical thinking of fiqh might help on this matter. The interpretion of fiqh, that brings wider view to deal with culture, oppression, human right etc. Nice blog though. Keep it up. 🙂

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      2. Dear Encik Muhammad,
        Thank you for writing. I do not like violence. Malaysia is not Syria. The situation is different. Islam in Article 3(1) is Ahli Sunnah Wal-Jamaah and our goverment do not practice Syi’ah as in Syria. So, according to Ustaz Uthman El-Muhammady it is haram to physically fight against the Islamic government. Ustaz Nasharudin Mat Isa said it is haram to participate in Bersih because Bersih’s leader fights for LGBT. Now, Bersih leaders are COMANGO activists that are fighting against Islam. Uncle Nasha is in Geneva trying to fight against COMANGO. Even though I’m not there, video cannot lie. I do not just watch one video. It is hard to edit lots of videos of the same incident taken from different angles to make them show the same thing and if they do that, we could see the differences from videos to videos. I believe in Human Rights according to Islam, because Islam is fair. Thank you for visiting my blog and please visit my blog again.

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  4. Hi adik ahmad ali,

    I’m not a Bersih supporter at all at the very first beginning for what ever the reason is. Why? Because the leader and the excuses why the rally should go. Why?

    She’s a big hater of muslim and she offers a free charge if any muslim wants to convert. This is not a hearsay, in 2006 she made the “tuntutan IFC”. In that time we need many signatures to ban her request. I even gave mine and it was spread through the campus. If you want to see the request..here we are:
    http://www.jais.gov.my/isuagama/ifc.php

    Now I’m moving the reasons why “bersih” rally should be held. http://khairulryezal.blogspot.com/2012/04/semua-tuntutan-telah-dipenuhi-bersih.html

    I did not solely read this blog only but actually I got the info (as an example: the dakwat kekal) from the tv news — The SPR people told that they do agree on it. So it’s the direct resource. This statement been made earlier ever before the Bersih 3.0.

    When we review the election result, we could see that Pulau Pinang, Selangor, Kedah, Perak & Kelantan are in the opposition side. Even kelantan is for Pas for more than 22 years.

    Is this what we call as the justice is not there for our election? If it does they never ever could win in one single state.

    So actually there’s no such reason for this rally and it’s being truly intentionally for the opposition. This is so clear to me that this rally not for from rakyat to rakyat. They only will say it as truly clean only when they win the election.

    Lastly, as for Mr who we know who. I couldn’t trust trust him ever since I was 16. He’s an opportunist. He told the whole world that he’s being injected with arsenic and HIV. Come on, you could die within one week if the arsenic in your blood! Search why it could be that way.

    After more than 10 years, he still at that healthy, he could fly every where in this part of the world and even making such reputation to Malaysia..Malaysia this..that etc..Wow, I’m so super impressive to him.

    Well, we must ask him the remedy to cure the HIV if any friend of us get this ailment. As a youngsters, I advise you to dig the story of who is the first creator of cute name Aljuburi and who is the very first person in this world who threw the evident of liwat 1 in the dewan rakyat. You’ll know the truth then. Fair & justice do the best!

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    1. Dear pemerhati,
      Thank you for writing a comment giving me important information about IFC, Bersih and Anwar Ibrahim. I do not support Bersih because it was too violence.
      Bersih’s leader is an LGBT fighter and now that I know about IFC, I think she is even worse so it is haram to support her. You are right, I think that they do not organise Bersih for free election but they just want to make people think that the government is bad. If they really want press freedom, their newspapers and online news must tell the true story but they twist stories and only blame the government, police, muftis and ulama’. Haji Hadi, Nik Aziz and Anwar should complain when one of the online news papers that supported them wrote nice stories about Irshad Manji and do not respect the Muslims.

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  5. Further, boy, if you say that the policemen are in self-defence, bear in mind that policemen are not supposed to aim their gun, ESPECIALLY TOWARDS UNARMED PEOPLE. Police can only aim WHEN his/her life is threatened. Hope to hear from you soon, Ahmad

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    1. Dear formalaysia,
      Police can only aim WHEN his/her life is threatened. Maybe that was how he felt, after all he is just a human and not a spiderman or a transformer with superpowers 🙂 Actually the super heroes do not teach us good value, and Professor Muhammad Al-Mahdi taught my big sisters and I not to watch or read much of those stories :mrgreen: By the way, have you read my poem, Bersih, Oh Bersih ? It is very hard to write a poem and I am happy because my mother said that it is a very nice poem. My mother told me that we can also tell stories by writing poems like Pak Samad and also by drawing pictures like Aunty Siti Zainon Ismail. Picture paints a thousand words 🙂

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  6. this is the policeman aiming his gun, exactly what I saw.

    If you can see, the policeman is not alone, he is with another 2 policeman, both holding their holsters, indicating that they too want to aim their gun.
    2nd, he is absolutely not threatened, all protestors were running away.

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    1. Dear formalaysia,
      Thank you for writing. I am very happy that you are still following my blog. I read that the reason why the policeman pointed his gun was because he was surrounded by angry and aggressive demonstrators after another policeman was attacked. It says-‘Insiden ini adalah rentetean daripada kejadian sebuah kenderaan polis yang telah dibaling, dirempuh, dirosakkan dan akhirnya diterbalikkan oleh perusuh perusuh. Dalam masa yang sama, seorang anggota polis trafik yang berada dekat tempat kejadian pada ketika itu telah cuba mendapatkan bantuan, namun anggota polis tersebut telah dikepung oleh para perusuh.
      Justeru itu, dalam usaha anggota tersebut untuk mengawal keselamatan diri dari para perusuh yang ramai dan agresif, maka angota polis tersebut telah mengeluarkan senjata api untuk tujuan keselamatan diri. Namun tiada tembakan yang dilepaskan dan para perusuh telah berundur dan keadaan menjadi reda. Tanpa berbuat demikian nyawa anggota polis tersebut dalam keadaan terancam memandankan jumlah perusuh yang ramai dan agresif.’
      I still think that we must see what really happened before, that made him took out his pistol. My sisters and I tried to search the video but we only found the video of him pointing the pistol, not before. If you have one please share it with me.

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  7. slm, akk agree ur opinion. I also disagree with BERSIH 3.0.. coz it was similar to tragedi 13 Mei and demonstrasi 1999. to me, this thing are sia2, what’s the point do that.. and they say “DUDUK & BANTAH” but mrk suka menjerit2, panggil polis ‘anjing’ … i dont like they way the do.. 😦

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  8. Dear Ahmad, thanks for praising my comments. I don’t believe in slander.
    However, I again would like to assert to you that don’t believe what all adults say. Some of them may not be right. In this case, you were not there, hence do no be too quick to just commnet that protestors were violent. Again, the newspapers here don’t paint a true picture about the incident. I WAS THERE AND I CAN ASSURE YOU THAT ONLY AFTER POLICE STARTED FIRING TEAR GAS AND WATER CANNON DID THE SITUATION BECAME UGLY. Before that it was like a carnival. And I myself saw a Policeman POINTING A GUN at an unarmed protestor. Ahmad, in every story, there are always 2 sides of the tale, so don’t only talk about one side.

    And about the overturned car, you can’t compare a ball with a person’s life. A person pinned underneath a car is serious, as every human life is precious. And a person is BIGGER than a ball, so it’s more difficult to get a person out, the easiest and safest being to overturn it. However, there was no person a thought to be.

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    1. Dear formalaysia,
      Thanks for writing. Happy to hear from you again. Truth has no answer. The situation was bad even before the people broke the barricades at Dataran Merdeka. Bersih demonstrators are not peaceful since the night before that. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=zMqVx27aDhk
      Observe the video at 1:02; they shouted ‘anjing’ at the police after they blocked the moving police vehicles. And my mother showed me an article This an example of how newspapers here don’t paint a true picture of Bersih 3.0 🙂
      I was not there because I do not want to be there. All that glitters are not gold. Even if I were there, I cannot see everything that happened because there are too many people and it is impossible for me to be everywhere at the same time to see everything. About the policemen pointing a gun at the protesters, I was not there so I don’t know what happened before the incident. Maybe he was alone and was panic because there were too many people coming to attack him. So, he defended himself. But as I know he didn’t shoot anybody. Looking at the other policeman who was attacked by the crowd, I assumed they would attack him too. But I don’t know his intention.
      What I was saying is two wrongs don’t make one right. If some demonstrators did not fight with the police and dispersed after they first ‘fired’ the water cannon, then only they should complain. They knew the rules but they just wanted to start a fight so that they can blame the police. Watch this video at 2 minutes and 17 seconds

      Yes, there is always two sides of the story. That is why I also watch videos from malaysiakini. And I know that medias supporting Bersih did not tell the truth about Himpunan Sejuta Umat because I was there :mrgreen: They too do not practice press freedom.
      I was just joking about ball 🙂 By the way, I think it is easier to look down under the car than overturn the car. And if they really thought that there was someone under the car, the first thing they should do was to help the victim and not jumping on the car.

      The Bersih demonstrators do not look before they leap. So now they damaged other people’s car and they blamed the owner for what they did. The oppositions said that if the elections are clean, they will win. That means that they count their chickens before they hatch. I hate violence

      Like

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