reduced and recycled

On the night before the forum I wondered if there’d be crowds of people flocking to Hotel Selesa with banners and death-threats. I was familiar with the place, having been there several times on the job to meet the management team. You will understand, therefore, if I tell you that I was running through escape routes in my head – and there were one or two available, to my mind.

In any case, I got up and going pretty early, determined to be at the hotel early get a feel of things. I didn’t feel the weight of the event till I was about half a km away from the hotel. That was when I saw a Police road block, and it occurred to me that things might get a little hairy. But Johor Bahru isn’t exactly Beirut, now is it?

I drove past the road block under the watchful eyes of the Police who, I felt, looked askance at me. To the right and at the side of the road, the Police had already halted a few riders on motorbikes looking dressed up for something. I drove past them, and found myself right behind a Police patrol car; the place was suddenly just swarming with men in blue, it felt.

As I drove down Jalan Abdullah Tahir, I passed by the MAA building, and then as I neared the newly-refurbished and rebuilt Sanctum disco, I saw them. There stood a crowd of men wearing skullcaps, which looked like symbols of association with a wordless disquiet.

They’re here early!

And they aren’t here for the sunshine and crisp, morning air

I reached the route up to the car park, and there were men in blue to the right, the left and everywhere. The car park attendant ushered me in, and I drove up and around and found the car park fairly empty. From my vantage on the 5th floor, all looked peaceful. It was a beautiful morning.

I made my way down to the reception, and again saw the police out in force. It seems they’ve come prepared for anything, and if the events in Penang were anything to go by, I thought the sheer numbers would come in useful, if anything. I made my inquiries at the counter, after standing apart and watching the Police mill about. The front desk staff looked slightly nervous, but they’d be off-duty soon, I knew.

Still more policemen, in cars and vans and what-not.
I briefly wondered what these men in blue thought about the whole thing…

Still peaceful, but not for long…

I made my way up to the 9th floor, and stood about, slightly disturbed by the reception I got when the lift doors opened. Stuck on both doors of the entrance into the Perdana ballroom where makeshift, paper signs saying something about searching your bags if you’re carrying one. I felt slightly bemused.

You’d never imagine Malaysia as a country requiring bag checks and such, and the thought of personnel wielding metal-detectors didn’t really occur to me until after the whole event. It made me wonder at the precautions the forum organizers were taking.

A group of women stood about a small table and I confirmed my registration. Participants were asked to wear round, orange paper stickers to identify them. That way, said the lady, the Police would know you’re a participant. I saw a batch of blue stickers also, and wondered who they were for.

I felt like I was attending a uni. lecture when one of the ladies handed over some notes, and couldn’t help smiling. I walked in, and the Perdana ballroom was as vast as I remembered it. Nothing fancy, adequately functional and damnably cold. I sat down in some corner and looked about, not believing that I was participating.

A lady approached me and sat down. She asked me if I was from Johor Bahru, to which I answered in the affirmative.

“Have there been any rumours or talk about riots or trouble?” she asked.

“Not that I know of; but you know Johor UMNO Youth and PAS have said some things to Bernama, apparently,” I said.

“I was wondering,” she said, “because there are so few people. More than 300 people registered but only a handful has turned up,” she said. It was about 8.45am by that time, and there were about 20 to 30 people in the room, with yellow stickers plastered on their shirts or blouses.

The crowd started coming in a few minutes before 9.00am, though, so maybe Johoreans weren’t that intimidated by potential mobs and threats. It was somewhat heartening to see so many people – though 300 isn’t ‘many’. We ended up starting at about 9.20am.

Slowly, but surely

The speakers left to right: Ms Honey Tan at the podium, Ms Samantha,
Mr Ramdas Tikamdas (moderator), Prof. Shad Saleem Faruqi and Mr Malik Imtiaz Sarwar.

The forum kicked off without much preamble and, I must say, it was enlightening. Being a little familiar with the issues didn’t really prepare me for a barrage of information on the legal and constitutional implications of the current events of the past few years. I spent most of the time scribbling down little notes and watching the ink-levels on my pen steadily decrease.

The ideas and, more importantly, the arguments and implications Prof Shad and Mr Malik drew were interesting, and deserve a deeper examination, and maybe in another post. For those who want to get right into what they’ve said (I know how you feel…!), I’ve scanned and saved in PDF format one of the handouts we were given.

I don’t know if it’s copyrighted, or if Article 11 prefer if I don’t make it available (if so, please contact me, and I’ll remove it). Anyway, it’s a must read and it’s a 4.4MB download you can obtain here:

[Download: Art11handout.pdf], or via rapidshare [here].

The above handout basically covers everything the speakers have said, and you’ll note that it’s a Rapporteur’s report for the Article 11 forum held in Petaling Jaya in March 2006. Still relevant, though the speakers at that forum were different. By the way, I apologize for the various scribbles – I forgot to get a clean copy before I left.

I think we were all too engrossed, listening to the speakers, to bother about what must have been brewing since about 9.00am. At various periods, some of the speakers were told to speed up and there appeared to be some disturbance – mostly caused by people going up to the stage and surreptitiously passing messages to Mr Ramdas.

It was strange, but by 11.05am, things seemed to come to a head; the speakers had finished by 10.45am or so, but there was only time for 4 questions before Ms Ivy Josiah made the announcement we were all expecting.

The forum was forced to grind to a halt. There had been, apparently, negotiations with the crowd at the foot of Hotel Selesa and the Article 11 group had promised to wrap things up by 11.15am, which was basically how it all ended. This was about 2 hours short of the planned 4 hour forum, supposed to last from 9.00am to 1.00pm.

According to Ms Ivy, there were about 10 people protesting downstairs, apparently. I didn’t buy it, and I doubt anybody did – she wanted to calm the situation down, and who wouldn’t? She told us to remain in the hall and to wait for the Police to give the green light for us to leave.

I got restless, and immediately made my way to the windows. We opened some of them, and we saw, down below, a scattered group of people milling about.

Worry.

The crowd. Disaffection, anger, and what else?

Some were looking up, and as they noticed us looking down to them, they flashed their makeshift paper placards, signs and banners up at us. It wasn’t long before some of the more belligerent members of the crowd below started shouting up at us.

The video quality’s crap, but I didn’t care at the time. There were some aunties beside me at the time, so they’ve added their own bit of unnecessary commentary.

(No, I don’t know what that guy in green, right at the end of the clip, was shouting about, but he sounded pretty miffed…)

It was, of course, at this time that I decided I needed a cigarette. By this time, an agreement of sorts had been reached, and photographers from, presumably, newspapers were snapping away pictures of something going on at the entrance to the hall.

We had, apparently, been given leave to, well, leave unharmed. There was applause, and the exodus began. I wasn’t ready to leave, yet, so I found myself squeezing past impassive Malay men standing about one of the elevators, apparently held back by the Police.

I walked past some of them, and they looked me in the eye, hard, right after they saw the plastered orange sticker on my chest. I walked past them, and suddenly found myself behind the line of Police holding the men back.

A photo from No Man’s Land…

A mufti or ulama – I don’t know which – in white; he negotiated
some breathing space for us, I think, if we’d leave.

It was only after I finally got to my car that I saw the crowd down below. There were about 100, or maybe 200 people gathered, singing Islamic hymns and chanting. There were riot police cordoning off a section for people to walk out of the place. I left about 11.30am, and slightly later, I received a MAXIS/Star sms reporting about 500 protestors. I didn’t stay long enough to see 500 protestors, but by the time I left, there didn’t appear to be that many.

The gathered crowd…

Another view of the crowd

I drove down, and as I passed the gathered crowd, I felt many eyes on me. I wondered, as I drove home, who these people were. I wondered if they truly represented the sentiments of all Malays, or if they stood for the same values.

After the speakers had spoken, they opened up the floor to questions from participants. The first was a student from the International Islamic University of Malaysia (IIUM) who made his points very well. What stuck out from the session was one of his suggestions: that a true dialogue be organized, with Article 11 meeting face to face with ulamas and representatives from other Muslim NGOs for a real dialogue.

Ms Honey Tan’s reply was instructive: apparently Article 11 had received invitations to dialogue with such groups from newspapers, to which the group was most agreeable, but that Article 11 had not received any official invitation from such Muslim NGOs such as ABIM and the like.

Why the lack of interest from such NGOs? I don’t know.

As I type this, a stray thought flitters to and fro. Dr. Zaid Ibrahim, in his presentation to participants in Petaling Jaya (see handout) was reported to have said:

“The Fourth Caliph, the Prophet’s own son-in-law, said there are only two groups of human beings: one is my brother in religion; the other is my brother in ethics. We just have to do right together, for everybody, and to be fair.”

I wonder if the above will ever be true for those protesting. On the other hand, I wonder the same thing about participants like us who may have, after watching such events for so long, taken equally entrenched positions against these protestors.

Maybe we all need a little space to breathe.

Update:

The above-mentioned handout can now be obtained via rapidshare (see above).

NST is carrying a story on the Article 11 forum as well, which you can read here.

Some bits:

Forum chairman Ramdas Tikamdas, who is also National Human Rights Society (Hakam) exco member, said yesterday the decision to cut short the question and answer session at the end of the forum was based on police recommendation.

“It was a friendly recommendation, which we also agreed to. This is not a compromise because all our speakers had presented their views and we also had a fairly fruitful discussion with the audience.”

The 167 participants were then escorted out through the hotel’s side doors by police as the main exit through the lobby was blocked by protesters.

The demonstrators were chanting verses, holding banners and placards that read “Crush IFC (Inter-faith Commission), “We are ready to sacrifice for Islam”, “Don’t touch on the Sensitivity of Islam” and “Stop Anti-Islam Act”.

The group, which included representatives from Pas Johor, Umno Youth and non-governmental organisations such as Jemaah Islam, gathered at an outdoor carpark, 100 metres from the hotel, as early as 8.30am.

They then marched to the hotel but were prevented from entering the lobby by policemen from the Johor Baru South police station and the Federal Reserve Unit.

Roadblocks were also set up along Jalan Dato Sulaiman leading to the hotel. About 200 policemen were at the scene.

At 10.25am, Johor Baru South police chief Roslan Ahmad told the protesters to disperse as they did not have a permit to hold a public gathering.

A group spokesman insisted they would only disperse when the forum ended, asking the police to stop the meeting immediately.

Pas spokesman Datuk Dr Mahfodz Mohamed said it was unlawful for non-Muslims to discuss Islam behind closed doors. He said the party had repeatedly asked for dialogue with the Article 11 Coalition but had been ignored.

The demonstrators dispersed after the forum ended.

And now I want to know the truth: have requests for dialogue really been offered?