‘the ISA must go’

2 nights ago we had the anti-isa candlelight protest. yesterday we had the anti-isa candlelight mass!

the mass was held at the cathedral of the holy spiit in green lane. the church was full. it was estimate there were about 800 people. i was helping POHD to sell stuffs from SUARAM e.g. badges, books, t-shirts. we also gave out flyer on the ISA and SUARAM. a petition to abolish ISA postcards were abailable and we get many people to sign the cards. the anti ISA badges were selling like hot cakes… unfortunately we don’t have enough to sell. (btw these badges were not the red ones like i have before – shown in this post. this badge is black in colour and smaller size with the words ‘malaysis bebas dari ISA".)

it was a very beautiful and meaninful mass, with fr. fabian dicom (former director of POHD) celebrating the mass and there were 5 other priests co-celebraing with him.

the gospel reading chosen for the mass was on the beautitudes, which i felt was very apt indeed. this one, especially, is apt for the current situation where the ISA detainees are concerned:

‘Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’

in fr. fabian’s homily, he stressed that we should not be slient anymore. he excitedly shouted that the grief of our brothers and sisters in detention should also be our grief.

"we are now very angry and fed up!" he shouted.

the people broke into loud applause when he refered to the home minister’s reasoning as the most silly which could go down in the guiness book of world record. LOL! see, everybody’s laughing at the home minister! but the home minister has no shame lah. according to malaysiakini, he had made an U turn regarding the ISA arrests.

Home Minister Syed Hamid Albar has made a U-turn on a

MCPX

remark that he was not involved in the detention of three individuals under the Internal Security Act (ISA) last Friday.

According to a front-page report today in Malay daily Utusan Malaysia, Syed Hamid now said he had approved the detentions on behalf of the government, in carrying out his duty as a cabinet minister and not as any ‘outsider’.

(see malaysiakini for full article).

 earlier, didn’t he said it was the police who was involved in the detention, nothing to do with the government?

ok coming back to the mass – another thing that fr. fabian spoke of that struck me was that those idiots (sorry, the word ‘idiots’ are my own, not fr. fabian) made noises on such petty issues like terminology of words (the allah issue) and the volume of prayers (recent azan issue with teresa kok). really. that had been in my mind too all along. i had wanted to write something about this azan issue too and mentioned it being so petty, and those idiots (like mr botox toyol) made so much fuss out of it. then i thought… aiya… if i mentioned it as petty, some extremists muslim will accuse me of being islamaphobe again. they will say to me it is petty since it did not involve my religion. *sigh* now i’m brining it up after someone brought it up!

fr fabian ended his homily with a strong message that he hope this recent very very very (my emphasis on the triple very) wrongful ISA arrests will spell the end of ISA! oh yay! i hope so too!! fr. fabian then told the crowd that each and everyone of them present there can make a difference if they do something.

"let’s get malaysia back!" and he ended his homily.

towards the end when the parish priest, fr. francis anthony gave a short address, he started with "we welcome everyone, especially those who are in charge of the security of the country" and everyone broke into applause, many grinning away as they know who he meant! (the SB lah!).

the light was off after his address, and everyone lighted candles. it was a sight to behold – in the large ’round shape’ cathedral, with candles light only burning brightly while the people were singing. many of them waved the candles from side to side. there was one popular song ‘we shall overcome’ sung, where one verse was change to ‘the ISA must go’ (instead of ‘we shall overcome’). there was another song in bahasa which went like this:

kita tidak boleh undur
tidak berasa ragu
ISA kita hapuskan
ke hadapan kita maju

oh, throughout the songs, (and also earlier at the ‘prayer of the faithful’ images of RPK, teresa and the hindraf 5 were flashed. oh the song ‘suara rakyat’ which we sung during last night’s suaram organised vigil was also sung, to the tune of children’s "oh my darling clementine". (i will post up the lyrices tomorrow).

i enjoyed the candlelight singing session and can see many others did too as most of them were swaying away, not only with the candles but their bodies too! we held the candles high and swing it a lot especially when we come to the chorus of the songs… to me especially at the part of the song that we want to emphasis like the final hymn ‘go tell everyone‘ (do click on the link to read the beautiful lyrics), a line of the chorus went ‘tell prisoners that they are free… and set the downtrodden free….". wahh! at that part, i hold my candle high up and swing it left right left right!

oops. over 2.00am. gotta go for my beauty sleep so can’t write more. please visit my two catholic blogger friends blogs for interesting write-up about this mass.
anil netto
lilian chan

also read about the catholics in KL’s vigil for teresa kok.