leafleting ISA flyers in public

is there such a word as ‘leafleting’ anyway? well i first learned of that word from suaram penang a year back when they organised a ‘leafleting’ campaign something about protest against privitisation of hospital. the leafleting was done in the general hospital, and of course i was there and had blog about it (the announcement. the day itself here). too. well that was my first experience of leafleting in public. yesterday, it was my second experience.

as we want to make sure that we have lots of people attending out anti-isa vigil on 5 nov, we decided to go public – distrubute flyers (am refering it as ‘flyer’ instead of leaflet, since it is A4 size big. er… so it should be ‘flyering’ instead of ‘leafleting’? haha).

we choose youth park. lots of people there during those time (around 6.00pm) esp. those who came to exercise. another 3 persons were there to help in the leafleting – george, ong and howie (all men).

we disperse and went on our separate ways to distribute the flyers in the huge sprawling ground of the youth park. the best place, we found out, was at the car park, where either when people were getting out or getting in their vehicles. the picture here show me giving out a flyer to a motorist (he was looking at the flyer – btw the flyer was the same as the poster i had put up in my post).

here are comments of some reactions from the people.

of course not all will take the flyers. some even refused to look at the flyer or refused to listen to me – they just waved their hands ‘don’t want’.

one lady, i think about 40 or so, when i approached her and said "jemputan untuk bantah ISA" (invitation to abolish ISA), she said, "tak mahu ISA ah? mana boleh." (don’t want ISA? how can!), and shook her head and walked away without taking the flyer of course.

in contrast, another lady, maybe in 50s or so, with 2 children, accepted the flyer and asked me some questions. where is the vigil, she asked. why are your all doing this, she asked. she then asked "who is RPK?" so i said "raja petra kamaruddin" and she said "ahh… yes, i remember." then she continue to say "wah. you people are so hard-working and committed."

one elderly man when he saw me with the badge and holding the flyers, walking past me, shouted "ISA!", i responded with "ya. mansuhkan ISA!".

one quite a young man, when approached him, he said "no, i don’t want to get involved."

a mat salleh lady i approached, after taking the flyer, said "oh ISA vigil. my husband will find out about it on the internet."

some feedback from howie (the negative ones!):

a man said "ISA is good. ISA is like a rotan. like a parent cane a child with rotan, the govt. will use ISA as a rotan.

a group of people (or was it only 2) said that they are having mass weekly at their church already, so no need to attend vigil.

another group, also christians said "we are christians. we don’t get involved in such matters."

as you can see from the feedback here and there, there are still lots of people who are either apathetic to ISA or just ignorant or couldn’t care less.

that’s why at our meeting, we mentioned that our vigil, we should target these kind of people – who are ignorant about ISA. it could be because they don’t know much about ISA, that they feel ISA is good! if they come for vigils and forum on ISA, then they would get to learn how evil and dracornian ISA is.

well, we planned to do the leafleting again twice – this time at bukit dumbar and then one of the major shopping centre, maybe gurney plaza or queensbay. we hope with this publicity, lots of people will turn up for the vigil on 15 nov. at the esplanade.

don’t forget to mark down in your diary – 15 nov anti isa candlelight vigil at esplanade (padang kota lama) at 8.00pm. see you there, ok! BE THERE OR BE SQUARE! (on ISA matters lah).