march 8 – 1 year after (part II)

UPDATED:  the videos from our team:

lim guan eng’s speech
others

continuing from my previous post.

the first speaker was PAS adun from permatang pasir by the name of hamdan. (sorry most speakers i did not get the full name or what their post. if you want detailed name/post of the speakers, go to lilian chan’s blog).

hamdan spoke about the malays being exploited and suffered for 50 years under the rule of umno!

2nd speaker was the DCM 2, prof. ramasamy. he spoke (in bahasa) about the govt. being a rakyat govt. he said that at the last election they look forward to 2/3 majority but was surprise to get more than that – to capture 5 states. one thing that stand out of what he said was this "sekerang di dunia ada 2 kerajaan haram – satu di israel dan satu di perak".

he spoke proudly about penang bringing in RM10 bil. in foreign and local investment. i don’t think he meant within that one year of PR’s rule. must be accumulated – which means to be fair,  the credit should go to the previous BN’s govt.

the next speaker was someone i hardly know, by the name of law choo kiang woh is from the agricultural and farming industry. he also touched on the govt. being a people’s govt. he said that this anniversary is also a reformasi anniversary. after speaking in bahasa, he spoke in mandarin.

next to speak was DCM 1, fairus. he started off with a brief prayer. then following his ‘apa khabar’ he also said ‘apa khabar’ in mandarin, followed by the mandarin phrase that anwar uttered when he was still DPM about we are all a family. these two mandarin sentences from him got a big applause from the crowd, which i noticed were predominantly chinese.

unlike prof. ramasamy who just mentioned the perak crisis in one sentence, he talked a lot about the perak crisis esp. firing at najib. he said the way they go about forming the govt. is a coward way as it is the ‘back door’ way. the only gentelman thing for BN to do is to see that the state assembly is dissolve.

he hit out at umno – how can they develop the country if they always harp on race. then he said that umno now practise the 3R – race, religion, royalty. haha. good one.

he then talked about what happend at the ‘language march’ and he said… this i do not agree… why should we use english for science and maths… are we going to lose our malay language? ironically he said umno harp so much on ketuanan melayu but why now they don’t want to use bahasa for science and maths. ironically because i thought in the beginning he was condemning umno for harping on race, and now he did it.

to wind up he asked the crowd "do you know what is the best thing najib can do when he become PM?" no response for a while until someone shout "altantuya". haha. see, the ghost of altantuya will forever hover around najib. fairus said no, not that – that can leave to dunno what, didn’t hear properly but he said that what he meant was the best thing for najib to do when he become PM is to abolish ISA. hmm…. as if he will! i’m sure he won’t!

danny law, the exco for tourism was next to speak. he spoke in bahasa, a little in mandarin and a lot in english. i remember he was recently criticised for his bad english by gerakan members. so i try to concentrate on his english and i realised, yes, his english is not so good… but passble lah. being in tourism, of course he talk more about tourism in penang, especially about penang getting unesco world heritage status. nothing interesting to his talk as what he spoke about were kind of expected.

jeff ooi, MP for jelutong, was next to speak and oh boy, speak he did! so very well with his excellent bahasa! fast and non stop too. i can see the crowd love him as all through his speech was greeted with applause or laugh.

he began by saying PR had ruled for one year and PR is free from corruption. (which is actually not really true. what about the 2 jumping frogs from PKR? they were charged with corruption!). well he was the only one who mentioned PR free of corruption. later on, the CM were to mention that too.

he talked about perak MB, nizar, how he found him to be a nice person and stressed he is the legal MB in perak, not that zambry guy.

he said first time he went into parliament sitting, he saw a lovely scene… lovely why?… because there were 82 seats reserved for PKR. he made the crowd roared with laughter when he describe the BN MPs as ‘pokok getah yang tiada getah’ meaning they are old and ancient! before that, he pointed out PR MPs who are very young like liew chin toong, tony phua.

he talked a lot about helping the poor through this project call RAK – rakan anti-kemiskinan.  RAK is where coporate bodies contributes money to its fund to be channeled towards helping the poor, jeff later on spoke in mandarin.

when the CM, lim guan eng’s (LGE) turn came, i noticed he had a different style from the other speakers who spoke in bahasa and mandarin. the others spoke first all in bahasa, then all in mandarin. whereas LGE switch from bahasa to mandarin to english from a few points (same issue), not until he finish the whole speech in bahasa. i think this way is better so that people who don’t understand a particular language won’t get bored.

like some of the earlier speakers, he started off with saying this govt. is the people’s govt…. because you voted us in. 1 year ago, he said, you voted for change and now you got it. oh he also mentioned (was this what he started off) something about you’ll never expect an ex-convict to be your CM one day eh.

like jeff, he also talked a lot about poverty. he talked about eradicating poverty (which to me is impossible). was mentioning stuff like they will made sure soon everyone will earn over RM500 a month. there was something else he talked about registering people over 60 years old… can’t be sure for what… is it only the over 60 who are poor or all over 60. registering them for what? help? then if so, it should be only over 60 who are poor – to give them cash or something monthly.

talking about voting for change, he said that knowing we want change, the govt. is prepared with a change where we can feel, we can touch. we can sense. he gave the example of komtar getting back it’s life and shine and the free wi-fi.

one thing i found that he like to repeat in all his speeches elsewhere is this "we help people of all races. PR is for all races not like BN’s time where umno is for malay, MIC for indians, MCA for chinese and gerakan ah… gerakan i don’t know for who lah" (which made people laugh… well at least for the first timer who heard this… not for me as i heard it many times).

i like this which he said "the govt. must be good. if the govt. is good, the people is good. if the people is good, the govt. is good. if the govt. is not good, throw out the govt."

after LGE’s speech, i think it was chow kon yeow. didn’t not catch what he said as we then went round the field to look for people to interview and taped. most of them were shy not want to be interview and several don’t mind being interview but they don’t want to be video-taped. like that, no can do for us lah since we want the interview to be on video.

the last speaker was karpal singh. he began with (in bahasa)  "my dear friends, here i am not afraid. here, with you, i am not scared at all. but in parliament it seems that it is not a safe place anymore". obviously he was refering to the recent samseng umno youth flexing their muscles in parliament.

didn’t really catch much of what he said as at that time was pretty tired already as been standing for 4 hours! also being the 11th hour, we continue to try looking for people to interview.

when it was midnight and the rally came to a close, we went to the stage exit hoping to catch the CM. saw jeff ooi first who shook hands with us and he gave us the ‘permission’ to charge at the CM to ask him Qs. haha. so we did and lilian did managed to get to talk to the CM, while lim too managed to video-taped lilian’s conversation with the CM.

all in all it was an eventful interesting night… more due to our citizen/video journalism assignment! all the speeches were, yes to those cynical people who would say ‘i told you so’, were nothing new really. same old stuff they expect – praising themselves and bashing BN/umno… but there were some new and interesting points like from jeff ooi who mentioned about RAK.

well i hope that now, PR’s one year old birthday is over, they will buck up more and perform better, esp. to fully deliver what they promised in their manifesto.

disclaimer:  don’t take my words for what the speakers said as i may get them wrong.